The featured projects shared below were developed and launched through a four-year Participatory Action Research  grant funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service (AmeriCorps).  Participatory Action Research can sound intimidating, but beyond the title, it represents groups of community members coming together, seeking to define the needs of their own communities, and then doing something about it.  The Leading from the Roots grant began in June 2019 with a small group of Heritage Artists, Craftspeople, and Culture Bearers who came together at Arbutus Folk School in Olympia, Washington to plan cooperative research and actions in the Pacific Mountain region of  Washington State. In the third year, the project expanded to include several more folk schools across the US who created mini-documentaries that share the stories of the school's founding and highlight what it means to be a folk school in rural communities today.  The projects below represent only small examples of what it can mean to "lead from the roots."

Folk School founding stories
Participatory Video

Pacific Mountain craftspeople and culture Bearers
community-Based Action