New England Environmental Education Alliance Conference

October 4-6 2008 I was invited to make healing blankets with the teachers attending the NEEEA Conference at Sargent Camp in Peterboro, New Hampshire. Friday night I gave a presentation about Mountain Top Removal coal mining. The power point I used is filled with images I took on a trip to West Virginia. It shows the various stages step by step of how the coal companies destroy a mountain to extract the coal.  Afterwards we made mini healing blankets. The theme of the weekend was building  communities. The next day folks who made blankets Friday night made a blanket with someone who wasn't there. This helped bring people together at the conference, growing our community. On Sunday we joined the mini blankets together with raffia to created a large blanket. I use the blankets to tell the stories of  people whose lives have been impacted by MTR. The blankets act as a bridge bringing our communities together when they are sent to a person, or family to install into a landscape that needs to be healed.