Dear Folk School Friend, 

Spring is the season of renewal, and at the John C. Campbell Folk School, we’re relishing every minute of it. The fields are green, music is drifting from open windows, and dyed fabric and marbled papers are drying in the mountain breeze. Hands, new and seasoned, are joyfully making all across campus.  

This palpable, colorful sense of renewal is infusing our ongoing centennial celebrations, inviting us to imagine what comes next – and you, our beloved supporter, may be wondering about that, too! 

We have a number of exciting goals in 2026, the first year of our second century: 

• Continuing Campus Improvements. This year we’ll make nearly $400,000 in investments where learning and connection happen every day. Among these will be safety and wayfinding improvements to our well-traveled trail system; a significant expansion for the jewelry studio; and later this year, six new ADA-compliant rooms with private baths.  

• Expanding Youth Programming. We’re leaning into our commitment to serve the next generation of makers, musicians, and culture-bearers. In addition to enhancements to Little Middle Folk School and Intergenerational Week, we’ll offer special programs for partners like Murphy Head Start, Murphy Middle School, Union County Schools, and our local Big Brothers, Big Sisters organization. 

• Closing Out the Centennial. We will ensure this landmark year ends as strongly as it began, honoring our history while embracing the future. Check out Centennial Sounds (www.folkschool.org/sounds), featuring five diverse headliners whose work expands and redefines the story of Appalachian music and the Folk School’s connections to it. 

These are just a few of our 2026 efforts to renew and expand our commitment to enlightening and enlivening the world through folk school education. We invite you to join us with a spring gift of renewal.  

Your contribution toward our goal of $60,000 will be applied where it is needed most across programmatic and campus priorities, allowing us to best match our resources with project needs. Remember that when you donate, you become part of a living legacy, one shaped not only by the past 100 years, but by the thoughtful decisions we make together, today. 

With gratitude,