Yancey County, North Carolina, is home to one of the highest concentrations of artists in the country. In this rural community, traditional skills such as pottery, sewing, and carpentry have been handed down for generations, anchoring a local economy founded on creativity and resourcefulness. Today, Burnsville nonprofit THRIVE Appalachia is expanding this legacy by creating hands-on learning experiences for youth, helping the next generation find their footing in a digital age where many manufacturing and tobacco-based agricultural jobs have disappeared.

THRIVE Appalachia (Together Hope Rises with Innovation, Vision, and Education) works with teens ages 12–18 across six Western North Carolina counties. The program teaches marketable skills, pairs young people with accomplished local artisans, bakers, and craftspeople, and encourages them to take charge of their learning. So far, THRIVE Appalachia teens have created a thriving ice cream business, launched a fashion line and annual show that’s brought in over $17,000, built a timber-frame studio from reclaimed wood after Hurricane Helene, and completed apprenticeships with local masters.

At the helm is Executive Director Pana Columbus, who believes the region’s economic future depends on investing in its youth. In this episode, Pana sits down with ArtsvilleUSA’s Elise Wilson to discuss how THRIVE Appalachia is shaping the next generation of artists, entrepreneurs, and stewards of Appalachian craft.

Episode Credits

Host: Elise Wilson, ArtsvilleUSA Executive Director

Guest: Pana Columbus, Executive Director, THRIVE Appalachia

Produced by: ArtsvilleUSA / Arterial Inc.

Audio editing: Maggi Van Dorn

Newsletter: Subscribe to the ArtsvilleUSA Newsletter for more stories and updates on the arts and crafts scene in Western North Carolina.

Summer is coming to a close and back to school season is upon us.

While many teens are packing their book bags and turning on their Chromebooks, some are also sharpening their knives, oiling their sewing machines and organizing their toolboxes.

This is Elise Wilson, executive director of Artsville usa, where our mission is to amplify the art and artists of western North Carolina.

Join me today as we talk with Thrive Appalachia about how youth from all over the region gather in Yancey county to explore hands on skills passed down by generations of experts and how Thrive Appalachia is helping these teens turn their passions into small businesses that strengthen community ties and ensure the future of our craft traditions.

That's where you'll find us amazing artists and designers.

My name is Elise Wilson.

I'm executive director of Artsville usa and today we have a very special guest.

Mana.

Do you want to introduce yourself?

Sure.

My name's Panna Columbus and I'm the executive director of Thrive Appalachia.

We're based here in the mountains of Yancy county in rural western North Carolina.

And you serve children from six different counties.

They travel an hour in every direction to come to us.

We serve Yancy, Mitchell, avery, bunkum, Madison.

One gal comes from Tennessee, drives an hour and 15 minutes to be with us every week from Tennessee.

They come from all over.

That's amazing.

So THRIVE is actually an acronym.

Together, Hope rises with Innovation, Vision and Education.

That's pretty weighty.

Can you simplify it and tell us what exactly it is that Thrive does?

So Thrive is about helping teens identify and cultivate their unique genius.

We believe that every teenager, without exception, is an enthusiastic learner under the right conditions.

And we believe those are that they choose what they're learning about and that the learning methodology is hands on and experiential.

Kids, kids really get doing it for real.

You know, how it all applies to life and doing it hands on and experientially.

Your entire career and background is based on community building with sort of a special focus on children, theater, foster care, youth transitions.

When you were first envisioning Thrive, what gap did you see and what compelled you to fill it?

Well, I had spent many years working with kids in foster care and kids in kinship care being raised by their grandparents.

And I saw that conventional means was not enough to help launch these kids into adulthood.

I saw teens in foster care that I'd worked with end up being the next generation of homeless kids in Asheville.

You know, all kinds of terrible things.

So I wanted to find out how we could create A useful bridge from youth into adulthood.

Like what makes sense, how do we do that?

And it started with kids who needed that support the most.

Those kids in foster care were really the inspiration for this whole thing.

Now, did you grow up in Appalachia?

What brought you here?

I grew up in Pennsylvania.

So kids I was working with there, that was a very different demographic working with the kids in the inner city.

But same kind of thing is what makes kids excited about learning was the question.

There were limitations I found in Allentown, where I'd been living, in terms of a culture that I wanted to raise my daughter in.

