Just two months into 2019, the city has had to clear its mantel to make room for even more distinctions, including:

• One of “8 Underappreciated American Cities You Need To Check Out This Year.” Louisville’s revitalized neighborhoods, like Butchertown, as well as its whiskey and music festivals.��
• “20 Of The Top Places To Visit In The U.S. In 2019.” that Louisville is “a colorful Southern city that’s only growing better with time.” TripAdvisor has also as one of the “7 Rising U.S. Cities That Should Be On Your 2019 Bucket List.” 
• Louisville one of the 25 most romantic cities in the country, citing its extensive culinary scene.��
• as one of its “awesome one-week vacation destinations,” thanks to the Parklands of Floyds Fork, as well as its proximity to Cave City and, of course, its bourbon scene.��

Some of Louisville’s biggest gems have also been  including Churchill Downs, Valhalla golf course, Jeff Ruby’s steakhouse, the Brown Hotel and the new Omni Hotel.��

Also, in January, for being one of the top 10 U.S. cities with the happiest workers. This bodes well for President Neeli Bendapudi’s mission of making the University of Louisville a great place to work.

As with most major community events, there is a strong UofL tie to this affair. Lauren Hendricks, the board chairwoman of the , said she wouldn’t even be involved in the festival if she hadn’t attended UofL. The alum (06A, 12GA) was introduced to the production by JK McKnight’s sister, Mo (McKnight Howe), when she was a freshman.

“I lived with Mo when I was a freshman and she was a junior and we instantly became best friends. At that point – it was 2006 – she was already involved and she just asked if I wanted to help her and her brother do this thing,” Hendricks said.

“This thing” has since become a national attraction named by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the “Coolest Festivals” in the country. Initially, Hendricks worked on some of the gritty work and logistics – scheduling volunteers, stacking sandbags, erecting fencing, picking musicians up at the airport, etc.

“In those early years, we just did whatever was needed,” she said.

In 2010, Forecastle Festival’s founders started the non-profit Forecastle Foundation, and asked Hendricks to be one of the founding board members. The Foundation partners with and raises money for environmentally-conscious organizations, including KNLT, Nature Conservancy, Guayaki Foundation, FCD Belize and the Future Fund Land Trust. The focus on sustainability was firmly in Hendricks’ wheelhouse, so she agreed to the request.

“I had this desire to be involved in environmental causes and that really grew when I was at UofL. I was part of UofL’s first Sustainability Council and worked with a lot of professors who were doing research on climate change. I was involved in climate change teach-ins. All of this was something I had become very passionate about and the timing was right,” Hendricks said.

The foundation’s board started with eight people and has since grown to 13, with Hendricks serving as chair. The foundation itself has a large footprint at the Forecastle Festival, receiving a dollar from every ticket sold and facilitating an area next to the music stages that includes educational opportunities, drinks and a live art wall.

The live art wall

That live art wall also has a big UofL twist – among the small team of painters is Marcy Werner, assistant curator and imaging manager, and Jessica Kincaid, who worked as coordinator of collections and exhibitions with the Hite Art Institute until earlier this month. Both women earned their master’s degree in critical and curatorial studies from UofL.

Kincaid got involved three years ago when her partner, Petersen Thomas, recruited her for the mural. Thomas oversees the art functions of the Forecastle Foundation. This weekend will mark Werner’s second time working the mural at the festival. Thomas discovered Werner while she was painting a mural of Muhammad Ali.��

The Forecastle mural team will spend Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon painting the 48-foot live art wall with the music festival and tens of thousands of singing fans providing the backdrop.

“Sometimes we’re there until 2 a.m. It’s a full marathon. It’s brutal, but it’s engaging,” Kincaid said.

The artists tackle a different design each year, designed initially by Thomas. This year’s theme is the Foundation’s “Sip and Support” initiative, which focuses on the “five essential liquids” of the festival – bourbon, vodka, water, coffee and beer.

“We brought on new sponsors, including Tito’s Vodka. JK does a specialty beer and there is also a bourbon blend. Louisville Water Company has a presence, and so does Heine Brothers, so that’s where it comes from,” Kincaid said.

Although Thomas conceives the design, the project is highly collaborative, which is why Werner wanted to come back and do it again this year.

