Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Episode 51 - SaraDay Evans w/ Dr. Josh Kearns and Jason Snyder
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Episode 51 - SaraDay Evans w/ Dr. Josh Kearns and Jason Snyder
This episode of Doomer Optimism sees Jason Snyder (@cognazor) hanging out with two native children of Appalachian, returning guest/host Dr. Josh Kearns (@HillbillyNarnia) and SaraDay Evans (@esaraday). What naturally starts as an interesting dissection of the tragi-magic quality to Appalachian living turns inevitably to SaraDay's amazing work with Accelerating Appalachia, a nature-based business accelerator that connects innovative businesses, investors and mentors who aligned with people, place and prosperity. Oh, and SaraDay is Wendell Berry's niece-in-law!
About SaraDay Evans
Sara Day Evans is the Founding Director for Accelerating Appalachia and Co-Founder of Prosperity Collective. She's a sixth generation Kentuckian, and has worked with communities and small businesses across the southeast for over 20 years. She’s served over 300 communities and small businesses in economic development, entrepreneurship and environmental protection and leveraged over $250M in funding in service to the southeast and Appalachian region. She was awarded a presidential commendation from Bill Clinton for her work in the health and livelihood of women living in Appalachian Kentucky through her clean water efforts.
With degrees in Geology/Hydrogeology and a background in water law, she was instrumental in developing Kentucky’s groundwater protection programs and later developed Kentucky’s first ongoing solid waste management fund, resulting in an 85% reduction in illegal dumping and a 25% increase in recycling. She served western North Carolina’s hardest hit counties by developing sustainable economy plans that fit with the people and place of the region and created North Carolina’s Green Economy Resources Directory. She’s particularly proud of the program she developed and implemented to install clean energy systems on farms in western NC’s high-unemployment counties while also training high school and community college students in clean energy installation.
In 2011, Sara Day co-founded the social enterprise Prosperity Collective and inspired by the textile, farming, forest products skills of Appalachians, the expanding world of social entrepreneurs and investing for good, she launched Accelerating Appalachia in 2012 to serve nature-based businesses in Appalachia and beyond.
About Dr. Josh Kearns
Josh is a born-n-bred Appalachian and a native of West-By-God-Virginia and damn proud of it. He studied chemistry and environmental engineering at Clemson (BS), biogeochemistry at Berkeley (MS), and environmental engineering at CU-Boulder (PhD). He's spent years bumming around rural and remote communities in Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, India, Nepal, Ladakh, Sri Lanka, and Mexico, and generally tried to make himself useful while doing so. He's the Director of Science for Aqueous Solutions, and the Chief Technical Advisor for Caminos de Agua, grassroots water and health development organizations in Thailand and Mexico, respectively. He taught environmental engineering courses at NC State University for a couple of years before returning to his roots as a freelance renegade scientist and exponent of ecological transition engineering. He lives with his wife Rachael and all their critters on a small mountaintop homestead in southern Appalachia.
About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.
View all episodes
By Doomer Optimism
4.7
4646 ratings
This episode of Doomer Optimism sees Jason Snyder (@cognazor) hanging out with two native children of Appalachian, returning guest/host Dr. Josh Kearns (@HillbillyNarnia) and SaraDay Evans (@esaraday). What naturally starts as an interesting dissection of the tragi-magic quality to Appalachian living turns inevitably to SaraDay's amazing work with Accelerating Appalachia, a nature-based business accelerator that connects innovative businesses, investors and mentors who aligned with people, place and prosperity. Oh, and SaraDay is Wendell Berry's niece-in-law!
About SaraDay Evans
Sara Day Evans is the Founding Director for Accelerating Appalachia and Co-Founder of Prosperity Collective. She's a sixth generation Kentuckian, and has worked with communities and small businesses across the southeast for over 20 years. She’s served over 300 communities and small businesses in economic development, entrepreneurship and environmental protection and leveraged over $250M in funding in service to the southeast and Appalachian region. She was awarded a presidential commendation from Bill Clinton for her work in the health and livelihood of women living in Appalachian Kentucky through her clean water efforts.
With degrees in Geology/Hydrogeology and a background in water law, she was instrumental in developing Kentucky’s groundwater protection programs and later developed Kentucky’s first ongoing solid waste management fund, resulting in an 85% reduction in illegal dumping and a 25% increase in recycling. She served western North Carolina’s hardest hit counties by developing sustainable economy plans that fit with the people and place of the region and created North Carolina’s Green Economy Resources Directory. She’s particularly proud of the program she developed and implemented to install clean energy systems on farms in western NC’s high-unemployment counties while also training high school and community college students in clean energy installation.
In 2011, Sara Day co-founded the social enterprise Prosperity Collective and inspired by the textile, farming, forest products skills of Appalachians, the expanding world of social entrepreneurs and investing for good, she launched Accelerating Appalachia in 2012 to serve nature-based businesses in Appalachia and beyond.
About Dr. Josh Kearns
Josh is a born-n-bred Appalachian and a native of West-By-God-Virginia and damn proud of it. He studied chemistry and environmental engineering at Clemson (BS), biogeochemistry at Berkeley (MS), and environmental engineering at CU-Boulder (PhD). He's spent years bumming around rural and remote communities in Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, India, Nepal, Ladakh, Sri Lanka, and Mexico, and generally tried to make himself useful while doing so. He's the Director of Science for Aqueous Solutions, and the Chief Technical Advisor for Caminos de Agua, grassroots water and health development organizations in Thailand and Mexico, respectively. He taught environmental engineering courses at NC State University for a couple of years before returning to his roots as a freelance renegade scientist and exponent of ecological transition engineering. He lives with his wife Rachael and all their critters on a small mountaintop homestead in southern Appalachia.
About Jason Snyder
Metamodern localist | homesteading, permaculture, bioregional regeneration | meditation, self inquiry, embodied cognition | PhD from Michigan State University, faculty Appalachian State University.
More shows like Doomer Optimism
View all
KunstlerCast - Conversations: Converging Catastrophes of the 21st Century
438 Listeners
The Strong Towns Podcast
420 Listeners
Hidden Forces
1,448 Listeners
Tides of History
6,308 Listeners
Regenerative Agriculture Podcast
525 Listeners
Hermitix
357 Listeners
Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
7,244 Listeners
UnHerd with Freddie Sayers
221 Listeners
Planet: Critical
91 Listeners
The Ezra Klein Show
16,525 Listeners
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
10,183 Listeners
Honestly with Bari Weiss
8,447 Listeners
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
446 Listeners
Maiden Mother Matriarch with Louise Perry
292 Listeners
The Last Invention
1,149 Listeners