And so we came looking for a place where there were more independently owned stores and more of a live local culture.

And yeah, there's more artists per capita in Yancy county than anywhere in the country.

So we hit the gold mine in terms of people who know how to do things with their hands and who value beauty and craft and knowing how to make things that are useful and beautiful.

How would you say that your background, raising your own child and seeking out this really art focused environment has shaped what you're doing with Thrive?

Well, I have a very creative daughter and she was also a really active kiddo.

I knew when she was six months old, she was never going to sit behind a desk for eight hours a day.

And I was right.

So she was my teacher in terms of how every kid has their unique intelligence and how the school setting, the traditional school setting, it does meet the needs for many kids and it doesn't meet all of the needs of every kid and it doesn't meet many kids needs.

So if they learn differently, if they learn in a much more experiential way, they could fall through the cracks.

And so I was, my daughter absolutely played a role in inspiring me to create more of a youth led environment that catered to whoever was in the room.

If a kid wanted to learn medicine, then we find out how to create an inspiring pathway to medicine.

If they were interested in whoever is in the room, that's who we cater to.

Instead of having a set thing that they have to participate in it, they choose what they're hungry to learn about.

So it's a little bit of flipping the model on its head.

Rather than the teacher chooses the curriculum or it's given to them, the children are exploring based on their own desires.

That is the heart and soul of it is asking kids what do you want to learn?

And then just providing the teachers and the container and supplies and materials and just following their enthusiasm.

I mean, if somebody ask you what do you want to learn?

You would know.

Like, people know what they love, they know what excites them.

And no two people are the same.

So why not ask.

What sort of guidance do you give them within this self determination model?

And do you feel like your background working with kids in hardship has shaped that model?

Yeah, kids in hardship created the model.

In essence, I started working on the model when I was working for a different nonprofit.

And these were with kids in kinship care being raised by their grandparents because their own parents had gotten involved with drugs, with the opioid epidemic.

And so the grandparents, I would run support groups for the grandparents.

And over and over again, what they would say is their greatest fear is that what happened to their kids getting involved in drugs, that the same thing was going to happen to their grandkids.

And so I asked them, I said, why did they get into drugs?

What could we do differently with your grandkids that could interrupt that cycle?

And they'd say, you know, our kids never found their thing.

They just never found their thing when they were in high school.

What they love, what they're good at, they never discovered who they were.

And so they were lost and they stayed lost.

And so we said, well, we can help kids figure out what their thing is.

So that was a great tip.

So we asked the kids, their grandchildren, we said, if you could learn anything, what do you want to learn?

What would you want to learn?

And they said, sewing, jewelry making and pottery.

Go figure.

And so we found those teachers, and they loved the classes.

And the grandparents were thrilled to see the kids voluntarily putting their phone down and learning something.

And that's where we started to cultivate this core principle, which is everything big starts small.

If a kid wants to learn how to sew a straight line or just learn how to get on a sewing machine, that can lead to the next thing.

And that can lead to the next thing.

And that you just start tiny.

Just start.

Start wherever they are, whatever they're enthusiastic about, and then follow the.

The enthusiasm.

And that.

That is our model that has formed the foundation of the model.

It's an emergent way of learning.

And sometimes they try something and they're like, yeah, I tried it, but I'm not that.

That wasn't it, but you know that.

That's the age to try stuff.

You know, in high school, I tried to be an athlete, and it was a terrible Terrible experience.

So I knew that wasn't my way because I tried it.

It's a safe time to try stuff out.

But then you try.

You have an intuition.

You try something and then you say, oh yeah, I like that.

I'm good at it.

Okay, I'll do the.

What would be the next.

The next step?

We're always asking, what's the next step?

And as a result, what the kids have created is.

It's really amazing what the kids have done following that model.

So for parents or teens who are listening to this and really resonating with the idea of I would love for my kid to have that sort of hands on experience or I would love for my kid to put their phone down.

How could they find and participate in thrive?

Is there an application process?

Do they just root out?

We're very committed to having a no barriers model.

All they have to do is go on our website and click enroll.

And then there's a few questions.

How old's the kid?

What are their interests?

Where do they live?

And then our program manager, our amazing program manager calls them and has a chat with the parent and then describes all the different programs that we offer and the kid signs up for whatever they want to sign up for.

