Overview
VerBAM! is Verdant Futures Appalachia’s public-facing cultural activation platform, using Appalachia foodways, creativity, heritage, makers, storytelling, plant-forward innovation, and community participation to help align, strengthen, and grow the plant-forward ecosystem across Appalachia.
Through immersive experiences and community-based activities, VerBAM! creates opportunities for people to encounter the plant-forward Appalachian story in engaging, accessible, and culturally resonant ways.
Purpose
Appalachia possesses a rich cultural inheritance shaped by foodways, agriculture, craft, creativity, community, and relationships with the land. These traditions provide a powerful foundation for exploring the region’s emerging plant-forward possibilities.
VerBAM! helps expand the narrative of Appalachia by elevating the region’s cultural assets, traditions, makers, innovators, and emerging possibilities.
Rather than treating plant-forward living as separate from Appalachia culture, VerBAM! explores how plants, foodways, agriculture, craft, land, health, creativity, and community have long been interconnected within Appalachian life and can contribute to its future.
What It Does
VerBAM! may include:
- Festivals and cultural activations
- Plant-forward food experiences and demonstrations
- Maker, producer, artist, and grower showcases
- Arts, music, performance, and cultural programming
- Storytelling, oral history, and heritage activities
- Workshops, demonstrations, and community conversations
- Youth, educational, and community participation opportunities
Who It Serves
VerBAM! is designed for broad public participation. Participants and beneficiaries may include Appalachia residents, families, visitors, makers, artists, growers, producers, entrepreneurs, educators, students, community organizations, cultural institutions, and others interested in Appalachia culture and plant-forward possibilities.
The broader beneficiaries are Appalachia communities that benefit from greater cultural visibility, stronger connections among local assets and traditions, expanded opportunities for participation, and deeper engagement with the region’s evolving cultural story.
How It Connects to VFA’s Other Initiatives
VerBAM! provides the public-facing cultural activation platform linking VFA’s work with communities and broader audiences.
It can bring relationships developed through Appalachian Confluence into public settings, create pathways into learning and capacity development through Verdant Pathways, and provide visibility and participation opportunities for entrepreneurs, makers, and producers connected with the Plant-Forward Exchange.
Celebrating Appalachian culture and activating plant-forward possibilities.