On the edge of the Berea College campus, a creek winds beneath a canopy of trees and through the town of Berea. A metal bridge spans this water, the Brushy Fork of Silver Creek. From these waters, Brushy Fork Institute derives its name. Our founder, John B. Stephenson, former President of Berea College, purportedly chose the name Brushy Fork Institute because “no one will really know what that is, so it can grow to become what it needs to be.”
When the concept for Brushy Fork Institute began in 1987, the “bridge” across the Brushy Fork Creek was a couple of wide, roughly hewn logs crossed by runners using Berea College’s cross country trails. In 1997, ten years after the initial conversations about Brushy Fork Institute, a team of Berea College students, faculty and staff took part in the award-winning Brushy Fork Leadership Development Program, which entailed six-month community development projects. This team selected as its project to enhance the trails behind the Alumni Building for walking and to replace the logs with a permanent bridge structure.
Brushy Fork Institute has grown as our founder predicted, “becoming what it needs to be.” For seventeen years, we operated the Leadership Development Program, serving nearly 1,000 leaders working to improve their communities in the region. Like that bridge across Brushy Fork Creek, we also strove to make our programs stronger. In 2005, we started the Brushy Fork Annual Institute as an avenue to broaden our work and make it possible for people from across the region to experience Brushy Fork without their county’s having to be “selected” for the program. We continued to offer our contract services to communities and organizations to assist with planning, training and community development in the region.
Remaining at the core of our work is the mission to develop strong leadership in the mountains. We are pleased that so many leaders in the region have joined us in this legacy by attending Brushy Fork’s programs. We hope this joint work helps build stronger bridges to a better future for communities in central Appalachia.