There's a few, you know, there's a photography release form and a participation waiver.

But, but really there's.

Everything is free and they start coming.

The only barriers we have are we limited to 12 to 18.

Age wise, the age wise, the ages are 12 to 18.

And we did just buy a van to help with transportation because transportation can be a barrier in the mountains.

So we just got a van.

But yeah, those are.

If you can get to us, you can be with us.

That's really wonderful.

Panna, can you talk a little bit more specifically about a program that was started very small with an inkling of, oh, I might like to explore this and how it grew.

Yeah, that is such a fun question.

Because every amazing program that we do, exactly, that was the trajectory.

So I'll start with one and then I could tell you more.

I could talk all day about these kids.

So we had these three sisters and they came to us one day and they said, hey, we know how to make homemade ice cream.

Could we teach the kids how to make ice cream?

We said, sure.

So the kids taught the kids how to make ice cream and they really had a ball.

They loved it.

And then curiously, a few months later, a local tea shop asked us, hey, would your kids be interested in making ice cream for our tea shop?

We'd like to sell ice cream, but we thought it'd be cool if the kids made it.

So we had a big meeting.

Seventeen kids, I think, were in the room, and we said, hey, guys, we had this proposal.

Do you guys want to learn how to make ice cream for real and sell it to the shop?

And they're.

Yeah.

So we met with the owner of the shop, and the kids created the ice cream flavors.

You know, they chose what flavors they wanted to make.

We got a grant.

We bought a professional ice cream machine and visited Hilltop Ice Cream down in Fairview.

Spencer was our guardian angel and taught us everything we needed to know.

And then we started an ice cream business.

And our kids, to this day.

Let's see.

We got a final count yesterday.

That's incredible.

It's incredible.

They sell to the Carriage House restaurant, where it's like an ice cream parlor.

We sell pints to a local health food store here, Wild Violet.

We sell to DT's coffee shop up in Spruce Pine.

And most recently, we secured an account with Tractor Food and Farms.

They're opening a storefront.

So they're gonna be carrying our ice cream pints, too.

So, yeah, it just keeps growing.

Now we're in the market for an ice cream truck.

The kids want to take it on the road, so it's exploding.

And it started with those three sisters saying, hey, we want to teach an ice cream class.

Can we teach an ice cream class?

Something that I really love about thrive is not just the way that you start with a small idea, but you really go back to basics when you're creating something.

So an example that I really love is the fashion show that you do.

But we started with visiting a woman and her animals on the farm.

Can you take us through that progression, start to finish?

Yeah.

There's a woman named Elkie, and she has a beautiful sheep farm here in Burnsville called Wellspring Farm.

We did a field trip to her farm one day, and she showed us all about the sheep and.

And the shearing and the whole process.

And she's a real wisdom carrier here.

We are very, very blessed to have her here in Yancy County.

And the kids had been doing sewing for a few years, and so they had some skill.

And so we said, okay, what if we create an article of clothing?

And they started with shirts, and then they.

They helped design a jacket with our amazing sewing teacher, Elle.

She grew up in Yancy County.

I think she's six generations back, living in Yancy County.

I think she's Paul Bunyan's great, great, great, great, great, great niece or something like that.

And she learned how to sew at her grandmother's knee and can see any article of clothing anybody's wearing, take a pencil, create a pattern and sew it.

So she helped the kids design a jacket.

And we said, okay, these are amazing.

So we had a fashion show, our first fashion show.

The first year we used boiled wool fabric that we purchased at an independently owned fabric store in Virginia.

And we had bought local sheep and alpaca wool, sent it to a spinnery, sent it to a weaver, and had our own fabric, some of our own fabric for the first time.

And so the kids, the kids now have a fashion line where they make and sell jackets made from local sheep and alpaca wool.

They're very sophisticated now.

It's like a herringbone design in the fabric.

Every year the fabric gets more sophisticated.

Now they put lining in it.

They have pockets.

In fact, this year for the first time, we had a silversmithing class and the kids forged, I don't even remember the soldered their own buttons for the jackets.

They've branched out into vests, into the Irish flat caps, these special collar cuff things.

And yeah, so they've made $17,000 to date with their fashion line.

