From the 18th century to the 21st century, Kentucky has been home to great writers. The Kentucky Proud Evening program was developed in 2017 and is a collaboration between Fayette County Extension Family and Consumer Sciences, AG Communications, the University Press of Kentucky and Joseph Beth Bookstores.  The purpose of this program is to highlight acclaimed Kentucky authors in combination of with locally grown commodities as showcased in Plate It Up! Kentucky Proud recipes. Over the course of three years 23 local authors have presented the origin and research information relative to their books to an average program audience of 40 and an overall attendance of 920.  Book sales for these local authors totaled over $5,000.  In conjunction to the literacy component, 15 Fayette County Champion Food Volunteer leaders prepared and presented 65 Plate It Up! Kentucky Proud recipes via taste testing and recipe card distribution equaling 414 volunteer hours (estimated value of $10,528.02).  Post evaluation revealed that Plate It Up! recipes were a new source of local food preparation for 90% of the audience, 76% rated them favorably and over 50% took cards to replicate at home.   Collaborative marketing resulted in successful efforts to attract new audiences to the Fayette Extension Center with 75% indicating they were first time attendees to Extension programming.