March 8 is International Women’s Day, and this year I got to celebrate it in a truly fabulous fashion. Ouita Michel, Kentucky’s Queen of Restaurants and Eating Local, pulled together a group of vibrant and diverse women restaurant owners from across the state for “Let’s Talk & Celebrate.” We gathered at Honeywood Restaurant in Lexington for a special menu of small plates prepared from each of these women’s establishments. For those in the dining room, it was a perfect opportunity to sample the rich culinary traditions and newest innovations of our state while celebrating women in our commonwealth. For us in the kitchen, it was a rare chance to talk, laugh, and work with like-minded folks as dishes got prepared and plated, side-by-side.

My entire understanding of the dangers of a virus changed when my 5-year-old son developed rare and severe complications from pneumonia, triggered by nothing more than the flu. I never would have expected for him to be in the ICU fighting for his life because of a commonplace virus. It was the first time in my life that I realized that my entire conception of sickness was based on a tidy formula that I had created from my own experience. I thought that children came down with an illness, got a little worse, and then would come a peak from which they would inevitably get better. How could I understand the vast scale of possibilities? I had never stood at the edge, seeing for myself how mightily a virus could attack until that December, when my own child’s life hung in the balance.

The Moonbow Christmas Fair is born from a passion to bring some of our incredibly talented artists in the region to an accessible venue and a wider audience. We could not be more excited with the lineup for this year, which includes everything from banjos handmade by a young punk rocker from Harlan to fine leather goods made in Laurel County. We will have everything from beautiful original paintings to hilarious stickers and prints, along with t-shirts, candles, bath & body products, decorative home goods, and baked goodies. We will also have Moonbow at 2nd & Main open, with a selection of some of our most favorite goodies (we know you need some possum socks). Whatever you love, and whoever you are shopping for, you should find perfects gifts at the Moonbow Christmas Fair.

J.D. Vance loves to be provocative to get attention – it has garnered him millions from his book, “Hillbilly Elegey,” and subsequent movie. I grew up in and live in the rural mountains of Appalachian Kentucky. Vance is not as popular here, because most folks think the occasional summers at his grandmother’s house as a child do not qualify him to speak to the experiences and values of Coal Country. Although I am not a fan of Vance, I find his story compelling and have never had an issue with him capitalizing on his narrative until he used his platform to speak out against early childcare and education. His recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal made it clear that his current life working at a think-tank in Washington, D.C. has left him completely out-of-touch with the needs of families in rural and working-class America. His argument that funding early education and care would hurt families is what we, in Appalachia, like to term “hogwash.” At least when we are using polite language.

Parts of the rural Appalachians have just experienced flooding that left roads twisted apart and crumbling away, homes underwater, and entire downtowns flooded. These are rural communities that are not often in the spotlight, so let’s talk about where they are and what we can do to help them as they go through the long process of drying out and rebuilding.

For most of us, February 14 is the day that we associate with Valentine’s Day. But the holiday holds a very different and special meaning in Harlan, Kentucky, thanks to a very special special kid named Cade. Cade was born with a congenital heart defect that made everyday tasks difficult for him, until one fateful Valentine’s Day in 2018. On that day, he received word that he would be the recipient of a heart transplant. Not only was this life-changing for him, it happens that this special day is also National Donor Day – the day set aside to bring awareness to the importance of organ donation. I want to share with you more about Cade, and how we are celebrating love by focusing on National Donor Day at the coffee shop. There is even a special twist that shows how many people are touched by organ donation.

All of us can support an awesome, woman-led business in rural Appalachia from the comfort of our own home. We can save money and feel extra good that the clothes we are buying did not create extra global waste, and also helped create good jobs in an area undergoing immense economic strain and transition. Plus, you can imagine that cheerful pink building, full of wonderful treasures and friendly faces, entirely powered by solar energy.

Covid-19 has brought new awareness to the plight small businesses face. It is hard for small businesses to survive shutdowns and restrictions, and we can’t compete with Walmart or Amazon when shopping is so often driven by convenience. But, long before 2020, many of you were already very aware of the importance of shopping local. People like yourself kept our Main Streets alive and our small farmers working their land.