And we are gearing up for our third, third annual fashion show this September 18th at 4pm if you want your mind blown by what kids are capable of, come out and join us.

Where can people go to find more information about how to look to the.

Fashion show right on our website, thriveappalachia.org.

There's two things that are really interesting to me about the process you just explained.

The first is that kids are working with their hands and they have ownership over the process from conception all the way up to sales.

What does that mean for a teenager to be able to run a business that way?

Well, it gives them an actual experience of accomplishment, that it's a sense of agency like, oh, I make something and people value it and they want to give me money for it.

It's a terrifying thing, taking that leap into adulthood and how am I going to pay rent, let alone buy a house?

And how am I going to buy a car and like that.

That quantum leap is one of the biggest thresholds we've got.

And it's, it's a scarier and scarier one given the state of the world.

And so when A kid at 14, 15, 16 makes, you know, we've got one girl who's made over $5,000 in our fashion program.

When she can put that money away now, it's like, oh, I can imagine.

I can project into the future and imagine I'll be okay.

Like I can do something that I love, that people want, and it's meaningful to me.

And it's a skill.

Like it's something I build on skills every year.

It's not everybody knows how to do this.

It's a profound sense of agency, I think.

So the program that we're describing right now is the social entrepreneurship program.

And we've talked about really how amazing and community connected the social aspect is.

And you've also just mentioned the entrepreneurship program, which is that kids put money in their pockets.

That's amazing that you're able to run a program for free and actually turn it into jobs and pathways to careers for these kids.

Can you talk a little bit more about the other program you do, which is the apprenticeships?

Yeah, it's the art of relationship building is how do you find adults who are experts in their field and long careers behind them and who would love to share that wisdom with young people who share their passion but are at a very different stage in the process?

I'll tell you one story.

We had a young man from Mitchell county and he showed up and he tried different classes that we offered, very much in an exploratory way.

And then we offered a glassblowing class.

The kids wanted to do glassblowing.

So we reached out to a local organization, Hearth Glass and Gallery.

And that's a sixth generation glass family.

They're amazing local legends.

And I said, kikichi, would you be willing to teach our kids a glassblowing class?

So at the end of the three week series that was just a short three week series, this young man we saw was really good.

He had a real natural way with the glass.

And so we asked Kikichi, any chance you would take this young man on as an apprentice?

And she saw what he did, what he made, and she's like, yeah, this kid.

Yeah, we would take this kid.

So he started as a unpaid apprentice and then they moved him to a paid apprenticeship.

And now he's staff.

They pay him 25 an hour to do production glass work for them.

And they give him time to do his own creative work, which they sell in their gallery.

So that's an example again of it started with a three week glassblowing class.

And things happen, things happen.

It's really wonderful to be able to put kids in A spot where they're able to turn their interests in working with their hands and doing craft work into careers.

It's amazing.

And you work with professionals in glass blowing, jewelry making, carpentry.

And you've mentioned too that many of these folks are generations deep in their craft.

Can you talk about why that intergenerational transfer of knowledge is so critical, especially in our region?

Yeah, I mean this is why Thrive had to be born in Yancey county is because we happen to live in an area where there's a lot of brilliant, I mean world class museum, I mean really genius realized, genius artists in the area.

We find that they want to share what they know.

But how do you find the kid who would want to know this very specific track of what I do?

Because we're in the business of asking kids what do you want to learn?

We're in a good position to know the answer.

There is a thread of creating a pipeline which I think is what you're describing.

And it's really embedded in everything that Thrive does.

That making things by hand isn't just a hobby or doesn't have to be just a hobby, but there's a possible viable and meaningful career path.

Why do you think that's important for kids, specifically in Appalachia?

I think it's important everywhere.

But I think for kids in Appalachia it's important because here the manufacturing base left.

There used to be companies, businesses that employed.

They were the heart and soul of the middle class.

It's how people bought their homes and paid for cars and sent their kids to school.

Is there were factories here where they made jeans or they made furniture.

You know, the textiles and furniture were the big heartbeat of the economy and they left.

So the question is the service jobs that replace them don't pay a living wage, which contributes to depression, anxiety and drug culture.

It's a problem if you can't feed your children and you can't pay the rent and everything.

You know your hair is on fire all the time.

That's a problem.

