Get Involved

Contributors and Collaborators

The AQT is at it's heart, a collaboration. Hundreds of volunteers and dozens of community based organizations have worked dilligently to create quilt trail experiences in their community, their county and their region. The AQT works to promote these local trails collectively to a broader audience. The vacationAQT.com website and the annual Visitor's Guide for Tennessee are two of the primary ways we do this. Thanks to the generous support through a Rural Business Opportunity Grant from USDA Rural Development individual quilt trail business sites can now upgrade and manage their own website pages on vacationAQT.com to provide up to date information for their business.

There's more to the Appalachian Quilt Trail (AQT) than meets the eye. We're not just about pretty old barns and quilt squares! The AQT is a not-for-profit program that not only celebrates our Appalachian culture, it simultaneously encourages economic development in the Appalachian region by promoting sustainable tourism. The AQT provides an attraction - a series of backroad scenic adventures that lead traffic to local crafter galleries, agritourism venues, farmer's markets, historic sites, and other local venues. There are hundreds of Heritage Quilt Squares throughout Appalachia. Quilt square hosts affiliated with the AQT project enjoy a wide range of benefits.

Supporting the AQT Will

  • Help us to draw attention to what makes your community unique
  • Put your town on the tourism map
  • Pay back in sustainable tourism dollars to your area
  • Endorse the value of handworks made by ordinary folks
  • Join with others in celebration of Appalachian heritage
  • Add to the beauty of Appalachia

    • Benefits to Participating Businesses

  • Increased visibility on the Internet through a low-cost and effective online presence
  • Increased local and national media exposure
  • Access to the News Bureau
  • Opportunities for Industry Partnership
  • Large network of supporting organizations and funding sources
  • Marketing assistance and low cost co-op marketing opportunities
  • Access to Welcome Center brochure programs

    • Sponsors



    The AQT is a project of the Clinch-Powell Resource Conservation & Development Council, Inc.

    Special recognition is given to Donna Sue Groves of Ohio who had the original vision of celebrating the tradition of quilting while honoring that most magnificent symbol of rural life, the barn.

    We owe a debt of thanks to those persons and entities that participated in the development of the AQT. Their contribution of creativity, funding, hours of planning and network-building, and hands-on execution of necessary tasks such as gathering gps coordinates, painting & installing squares, and developing print collateral and this website, etc., have helped to bring the AQT from a charmed inspiration to full-out fruition, benefiting the entire region and all who wish to come and explore it.