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CHARLESTON — The Appalachian Food Summit Board announced two new fellowships — the Appalachian Foodways Practitioner Fellowships and the Mountain Foodways Media Fellowships — to support the work of Appalachian foodways practitioners and documentarians.
Appalachian Foodways Practitioner Fellowships
The new Appalachian Foodways Practitioner Fellowships are intended to honor, celebrate and support foodways tradition bearers and practitioners in central Appalachia. Awardees may include, but are not limited to home cooks and bakers, seed savers, farmers, community elders, keepers of recipes and traditional foodways knowledge, hunters and foragers, who have made significant and long-term contributions to sustaining and supporting the foodways heritage of their respective communities.
AFS recognizes there are few opportunities for monetary support and recognition of community-based foodways practitioners. AFS will award two $4,000 fellowships to support the ongoing community-based work of the awardees, including but not limited to the support of infrastructure, an event, a teaching opportunity, or a learning opportunity for the fellow.
Fellows will be nominated by the general public in Appalachia and candidates will be reviewed by a diverse panel of members of the foodways community in the region. Nominees must be residents of counties designated as Appalachian by the Appalachian Regional Commission in Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia who have demonstrated significant and long-term contributions to sustaining and supporting the foodways heritage of their respective communities and are actively engaged in that work, as practitioners or teachers. Fellowships will not be awarded posthumously. Nominations for the first year of fellowships are due Sept. 6.
For more information on how to submit a nomination, visit: https://www.appalachianfood.com/fellowships.
Mountain Foodways Media Fellowships
The Appalachian Food Summit will award two $2,000 fellowships for journalists and writers to report on a longform journalistic article or media project that explores some aspect of food culture or production in the region, including but not limited to: traditional or local foodways, farming and agriculture, environmental sustainability and energy as they pertain to food systems, innovative food businesses, the people who feed us, the future of restaurants, how communities eat together (or apart), how the pandemic has changed the region’s food landscape, and strategies for reducing food insecurity.
The goal of this fellowship is to give substantial support to projects that can be completed with a small infusion of cash, rather than contributing to larger projects with bigger budgets and longer timelines.
Preference will be given to current residents of ARC counties in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. Other applicants with ties to the region will be considered but not prioritized. The bulk of the work should be done in the region.
Given the COVID-19 pandemic, AFS encourages projects that do not require extensive travel. Applicants of color and LGBTQ+ candidates are encouraged. Applications for the first year of fellowships are due Sept. 6.
Founded in 2013, the Appalachian Food Summit is a group of mountain foodways professionals, scholars and enthusiasts honoring the region’s past, celebrating its present and supporting a sustainable future for Appalachia’s food and its people.
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