So if the trend is that corporations go overseas, that I think actually is a useful catalyst for people to remember that self reliance is, is useful and that starting your own business is a really good idea.

And the partnership with a nonprofit, I think is one of the keys to how local businesses are going to be able to compete with chains.

Because how do you sell something by hand when the big chains can afford the.

The scale so they can sell things much cheaply?

If you partner with a nonprofit like we're developing with the kids we're developing the two years they say it takes to start a business.

They get to do that with us when they're still young.

They don't have to worry about rent, they don't have to buy a car yet.

We're working out all the kinks.

We're paying for the supplies and materials and then once they're on their feet, they could take the business.

Thrive doesn't need to be in the ice cream business forever.

As soon as we have a few kids who we've got one who graduated, she's 18, she's in the program, but she's 18.

We're waiting for a couple more and then we're going to toss the ice cream business and it'll be a cooperatively owned business by young people who've been doing it for years.

And we've worked out all the kinks and then we just hand it to them.

They paid their dues.

I mean they all know how to make ice cream more than I do at this point.

So it's an easy pass off is do all the hard expensive research and development.

We can get grant money to do that to buy the equipment, to all the infrastructure, work out all the kinks, all the learning curves and then we toss it to them when it's already profitable.

That's smart.

I mean it makes sense.

And then we're not dependent on the corporate world and which is much more fun to own your own business.

It's much more fun to choose what your business is going to be and to have real unique skills.

I mean your community is much richer for having diverse and unique things that it offers.

We've lost it a little bit and so we are reclaiming it.

Is what is local ice cream, what is local fabric, what is local building?

I mean in our carpentry program they're doing timber frame construction.

Last year they built a structure, they sold it for $7,000.

It's like a carport.

It's like a carport but it's timber frame.

It's gorgeous.

They're using thousands of year old building techniques of the mortise and the tendon.

It's so elegant and beautiful design.

Now we're working on our own carpentry studio.

Thanks to the WNC Bridge foundation and the Human Services Western North Carolina, the Community foundation of Western North Carolina Human Services grant and the Yancy Child Collaborative, we're building our own carpentry studio out of timber frame construction.

It's unique.

These trees grow here.

These skills are from here.

I mean it's Appalachian identity things.

So by learning those skills, they're priceless, they're worth more.

Their value is higher because it's unique to us.

It's from here.

The carpentry studio, I think, is especially interesting because they're using trees that fell during.

Helene, can you talk a little bit more about the significance of that?

Turning disaster into something beautiful, something very special and unique to here.

Yeah, Everything is a learning opportunity, as was Helene.

We are first and foremost creators.

So when we saw the heartbreak of all the forests that had been knocked over in an evening, in one night, and we said, you know what?

We know how to do stuff with wood.

So the WNC Bridge foundation approved a grant.

And so we had this incredible team of people who.

Arborists who identified the fallen trees, pulled them out, brought them to a fellow, Keenan Phillips, who milled them locally.

And then the three amazing teachers, all professional builders in their own right, they've been working with the kids every week since March.

And to see what these kids.

I was just talking to one of the young men.

I'm like, how's it going?

And he said, it's the highlight of my week.

That's really beautiful.

It's interesting to me that everything you do is about nurturing a pipeline, and whether that's sourcing the materials locally, the local milk, the local wood, the local fibers to make fabric, or it's creating a pipeline of talent.

So we lost a generation from the opioid crisis, but it's also that a lot of folks have to move away.

I mean, young people have to move away to find careers that could grow and support a family.

What you're doing is making it so that they can stay in their homes, in their communities, in these rural counties.

What do you think that means for the future to not be having such a brain drain on that towel?

Oh, it's everything.

It's everything to have kids, want to stay, be able to raise their children with their parents around to help and support them.

I mean, that multi generational existence is really rare and priceless.

It is really one thing to raise your kids when your parents are around, and another thing to have to pay somebody every time you want to go to work or take care.

It's a completely different paradigm.

So to keep kids living near their families and want to live near their families, because this is the most exciting opportunity they could imagine.

That is a robust.

I mean, it's a renaissance.

We call it a renaissance where everybody you meet is doing exactly what they love and are most passionate about.

And they're highly skilled at it and they're making a really good living at it.

I mean, it's heaven on earth.

That is heaven on earth is when people are happy and can afford their lives, but every.

