WE KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE
THE STATE OF YOUTH ISSUES IN APPALACHIA AND A PLAN OF ACTION
Over the past year, the STAY Project has devoted our time at our virtual and in-person gatherings to strengthening our base of young people ages 14-30 in Appalachia, deepening and building out our analysis of the economic, environmental, social, and political conditions that young people and our communities are facing, clarifying what we need to fully actualize a just and sustainable Appalachia for all people, and identifying what work we can do to get us to our vision of liberation. As young people living in Appalachia, we are experts of our own experiences. Here is what we know to be true heading into in 2026:
The following is a synthesis of our Summer Institute. Synthesis is a process of weaving different perspectives together into a collective perspective. It is a process of decision making for collective action. A synthesis team met before, during, and after SSI to affirm this reflection of what we built at SSI, including the collective knowledge and analysis that was generated, STAY’s approach to local and regional organizing, and the action plan that SSI participants collectively created as an offering to our Members and our communities on how we move forward.
We came to SSI representing our communities across West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama. As one of the only regional movement organizations led BY and FOR Appalachian youth, we are a space for rural and small town folks, for the weirdos, and for those who want to learn, feel connected, and to grow. We saw young people, some of whom had never been in an organizing space before, be affirmed in their own leadership, learn new skills, and be inspired by a shared vision for improving our home communities. We gathered as queer and trans youth, as Black, brown, and white youth, as disabled youth, as working class and poor youth. We gathered as a group of regular, everyday people who are committed to organizing other regular, everyday people into a movement for just, inclusive, and sustainable communities. We gathered to build relationships and make friends, and to dream and scheme together. We gathered a vibrant group of young people who brought all of our joys and pains, our openheartedness, and our deep passion for making our communities places where we can and want to STAY and live full lives. We gathered to build collective power as young people struggling for a new world, a liberated world, a world transformed beyond this fascist empire that is killing, kidnapping, and caging our people across the region and world. We gathered as young people organizing for liberation, as young people who believe and remind each other that “nobody’s free until everybody’s free!” (Fannie Lou Hamer). Young people supported, affirmed, and inspired each other at member-led workshops about craft schools, abortion access, people’s history, resisting authoritarianism, conflict resolution, land stewardship, as well as in leadership-led caucus spaces for Black youth, white youth, trans youth, and youth caregivers. Deep connections were forged as we shared amazing meals, enjoyed a fabulous talent show, created and drank custom tea blends, made art and crafts, and as we sang, danced, and swam together. We exchanged resources, clothes, and books through our community free store and relaxed in our healing space. We saw Appalachian youth planning our own gatherings, creative projects, and campaigns—making plans to organize in our home communities!
Together at the Summer Institute, STAY Members identified the conditions that we are facing as youth living across Appalachia. We collectively defined and unpacked concepts of community organizing, power, economy, and liberationas a group to create a shared understanding of what those concepts mean to us, our communities, and movement work at large. We used these collective definitions to identify the economic, political, and social systems of oppression that are exploiting us at home and abroad. STAY members engaged in nuanced discussions of power, imperialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and gentrification, and how those forces show up in and harm our communities from institutions to individuals. We named how unaffordable it is to simply try to exist in our communities organizing in the second Trump administration, with rising costs of housing, food, transportation, healthcare, childcare, education, and the basic things we need to survive. We assessed how the policing and criminalization of our communities by ICE, local PDs, the Military, and more is at a fever pitch as we see our migrant family, our Palestinian family, our unhoused family, our trans family facing targeted violence and disappearance from the state. We discussed how our communities have for generations been sites of extreme extraction and exploitation of our land and labor, and how we now face the brunt of the ecological disaster that capitalism and colonialism has produced, seeing this in thousand year floods and storms some hollers have never experienced before, devastating communities across the region with increasing frequency. We are seeing this alongside technoautocrat billionaires, the use of Artificial Intelligence, environmental racism of Data Centers, and advancingpropaganda in an online world. We articulated that the conditions we face are particular and unique in our time and place, and that our struggles are connected to a long history of oppression in the United States, as well as a long lineage of struggle for justice and liberation led by young people on the frontlines.
Through a collective process, we identified tactics and forms that fight the harm we face and organize us toward liberation—”freedom from all forms of violence and oppression, communities defined by us, for us.” Members discussed public transportation and rideshares, people’s history and freedom schools, collective governance, mutual aid and harm reduction, land stewardship, reparations and protection of Black neighborhoods, community safety and defense of migrants, food pantries and agriculture, cooperatives, literal construction, youth assemblies, and more–while thinking about what liberated communities look like and what we want to see in our communities to change our material conditions. In state-based breakout groups, members strategized their local goals, priorities, allies, and concrete next steps–some of which went on to form working groups post-SSI to experiment with and build on the practices we discussed in our communities, and some of which plan to develop their campaigns through local STAY for Dinner assemblies. Through a Spokescouncil model, state-groups shared across our room hearing resonance, similarities and specificities, as common themes, priorities, and next steps rang out from young folks all across the region. Through live synthesis of what members shared and determined, together we generated a plan of action that STAY Members and Leaders committed to advancing across our communities in coordination and solidarity.
