Helen Matthews Lewis

Because of Helen Matthews Lewis 

Because of Helen Lewis, Whitney Kimball Coe was able to follow her calling to return home to East Tennessee, not just to build a life there but to lead, to serve, to celebrate all that we are and all we can be.  

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Nikky Finney

Nikky Finney reads “Instruction, Final”

Nikky Finney reads the poem “Instructions: Final: To Brown Poets from Black Girl with Silver Leica” at Rural Assembly Everywhere: Road to Repair. The poem is in Finney’s book “From Head Off & Split” (TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press 2011).

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Eliza Blue guitar

VIDEO: Eliza Blue performs, shares a look inside her life on the prairie ​

Eliza Blue is a shepherd, writer, and folk singer who lives on a ranch in South Dakota with her husband and two children. The ranch has been in her husband’s family for five generations, but Eliza took a more circuitous route to South Dakota, growing up and living in cities before what she thought was a sabbatical from city life became a life on the prairie. At Rural Assembly Everywhere, Eliza shared both a performance and a glimpse into her favorite place. 

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Shonterria Charleston: “the mission of creating communities of safe and affordable housing for families…keeps me here.”

Shonterria Charleston brings to her work both a military sense of duty to get the job done and dedication to serve those in need. Charleston has relied on both instincts during her 21 year career at the Housing Assistance Council, a national organization that helps build homes and communities across rural America. Charleston and her colleagues work with organizations in rural communities across the United States to help ensure that they have the funding, technical knowledge, training and information they need. Charleston arrived at HAC fresh from the U.S. Army.  She and her husband, both in the military at the

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