Pelham High School- Earth Day

This Earth Day was a beautiful sunny day, and I had the privilege of working with the students of Pelham High School in Pelham NH. The day started off in the library with a power point on mountain top removal coal mining. Most of the students had never heard about it, and it was a real eye opener for them. The rest of the day I worked with students creating six "Healing Blankets" put together they created a path on the ground. These blankets will be given to people in West Virginia whose lives have been impacted by mountain top removal coal mining. I had planned on taking the trip myself this summer, but now as word has spread I will going with a group of 40 to bare witness of the damage, and install "Healing Blankets".

350 Day

International Climate Action Day was on October 24th. Bill Mckibben started this movement to bring attention to the global climate crisis. Our atmosphere is at 390 parts per million of co2, and we need to be at 350ppm to prevent the melting of the polar ice caps, and other irreversible impacts of global warming.

I worked with students from Phillips Exeter Academy and the Newburyport Environmental Club to help them understand this problem and take part in the international action. We created Healing blankets with 350 on them. This summer I will be taking all the blankets I have made with various groups to West Virginia to give to families whose lives have been impacted by mountain top removal coal mining. I will also plant many of them my self on the damage sites in the mountains. This trip has struck a cord with many people I have met, and a carvan of people will be coming with me.

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. 

University of New Hampshire Solar Fest 2008

April 26, 2008 University of New Hampshire Solar Fest. It was a cold blustery day, but that didn't keep the enthusiastic crowd away. My tent was set up with posters and hand outs about Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining for folks to learn about this devastating form of mining. We listened to live music as we ,made a healing blanket for Ed Wiley who has been working to raise awareness about the plight of the students attending Marshfork Elementary School in West Virginia. This school is located 200 feet away from a giant coal silo and impoundment pond with billions of gallons of coal slurry. If the damn breaks the students have 2 minutes to escape a wall of slurry moving at 50 miles per hour! This photo shows students laying down the wool fleece to create the tree on top of a sunset sky back ground. The blanket was sent to Ed to lay on the damaged earth of a mined area to help regenerate it.

Earth Day 2008 First Parish Church Newbury, Massachusettes

We made mini healing blankets. This project is suited for younger children, and shorter class time.  The mini blankets were sent to Marshfork Elementary School in West Virginia. The school is next to a coal silo and coal prep plant, both of which threaten children with chemicals and coal dust. The school is just 400 yards downslope from a 2.8 billion gallon coal sludge dam and impoundment. If the impoundment were breached, there would be less than three minutes to evacuate the school.  Up above all that is Massey Energy’s mountaintop removal mine, with the associated blasting and dust.