Based on the assessment of what we are facing, what we need, and what we desire, we’ve identified 4 focus areas that STAY Members believe are critical to move on at this moment.
In order to STAY in our communities, Appalachian youth need to build local power by organizing our own communities and building a base of young people locally and regionally.
Community organizing — We will connect with local issue-based and mutual aid campaigns across Appalachia that are creating community defense infrastructure, stewarding third spaces, advocating for affordable housing and healthcare as well as fighting the development of data centers, prisons, cop cities, and development that will displace, poison, or harm our communities. We must connect with and support established campaigns, strategically develop new ones, and further coordinate with Southern and Global struggles.
Base building — Our task as STAY Project Leaders and Members is to bring regular, everyday youth into our network and movement, including our young straight men. We will organize reading groups, house meetings, potlucks, open mics, one-on-ones, and youth assemblies. We will put the STAY for Dinner toolkit and other organizing methods to use as we facilitate relationship building in our localities.
Multi-racial organizing — The leadership of Black youth, Indigenous youth, and youth of color is needed for all Appalachian youth to win. We are organizing an multi-racial network of Appalachian youth who aim to free our own communities from oppressive conditions by organizing the strength of our racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity of Appalachia into STAY’s membership and leadership. Our work is to create intentional efforts to build relationships and organize Black youth, Indigenous youth, youth of color, white youth, and our regular, everyday young people into STAY’s network.
In order to STAY in our communities, Appalachian youth need to build coordination between the resources that already exist in our region.
We will map the mutual aid networks, the mental, reproductive, and gender affirming healthcare resources, housing resources, safe third spaces, community defense infrastructure, and crucial connections and relationships that have already been built in our region. STAY Project leaders have created a Resource Map that centralizes access to the regional data of our resources and strengthens our ability to take care of each other and to further develop the infrastructure we know we must build. You can add submissions to the STAY Project Resource Map here.
In order to STAY in our communities, Appalachian youth need to develop ourselves as leaders through training and political education.
We will train each other in community organizing, campaign development, tactic and strategy development, facilitation, conflict resolution, community safety, political education, fundraising, emotional skills, and living skills. Intentional collective study and practice will give our growing network of Appalachian youth leaders the strategic clarity and base of knowledge we need to effectively play our role in organizing our communities and region. This includes more deeply rooting into our Appalachian and Black Southern freedom movement lineages, our community histories, our ancestors, and developing mentorships with those in our lineages as we become mentors ourselves.
In order to STAY in our communities, Appalachian youth need the STAY Project to build and share its infrastructure to put our strategy into action.
STAY Project leaders will give STAY Members access to the resources, support, guidance, and to sharing the STAY’s infrastructure including the STAY for Dinner toolkit, STAY Project curriculum, our Resource Map, Website, Social Media, Newsletter, Calendar, STAY Member Support Fund, peer coaching and mentorship, STAY’s status as a fiscally sponsored project, STAY’s ecosystem of social movement workers and organizations, and most centrally our electric network of care, relationships, and critical connections that link us to each other and to our shared future.
Even though SSI has wrapped up, we see young folks continuing to share their dreams and visions in STAY’s Discord channel, we see young people following up on their plans to gather and organize in their home communities, we see new faces who came to SSI for the first time continuing to show up, and we see young people planning study groups to continue sharing and developing their political education. We see that joy is an integral part of building community and that our members must build relationships in order to build a movement.
What STAY does best is create stepping stones for youth to build our own leadership, connect with like-minded youth, coordinate amongst ourselves and fortify and empower us to make practical change in our local communities. The role of STAY Leaders is to provide our Members with the resources, support, guidance, and infrastructure for STAY Members to put our plans into action. As we continue moving through this dangerous time in history into 2026, we invite young people across Appalachia to join us in organizing our own communities, coordinating our resources and development of each other as leaders & strategists who are organizing to change our material conditions, working to liberate our communities from the forces of oppression which are working overtime to hold our people down. We are organizing towards freedom and committed to building communities where all of us can and want to STAY and live full and dignified lives.
We invite young people 14-30 years old living across Appalachia to JOIN US in 2026 in making our own communities places that we have a fighting chance of staying in and coming back home to. The STAY Project is a political home FOR AND BY young people to do what our opposition refuses to: Resource ourselves, take our futures/matters into our own hands, legitimize our own leadership and expertise, figure it out together, humanize one another, fight like hell for our peoples inherent dignity, right to existence, self express, and self actualize; and demand for better lives and a better world. As young people here, we face critical isolation, volatile conditions, violent lack of access, & challenge to our identities and leadership every day. If you feel alone, outraged, exhausted, scared, not taken seriously, or just want something different and want to meet other people who want something different too - it’s time to get together, study, train, apply, organize, and fight to win.