Archives

Real Beverly Hillbillies

In 2003, the Center for Rural Strategies and thousands of other individuals and organizations across the country stopped CBS Television from producing "The Real Beverly Hillbillies," a proposed reality show based on the old situation comedy. The idea was to find a poor rural family, move them to a Hollywood mansion, and make a reality TV show out of their encounters with affluence and hip culture.

Rural Voters

Since 2004 the Center for Rural Strategies has produced the Rural Tracker, a national nonpartisan poll of rural voters in battleground states. The poll is deisgned to show how the opinions of rural voters help shape presidential and congressional races.

A Place in the Country

"A Place in the Country" is a one-hour television documentary, narrated by Ray Suarez, that examines the impact of seven rural community development organizations located throughout the United States.

Donors Ourselves

"Donors Ourselves" is the story of how people in two very different places – East Africa and East Tennessee – built on their assets of leadership, local knowledge, and capital to create a brighter future for their communities.

Campaign to Save CRA

The Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) encourages banks to provide a modest amount of loans, investments, and services to poor and marginalized communities in their service areas. CRA has helped both hard-hit rural and urban communities create for themselves the services and facilities that more affluent    communities take for granted.

 Rural Desk News Initiative

The Center for Rural Strategies produced, as part of the "Rural Desk News Initiative", video news pieces about issues that face today's rural Americans. The videos were distributed for free to local television stations across the country, so that they could provide their viewers with compelling, accurate, and balanced information about rural issues. They were produced and aired in the fall of 2003.