Funeral

Originally uploaded by appalachiancenter

Community Scholar Carol Shutt, of Hillsboro, KY recently received a grant from the KY Oral History Commission to research “Funerary Customs in Harlan County.”
Carol is interested in interviewing people about past and present traditions related to funerals. What music was played? What food was served? Who digs the grave? Are there special traditions related to the different ethnic or religious backgrounds of the people that live here in Harlan County?
Carol says her goal with this project is to document the funeral traditions of this county and to show whether or not they have changed over the years and if so, what kinds of changes have we seen.
Carol plans to come back for interviews the weeks of September 15-19 and October 13-17. If you are interested in participating, or helping with this project please contact the SKCTC Appalachian Program.
Also please feel free to post and share funeral traditions from your family, church or community on this site. Be sure to let us know where you are from.

The SKCTC Appalachian Program recently welcomed visiting artists the Beehive Design Collective and Francesco di Santis. These artists are beginning arts and community organizing projects here in Harlan County.

The Beehive Design Collective is based out of rural Maine and they are working on a project to produce documentary illustration poster on the story of coal in the Appalachian Region. The Bees don’t consider themselves to be academics or professional researchers, but story tellers who use the art of illustration to tell the stories they collect. They plan a return visit to Harlan County this fall.

You can check out their organization and see examples of their art on their website:

http://www.beehivecollective.org/english/front.htm

Franceso di Santis is another visiting artist who stopped by the Appalachian Program office for a visit. Franceso is a portrait artist that also works with his subjects to collect personal narratives. First he sketches a person’s portrait, gives it to them, and he asks them to write their personal story directly on the sketch. Franceso hopes to build a collection of sketches and stories called, “Voices for Appalachia.”  Franceso spent a year in New Orleans doing a project with the victims of Hurricane Katrina, that was published into a book “The Post-Katrina Portraits.”

You can check out some of his work at the website:

http://postkatrinaportraits.org/

dog in the snow

Originally uploaded by appalachiancenter

note: this blog post is one of a series from Spring 2008 Appalachian Studies students at Southeast Kentucky Community & Technical College –RG.

I Volunteer at the Animal Shelter
Jennifer Painter

I volunteer at the animal shelter for a service learning class I. I have always loved animals and always wanted to volunteer at the shelter. The animal shelter is different form the Humane Society. They get a lot of puppies in the county out to other places where they have a better chance of being adopted. This way they have a chance at a better life. Animals at the animal shelter are very well taken care of. It is kept clean and the animals are fed by volunteers like me and other people who are for community services, women inmates, and drug court. Volunteering at the shelter is very hard work but I enjoy every minute of it. And I have realized that working and volunteering at the shelter is only a job for people who love animals. The animal shelter also has a website for people to look at the dogs and cats to help get them adopted. The site is http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/KY197.html. Or you can go to petfinder.com and search other shelters.