Everybody can.

Everybody's got their business and everybody needs each other.

We want.

I mean, we imagine a world where the kids start sourcing from each other.

This one's hiring the dairy to raise the milk to cot, you know, that it all becomes this interconnected web of your genius supports my genius, supports their genius.

And we all need each other's genius realized for it all to work.

I mean, I think that's actually how it's supposed to work.

I think we're just kind of reinventing something.

Rebirth, I think that is the key to a renaissance, a cultural renaissance, is everybody remembering who they are, what they love, what makes them really come alive.

Get really skilled at it, get paid really well for it, and all of your neighbors too.

That is the renaissance.

Working together, working in happy, thriving communities that you're building from the outset.

Why not?

It's really magical what you've created.

And I think the kids, for a lot of reasons, see and enjoy it in a way that they might not in a traditional after school program or summer camp.

When you talk about why kids are coming back year after year, well, I think.

I think it's for a couple reasons.

I think it's because they love each other.

I mean, that's kind of at the heart and soul of everything they do, is not just what do you love to do?

But it's a kind environment.

It's a respectful environment.

It's always evolving, ever mutating environment, depending on what people are needing.

So that if it's not love, we're not interested.

If it doesn't feel right, then we change it.

So the bonds are deep and authentic.

I think the kids also keep coming back because we do what they tell us to do.

So we make it possible for their dreams to become realized.

We give them those opportunities.

We have a young woman who said, I guess this is three years ago now.

She said, I wrote a play.

I'd like to cast it and direct it and have it performed.

I said, great.

I didn't even read the play until it was performed.

I knew it was gonna be great.

And so she did.

She's a genius.

So she did.

And we performed it at the fashion show.

And then last year, again she wrote it.

We performed at the Passion Show.

And then this year, a young man said, do you think we could do my Play.

Yeah, we'll do your play.

So kids learning how to tell their own stories instead of being entertained all the time, you know, what is my story?

What is the story I want to share?

Who am I?

What do I care about?

What is important to me?

I mean, these are really useful questions, and the arts ask those questions, you know, what am I going to focus on in my photograph story, whatever.

And so the kids are discovering an authentic sense of themselves in a relational field, you know, with other kids who are asking the same questions.

And lo and behold, just like what we were talking before, the playwright's passion is to write and direct.

Well, there's a bunch of kids whose passion is to act.

There's a passion to create costumes.

Ah, there's a passion to play music.

You know, it.

Every time somebody goes after their dream, it makes 10 other dreams possible.

So it's both.

They come back because they see opportunity to realize their dreams, but it's also in a relational field of other people who are asking the same questions, and they collaborate all the time.

Within the programs that you've built with these kids, their families also play a really important role.

Can you talk about how the community is built not just between these teenagers, but their families?

To me, they're very active, they're very involved, and I think they're very grateful.

They see the community that we've created for their kids and all that they're learning and doing, and they want it to keep going, and they want it to thrive.

They want thrive to thrive.

So they're very involved, and we love them dearly.

It's really interesting to have this dichotomy of some parents and caregivers that these teens are super involved, and sometimes teens in the program may not have had this welcoming community of support, as you call it.

What does it mean for those teens to be buffeted and supported by other kids in the program and the adults that are trying to uplift thrive?

Oh, I think it's.

I think it's the most important thing.

I think it's the most important thing for kids to feel welcome.

For kids to feel that their contribution is not just welcome, but needed very much.

That that is actually the secret, that we do need each other, that every kid has a secret piece that needs to be discovered and plugged into.

And when kids feel that, when they feel that they're needed and wanted, that's also a component of the renaissance.

It's not a competitive who rises to the top.

It's everybody.

Everybody has to thrive in order for it to work.

There's just too much to be done.

If you're gonna have an integrated system where this one's growing the salad and this one's raising the goats and there's too much work to be done for it to be a small operation.

We literally need each other in this model.

We literally need each other.

And that interdependence and feeling needed and feeling cherished and feeling wanted and loved, I think that addresses the mental health challenges that we have.

You know, the crisis that we're facing.

And I think the surgeon general said loneliness is one of the most dangerous epidemics we face right now.

And this is the antidote is interdependence is I need your cream in order to have my business.

I need your sheep, I need your alpaca in order to survive.

We need each other.