“Not only is this a great way to mix art into the festival, it’s a fun way to meet people. This gives me the chance to work with five other artists I didn’t know before and create something that’s pretty special,” she said.

At the end of the festival, the foundation sells sections of the mural to help raise money for the foundation.

Exposure to the opportunity

All three of the women believe their opportunities would have been different if they didn’t have their UofL connections. For Hendricks, she was able to hone her skillset in an area she cared about because UofL had sustainability courses and organizations.

“I was able to find my niche and get more involved because of it,” she said. “Being involved at UofL helped me define what my broader role in the community is. So many of my opportunities started because of me being a student at UofL and the relationships I made there.”

Werner agreed, noting that the city of Louisville is the perfect size to do as much or as little as you want.

“I think of it as a big small town. There’s always a lot going on and a lot of opportunities, but you could do them all if you wanted to,” she said.

For Kincaid, it’s about not only having the right opportunities, but also having the access.

“When you’re at UofL or an alum, you have so much access to these types of opportunities,” she said. “You never know what opportunities being a UofL student is going to present to you because there is always so much going on. Sometimes people think of the university as this self-contained ecosystem, but it’s so much more than that. UofL has a major presence in this entire community and this festival is just one example of that.”

that Louisville is one of the top 15 cities in the country attracting the most millennials. To derive this ranking, SmartAsset compared the number of people between the ages of 20 and 34 who moved to 217 U.S. cities to the number who moved away from those same cities.��

The Derby City ranked No. 15. Topping the list is Seattle. Cities that don’t appear on the list include Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco.��

According to the data, the number of millennials who moved to Louisville is 12,657, versus the number that moved out: 8,765. The total population of the city is 621,349.��

We can think of a number of reasons why Louisville attracts younger residents. For starters, Louisville was also recently named one of the best cities for new college grads. Louisville was recognized for its affordability and relatively high salaries college graduates in the city earn. More information on that ranking is .��

Of course, there’s also the vibrant arts and sports scenes, the horses, the bourbon, the food, the music and the University of Louisville.��

St. Margaret Mary School, 7813 Shelbyville Road, is the new site of an experiment designed to use trees and shrubs to create a living filter for roadway air pollution. The project will be a model for metro-wide “greening” projects that use our environment to improve health.

The Louisville Green for Good project is a collaboration among the Diabetes and Obesity Center at the , and the City of Louisville’s

The current levels of air pollution at the school will be measured and then half of the school’s front yard will be filled with a green buffer of shrubs, deciduous trees and pines. Then the team will measure air pollution levels a second time. The goal is to test the idea that a greener neighborhood is a healthier neighborhood.

“This project has the potential to improve the health of nearby students and residents for years to come by improving local air quality,” said Aruni Bhatnagar, PhD, the and director of the University of Louisville . “St. Margaret Mary was chosen due to its location which is close to a high traffic roadway. The school also includes a spacious lawn that allows for the addition of foliage, which will act as an air-cleansing barrier between the school and the street.”

said, “I am committed to helping Louisville become a greener and healthier place to live – and, I’m a data guy. So I’m excited that this project will provide the data we need to move forward on our sustainability goals for the city.”

Principal Wendy Sims said she is excited about this project for the parish, school and community.��

“In his ,’ Our Holy Father Pope Francis reminds us that ‘we must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and for the world, and that being good and decent are worth it … social love moves us to devise larger strategies to halt environmental degradation and to encourage a “culture of care” which permeates all of society’,” Sims said. “This project is a wonderful lesson for our students, faculty, and parents about how to foster such a culture of care, now and for future generations.”

Air monitoring will start this summer. The trees and shrubs will arrive in October with a second round of air monitoring taking place later this year. Students will participate in the monitoring work.

In addition to tracking certain pollutants, the project team will collect data on traffic and weather.

The project includes ecology experts from around the country with deep understanding of air pollution and the power of plants.

Funding comes from the

The research effort is a project of the Funders’ Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. The grant was matched with $50,000 from the Owsley Brown Charitable Foundation and $25,000 from an anonymous donor in Louisville. The Institute for Healthy Air, Water, and Soil received the funds and will be managing the project.