Register for the 2026 STAY Summer Institute!
STAY Summer Institute 2026
Catch us in Carolina for the 2026 STAY Summer Institute! REGISTER NOW. Registration will close TUESDAY, JUNE 30th at MIDNIGHT in your timezone!
We’re excited to announce that our 2026 annual STAY Summer Institute will be held in Western North Carolina, Thursday-Sunday, July 23rd-26th!
We invite youth aged 14-30 years old living across central and southern Appalachia to join STAY or a 4-day in-person assembly fully of fun, friendship, and collective learning as we discuss issues we’re facing in our communities and make plans of action about what we want to do about it as Appalachian youth. We’ll eat good, enjoy workshops, a talent show, and so much more. Share with your folks, bring a friend, REGISTER TODAY!!!! WE CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU!!!!
After registration closes, the organizing team will reach out to you via email with more details about SSI like agenda, packing list, safety protocols, directions, day of information, and more. Email us for questions.
The STAY Summer Institute is a place to learn from each other, which is why we encourage attendees who have something to teach or want to share a skill to submit a workshop! You don't have to be a "professional" to submit, you just need to want to teach something! Please submit your workshop by JUNE 30th at MIDNIGHT in your timezone!
What is SSI?
The STAY Summer Institute (SSI) is a regional gathering hosted by The STAY Project providing creative gathering space for youth 14-30 years old with leadership development, cultural sharing, political analysis, and kinship with youth from across the region at the forefront. Our intention in gathering together as young people living across central and southern Appalachia is to ground in the political reality of what issues we are facing as youth right now and to make a plan of action about what we are going to do about it. We gather to build relationships with one another, to resource and build each other up as leaders, to build our skills, and to take collective action together to organize our communities into places we can and want to STAY.
What is the STAY Summer Institute?
A weekend-long “People’s Movement Assembly” style gathering that features popular education style, full group activities facilitated BY and FOR Appalachian youth. We delve into art, music, storytelling, political education, and radical imagination.
Through our assembly process, STAY connects young people to a history and lineage of social justice organizing.
Member designed and facilitated workshops, and caucus spaces for Black youth, non-Black youth, and LGBTQIA youth.
A space for young people of ALL identities, people finding their voice, people looking for community, and people who want better conditions in their day to day lives.
The location of the Summer Institute rotates annually between each of STAY’s member states.
In our exit surveys and from what our members tell us, attendees consistently leave SSI feeling:
More confident in their leadership
Connected to each other and fortified through peer-to-peer relationships
Oriented through political analysis and strategy
Trained to put the skills and capacities they have learned into practice in their home communities.
STAY Members often describe SSI as a transformative experience that literally changes the trajectory of their lives and fosters lifelong friendships.
Previous STAY Summer Institute's around Central Appalachia2025: 14th STAY Summer Institute held in Kingston, Tennessee.
2023: 13th STAY Summer Institute held in Hungry Mother Lutheran Retreat in Marion, VA
2022: 12th STAY Summer Institute held in Spencer, West Virginia.
2021: 11th STAY Summer Institute held in one day state-based gatherings in five locations across Appalachia.
2020: 10th STAY Summer Institute held virtually.
2019: 9th STAY Summer Institute at Hungry Mother Lutheran Retreat in Marion, VA.
2018: 8th STAY Summer Institute and 10th Anniversary Celebration at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, TN
2017: 7th STAY Summer Institute at the Appalachian South Folklife Center in Pipestem, WV
2016: 6th Stay Summer Institute at the YMCA Blue Ridge Assembly in Black Mountain, NC.
2015: Partnered with Appalshop, Appalachian Media Institute, Higher Ground, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth & Southeast Community & Technical College to collaboratively host It’s Good 2 Be Young in the Mountains in Harlan, KY
2014: 4th STAY Summer Institute at Camp Bethel in Wise County, Virginia
2013: 3rd STAY Summer Institute at the Highlander Center in New Market, Tennessee
2012: 2nd STAY Summer Institute at High Rocks in Pocahontas County, West Virginia
2011: 1st STAY Summer Institute at Pine Mountain Settlement School in Harlan County, KY