We love each other because we're part of the same thing.

We're part of each other.

Our lives are not separate.

And so when you experience that, that my joy is your joy is his joy is her joy.

Actually, I was at a book club discussion a few months back and this was an epiphany.

Someone was talking about convenience and I was thinking and I'm like, you know what?

Convenience is the opposite of community.

That's interesting.

Say more.

Well, if I don't need people and I could do everything by myself because I figured out it's fast.

It's it.

I could drip.

I just called doordash and I just do.

It all comes to me.

And I don't need people.

I am alone.

It is that we need each other to make this work.

We need to come together.

We need to pick the apples.

That's a group activity.

That's not a one man show.

We need to press the cider.

That is an all day affair of many, many people doing it.

It's work, but it's also joy.

It's also shared work.

It's not the convenient way to make apple juice, going to a department store and buying a shirt.

It's not the community experience.

And thus the value and the experience is diminished if it's too convenient.

When I went to Scotland and I bought a sweater that was made by a woman who had just dropped it off, made by sheep that were on the island.

It was a single sword.

It's like connection after connection after connection.

This sweater is now one of my treasured possessions.

And I don't even know these people.

If it were my neighbor and her daughter and her cousin, it increases value, increases connection, increases meaning.

But it's slower.

It's the opposite of convenience.

So we race for convenience.

So we have more time, but we're lonelier.

So this kind of theory, but I think it's true.

I think if instead of turning on the tv, which is convenient, we're in a room full of people and we're telling stories about each other.

I've seen this, I've experienced this.

Dylan Wilson, he's our local genius musician.

Local.

Lived here for generations.

And he and his buddies, they all play music together.

Again, much less convenient than listening to a cd.

Much less convenient spending a thousand hours learning how to play an instrument.

Their great, great, great grandparents also played music together.

And when they tell stories about each other, they'll sing a song, they perform, they sing a song and then they start telling stories about each other.

I'm like, oh my God, television and CDs are so convenient.

But we don't tell stories about each other anymore.

We've traded in that, that joy and how is a kid supposed to know each other if people aren't telling stories about them?

If someone tells a story about you and like, remember when Elise.

Blah, blah, blah, and you're like, oh my God, that was so funny, or that was so great, you know yourself, that is different than turning on a TV and hearing a story about made up people that have nothing to do with your world.

Anyway, I digress a little bit, but it's, it's, it's an interesting theory.

I'm really thinking about it.

The opposite of convenience is community.

It's interesting too.

You talked about some of the holes that you're filling are because work has been shipped away from us to where it's cheaper and more convenient.

But the trade that we've made is that now our communities are suffering for lack of jobs, for lack of skilled labor, for lack of families being able to connect to each other, to provide for themselves.

So there's definitely something to say about commodification.

Yeah.

And I think it's really interesting too, both of our organizations trying to uphold and then carry on and showcase the importance of Appalachian heritage and Appalachian craft.

What we stand to lose if folks don't maintain the ability to make these things the same way they've always been made, or to reinvent them, or to do them in a way that honors where they originated.

And then also if people don't value them enough, who support the folks who are trying to maintain this, it's crucial that we keep both sides of that coin alive.

Well, what you're doing is foundational to that we're trying.

It feels like the solution.

It feels like the solution.

We don't have to wait for the corporations to come back.

It created a vacuum.

And there's a lot of Scottish heritage in these mountains.

They're very proud people, they're very self reliant people.

So it taps into that saying, you know what, there's still enough elders around who remember how to build stone walls, how to do timber frame construction, how to can, how to grow, how to raise animals, all these things.

There's still enough here that we remember to pass those torches on instead of having to invent it from scratch.

It's not too late.

I think we're onto something.

I think these kids are onto something.

And it does feel like the answer to all the problems in the world.

I mean, we take slow steps, but it does, it does feel like a real solution.

It does feel like a real solution.

To a lot of different problems within the community and also for the kids themselves.

There are so many stories that you've shared with us and that you could share with us about kids who have found their exact passion and vocation through Thrive.

But something else that's really interesting is that in finding their community and finding their confidence and their ability to go after the things that you're interested in, you've also been able to transition.

Kids, we may or may not have found success in the traditional school setting and connect them to a future of a potential college or trade school.

