Why this Matters

Giving Students a Reason to Stay before they Leave

The fellowship's entire premise is intervention timing: it reaches students in high school and college, before they've decided where their future lies, and gives them real responsibility inside their hometown's government. City Commissioner Luke Glaser has framed the goal directly, convincing top students that Hazard "is a place worth coming back to, worth fighting for and worth creating change in."

That's why the program is built the way it is:

Fellows sit in the room for Fiscal Court, City Council, and meetings with the Mountain Association, Foundation for Appalachia Kentucky, Perry County Community Foundation, InVision Hazard, the Appalachian Service Project, Hand in Hand Ministries, and the Appalachian Arts Alliance.
Real projects: dog park revitalization, veteran banner tracking & desingning, playground grant research, volunteer service building planning, and multiple community partnerships.
Real community ties: Volunteering at the City of Hazard Fish Fry, Sparkler 5K, and Northfork Music Festival.

The Evidence it Works

19 fellows since the program's founding, as of summer 2026
Now in its 7th year, called the most comprehensive city government internship in the state of Kentucky
Alumni now attend Eastern Kentucky University, Middlebury College, George Washington University, University of Kentucky, Berea College, Centre College, Lindsey Wilson College, Alice Lloyd College, and the University of Pikeville College of Medicine
Alumni accepted into Teach for America, Governor's Scholar Program, Law School, and Medical School
A second, entrepreneurship-focused fellowship has grown up alongside it, coinciding with visible small-business growth in downtown Hazard

Replication beyond Hazard

The Hazard Civic Fellowship isn't just a local success story, it's a model built to expand to other rural cities experiencing brain-drain. It doesn't require a large standing budget or new infrastructure, only a city willing to open its meetings and its real work to students. That makes it something small towns across Kentucky, and across Appalachia, facing the same brain drain crisis can actually replicate. Every rural community loses talented students to outmigration, but few have built a structured way to bring them back into the room before they leave for good. Hazard has. As the fellowship grows toward a state and national audience, it stands as proof that a small city with the right commitment can build its own pipeline of future leaders, rather than losing them for good.