It is after 20 years as researchers and practitioners in rural communities, finding over and again that the ideas developed in urban places are a poor fit, that Geoff and I decided to write a book about rural education. We partnered with Harvard Education Press, and we are excited to share that Rural Education in America: What Works for Our Students, Teachers, and Communities is now officially in print.

We can all agree on why pumpkin patches are so great: supporting small local farms, buying pumpkins and mums raised right here, and helping our children understand all of the hard work behind producing the things we see on store shelves. All that, plus a hayride? Yep, we are in!

Moonbow Tipple, our coffee shop on Main Street in downtown Harlan, Kentucky, opened on December 30, 2019, with much enthusiasm. Who knew then what a year was ahead of us? After a terrific first couple of months, we closed on April 11, 2020, as a direct result of the Coronavirus pandemic. And now, almost 5 months later, we have finally reopened our doors. Not only that, but we have expanded our kitchen so that we can now offer a variety of healthy breakfast and lunch options, along with the regular coffee drinks and sweets that got us started.

Hooray for the opening of Moonlight Meat Shop on Main Street in Williamsburg, Kentucky! This delightful business, in the newly constructed Marketplace on Main & Third, is a perfect one-stop location to buy local foods.

Take a look at the map at the top of the page. It shows differences in life expectancy over time across all counties in the United States. As someone from Appalachian Kentucky, my eyes instantly lock in on a cluster of counties – Leslie, Lee, and Owlsey – that are clearly the darkest of red. As it turns out, there are only 7 counties in the entire United States where life expectancy has actually decreased over the past 40 years, and all of these are in Eastern Kentucky. There are only 3 counties where life expectancy has decreased by more than a year over that stretch of time, and those are the dark crimson counties on the map. We are going to be talking about Leslie County today, and keep in mind that if you were born in 1980 in Leslie County, you could expect to live a longer life than a child born today in the year 2020 And at the same time if you were born in 1980 in Leslie County, you could still expect to die about 10 years younger than the average American, almost entirely because of poor health.

It is midnight and I have just gotten home from Moonbow Mercantile in downtown Williamsburg, where things are (mostly) ready to open tomorrow. There are neatly arranged shelves of products, a newly installed Pepsi fountain, and a dipping cabinet full of homemade ice cream. My crew is fast asleep, so I am going to take this time to write down a few thoughts on the night before opening.

Main streets have emptied. An unprecedented number of people are without jobs, facing grave uncertainty about where to find employment. Businesses struggle to stay open with fewer and fewer customers. Here in the coalfields of Appalachia, this has been the reality of life long before the Coronavirus Pandemic hit and rocked our daily lives. Believe it or not, I am not here to share another sad story about the economic realities of our region. Instead, I want to share with you a story of resilience and hopefulness in telling you about the 2020 Cohort for Invest 606. I believe it provides us with ideas for how to support our local economies and supply chains, with lessons that may apply broadly in the days ahead.

Lacy Hale is an artist who at once embraces her Appalachian identity while simultaneously defying stereotypes that are often put on the region. She is a native of the rural coalfields of the Kentucky mountains who left home to study art at the Pratt Institute in New York before returning home to work as an artist and arts educator. At the core of work is a commitment to community that extends to being co-owner of Roundabout Records, a music store on Main Street in downtown Whitesburg. But as 2020 has unfolded, her commitment to community has expanded beyond the region to embrace the challenges of our times.

The story of the Woodstock Lavender Co. is one of ingenuity, perseverance, and family heritage. We can’t wait to tell you about this unique business that brought together a mother and daughter—Mary May and Allison Horseman. Their original goal was to save the family farm as the fifth generation, Allison’s children, are now growing up on the land. But you will see that it goes way beyond that initial story, to one of partnership and industry innovation, as well as adaptation when they chose safety over income in response to the Coronavirus pandemic.

We have never had more power to decide the future of our country. No matter what the government gets right or wrong about their response to the pandemic, it is really us—the consumers—that decides what businesses survive. And we do it every single day with the money we spend.