Can we talk a little bit about what that means for to see a pathway for themselves that maybe they didn't see before?

I think that lifelong learning is actually a really good idea.

Once kids are wildly enthusiastic about learning, hopefully that never stops.

And if it's college, we want them to go to college, and if it's trade school, Mailand is a great opportunity.

There's other amazing schools that really, really can shepherd kids.

The key of what you're saying is that there are multiple pathways for our kids and that Thrive's role is to help them discover the pathway and build the confidence to pursue it.

Whatever that looks like.

That's it.

That's it.

If a kid can graduate high school with that authentic sense of self, then we've done our job.

Because if you know who you are, what you love, have taken some steps to develop those skills, know how to develop those skills, know how to do that, know what your pathway is to develop those skills, you're really, you're gonna be okay.

Not just that, but you're also connected within your community.

And you know who your community is,.

You know your place in your community, you know who can help you, you know who can teach you what you want to know.

Your part of the web of it.

Absolutely.

And speaking of that web of community, craftspeople and professionals are really central to what it is you're able to do.

How could interested listeners become mentors or teaching artists who thrive?

Call me, email me, just go to our website.

There's a contact page.

The more my knowledges of.

Who are.

My neighbors, what is the genius of all my neighbors, the easier it is for me to plug them in because inevitably they will get plugged in at some point or other.

What kind of commitment is involved with that?

It very much depends.

A lot of times we'll teach a class for a.

We have trimesters, we have a spring, a summer and a fall semester.

Usually if it's a new teacher, we'll try them out for a semester.

So they get to kind of feel us out, we get to feel them out.

See if it's a natural fit with the kids, see if there's some natural enthusiasm for the kids.

And then they become year round and they stay with us.

It's typically a once a week class and we have many once a week classes happening.

So that's typically how that works.

We pay a lot per hour, but it's not many hours.

So we need a lot of teachers.

Do mentors end up giving you any feedback about the program and what it means to them?

Yeah, we just finished the one of the bends.

We had an article in the paper for our Timber Frame studio and our carpentry teacher said that.

Or one of our carpentry teachers said, yeah, you know, I haven't sent an article to my mom, I think is in her 90s in a long time, but I sent her this one.

I think it's kind of a dream come true where they can know that their legacy is that the torch, whatever they've become a genius at, whatever they've mastered, it's going to live beyond them, it's going to be carried beyond them.

And.

To see a kid do what you taught them how to do and seeing that become their livelihood, their life's joy in the same way that it was yours, I think that is quite a bright burning torch.

That's a really beautiful place to wrap here.

I want to give you the opportunity to talk to listeners who maybe want to get involved, but not physically or with their time.

How can folks support thrive?

There's many ways.

I mean if you want to teach, give me a call.

We'll go get a cup of coffee.

If you want to enroll your kid, go online.

Click enroll here.

Our biggest quest right now is to have our own home.

We're spread out over seven different locations.

Parents are having to drive to one class, to another class, to another class.

And we really need a campus.

We really need a permanent home where someone takes a carpentry class and they just walk next door and take the textile class and then they walk next door and take the silversmithing class.

So that is our dream.

So if anyone has 80 acres, 100 acres of land in Yancy county that they would love to be part of the Renaissance, that's the crowning jewel way people can support and if people just wanted to write any amount of a donation to Thrive, all of it goes towards building the Renaissance and creating the pathway to prosperity for these kiddos.

And where can people find you online to see more about the programs you're offering and the success stories that you're creating?

ThriveAppalachia.org is the website.

You can also find us on Facebook, thriveappalachia, Instagram and you can come to our fashion show, which is again on September.

It's a Friday, September 18th at 4pm at the Burnsville Town Center.

That is also if you want to see our kids in action.

That is a really sweet way to do it.

My final question for you, Panna, is August is back to school season For a teenager who's maybe not very excited about returning to the traditional classroom, what would you want them to know about?

What's possible?

I would say to that child, listen to your heart.

What makes you come alive?

What brings you joy?

What do you want to learn about?

And find a way.

Find the teacher at school who might start a club.

Find a human being who shares your enthusiasm.

If enthusiasm is there, you know it's real.

And protect your enthusiasm.

Protect it, protect it until you're surrounded by support and you can flourish in learning how to do what you love.

I think that's really beautiful advice for us all.

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