New cooperative folk school coming to Guntersville

Sand Mountain Cooperative Education Center has received a $610,000 grant to build a cooperative folk school in Guntersville. This will be an expansion of their site in Birmingham, a collaboration with the nonprofit Renew Birmingham.

The grant comes from New Pluralists, a collaborative network of philanthropic donors that invests in programs and leaders working to bridge social, political, and economic divides in the United States.

The three-year grant is part of the New Pluralists Breakthrough Fund, a $5 million investment in seven projects working to bridge class divides across the United States.

Read more below, and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get news like this delivered to your inbox.

What’s a cooperative folk school?

The folk school offers a place for people of all ages to gather in person to find friends, share interests and gain skills that can generate new economic opportunities.

The Birmingham folk school’s launch last spring featured pie nights, workshops on fermentation and swing dancing, and educational programs from local experts. This grant will expand the programming and help people in both rural and urban Alabama work together to improve their communities.

According to research from Western Carolina University, the folk school concept originated in 19th-century Denmark, “pioneered by theologian Nikolai Grundtvig to empower rural adults through shared dialogue and lived experience rather than rote memorization.”

Organizations in the United States adapted the model to support rural Appalachian and Southern labor communities through cooperative economics, social justice and cultural preservation.

More on the Sand Mountain Cooperative Education Center

Sand Mountain Cooperative Education Center launched in Guntersville in 2018 with its flagship free youth leadership program, Lamplight, and expanded to West Birmingham in 2024.

Lamplight encourages teens to learn life skills by running a camp together, setting and managing budgets, mediating conflicts and planning their own field trips.

The folk school grew out of the idea that adults of all ages could also benefit from a place to learn, grow, and work cooperatively to address local problems and expand economic opportunity for all. Members of the folk school teach and take classes and workshops based around shared interests, ideas or issues. 

“If you look below the surface of some of our most pressing problems as a society, much of it comes from people lacking a sense of belonging and purpose. We have seen firsthand that when you get regular people together and give them an opportunity to talk about their interests and problems, incredible things can happen.”

_{Daniel Marshall, co-founder of Sand Mountain Cooperative Education Center}

Learn more about the Sand Mountain Cooperative Education Center HERE.

Want more content like this? Follow Hville Blast on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.