The Project

North Carolina Rising identifies and highlights the many success stories of North Carolina’s rural areas—areas that once thrived on crops such as tobacco, but are now transitioning into a new global economy. This ongoing series featured on North Carolina Now, UNC-TV's flagship public affairs series, utilizes the public television network's statewide reach to raise awareness of these effective revitalization efforts so that they might be replicated in other areas of the state and beyond. In each of the 12 monthly segments, the series will examine how local communities are reinventing themselves through innovative options such as tourism, small business, alternative crops, biotechnology and biomanufacturing, food processing, military contracts, and education.

As part of an year-long North Carolina Rising series, North Carolina Now will highlight success stories within the following "Featured Projects." In the summer of 2009, the series will conclude with an hour-long documentary and a series of topical town hall meetings.

Featured Projects:

Ocracoke Fish House

Hookerton

Sylvan Heights

Cherokee

Pocosin Arts Folk School

HandMade in America

This project is funded by the Golden LEAF Foundation, a nonprofit corporation created in 1999 to receive one-half of the funds coming to North Carolina from a master settlement agreement with cigarette manufacturers. In turn, the Foundation is helping North Carolinians make the transition from a tobacco-dependent economy through grants and investments that will positively affect the long-term economic advancement of the state. Golden LEAF gives priority in its grantmaking to tobacco-dependent and economically distressed counties.