On September 30th Aurora Lights, in conjunction with Gardener's Supply, hosted a "I Can Can!" class for residents of Morgantown, West Virginia. Laurie Ross, a homesteading mountain momma with more than 35 years of experience, came to guest teach our home canning class. We shared information about how to use a pressure canner, prepare jars and lids, and showed examples of home canned food. We prepared and canned vegetable stew with all local ingredients, and then made fresh salsa which waiting for the stew to can. Participants were sent home with a How to Can booklet, vegetable stew, salsa, and Deluxe Canning Tools donated by Gardener's Supply. We all loved the beautiful ...
Aurora Lights News
Latest updates on Aurora Lights
Sep 28, 2012
We are pleased to announce the award of a minigrant to support the development of an outdoor learning trail at Morgantown Learning Academy in Morgantown, West Virginia. Last week Aurora Lights paid for a trail to be created around the 12 acres of the elementary school, ending at an outdoor classroom space. This trail is part of MLA's "Mountain Mallard" afterschool program, where 13 children are able to spend time outside learning about local habitats and land stewardship. The children used the trail for the first time last Tuesday afterschool. As this program develops, we look forward to supporting the use of the trail and outdoor classroom by all of the students at MLA. MLA is a non-profit, non-denominational, private school for children from preschool to eighth grade that provides children with an educational program that is child-centered. Aurora Lights has worked with MLA in the past to develop...
Jun 26, 2012
Congradulations to the recipients of our new grant given from funds from the proceeds of the Still Moving Mountains CDs. The Community Hoop House Project (CHHP) is part of SAMS’s Sustainable Communities Program. This project was developed to support the SAMS mission to “improve quality of life… and to help rebuild sustainable communities" in our region. The goals of the CHHP are:
- To grow healthy, organic produce that will supply low-income residents of the Town of Appalachia and surrounding coal camp communities with fresh food via the Appalachia Food Bank
- To demonstrate and teach sustainable gardening through workshops, community events, and volunteer opportunities.
- To build a strong community network of local activists working to promote healthy lifestyles, home grown food, and sustainable community development.
Thank you all for your hard work selling these CDs. ...
Nov 21, 2011
USA Today's Travel section highlighted the Aurora Lights CD Still Moving Mountains: The Journey Home on Sat. Nov 19, along with two other CDs that also donate their proceeds. Kerry Dexter's article, "Listening well, doing good," is available at http://travel.usatoday.com/alliance/destinations/perceptivetravel/post/2011/11/Listening-well-doing-good/569012/1.
Oct 31, 2011
Aurora Lights has released a new edition to Journey Up Coal River's lesson plans focused on the Battle of Blair Mountain and current threats that the mountain faces. Aurora Lights has partnered with the Blair Pathways project, which is releasing a CD and a different set of lesson plans about Blair Mountain, in the creation of these new lesson plans. An announcement about our collaboration is here.
Aurora Lights' three-part unit is targeted to middle school students but is adaptable for use by other grade levels. The three lesson plans in the unit are Labor History, Contemporary Threats to Blair Mountain and Working Together to Save Blair Mountain. The lesson plans draw on both new and existing multimedia on the JourneyUpCoalRiver.org site as well as an...
Feb 24, 2011
We've just added a Community Resource Mapping theme to our educational project, Journey Up Coal River, and completely revamped our interactive maps. Dozens of volunteers interviewed residents of the Coal River Valley in southern West Virginia and put information from those interviews onto the interactive map in the new Community Resource Mapping theme. Residents then reviewed the map data before it was made public. These projects were made possible with funding from the West Virginia Humanities Council and in partnership with Coal River Mountain Watch....
Oct 30, 2010
Over the past several months, Aurora Lights' has given two grants, funded by sales from the Still Moving Mountains cd. One, granted to Mountain Justice, helped transport Appalachian residents to the Voices from the Mountains weekend. The most recent grant will be going towards fixing a volunteer vehicle being used at the Climate Ground Zero campaign house in Rock Creek, West Virginia.
Oct 30, 2010
Aurora Lights participated in the Voices from the Mountains Conference, held the weekend before Appalachia Rising. Aurora Lights' director Jen Osha helped facilitate a discussion about mountaintop removal and presented on conducting fieldwork. Aurora Lights' grant to Mountain Justice was part of the four thousand dollars that organization donated to Voices from the Mountains and Appalachia Rising! Aurora Lights' staff and interns, including Charles Suggs, Laura Steepleton and Dea Goblirsch, helped organize the weekend.
May 22, 2010
On Saturday, July 3rd and Sunday, July 4th, the annual Mountain Keepers Music Festival will be held at Kayford Mountain's Stanley Heirs Park. This concert is the premier music festival that celebrates environmental justice in southern West Virginia. The two day event will feature local and regional musicians playing a variety of bluegrass, gospel, country, rock, jam and old time music, as well as internationally known speakers such as leading NASA Climatologist James Hansen. This is a free concert that will celebrate Appalachian life and attendees are encouraged to bring a covered dish for our potluck meal. Past Mountain Keepers Music Festivals have brought out hundreds of supportive attendees for a fun and restful celebration of our families, friends, independence, and mountains.
Expenses for the concert will be supplemented by a $250 grant from Aurora Lights. The grant money was raised through CD sales of the...
Apr 1, 2010
Journey Up Coal River (www.JourneyUpCoalRiver.org), an educational, interactive multimedia website about West Virginia's Coal River Valley, is this year's recipient of the Appalachian Studies Association's e-Appalachia Website of the Year Award. Aurora Lights was honored by this prestigious acknowledgement, which was first issued in 2002, and is based on the content, design and mission statement of web sites dealing with Appalachia and its people. The web site's participatory nature, through interactive maps, research methods, and community involvement, has resulted in a versatile and effective resource for students, teachers, activists and area residents.
"I nominated the Journey Up Coal River project for the Appalachian...
Nov 27, 2009
Rambles.net's Jerome Clark wrote yet another praise-filled review of Aurora Lights' Still Moving Mountains CD last month. Dave Lavender with the Beckley Herald-Dispatch also sent a nod towards Still Moving Mountains over Thanksgiving in a review of Kathy Mattea's recent work.
"Even if it weren't a good album, it would be a project worth supporting with your purchase," Clark wrote. "Still Moving Mountains movingly affirms the continuing presence of Appalachia's better, radical angels. And you could do a whole lot worse than introduce...
Nov 11, 2009
Still Moving Mountains received more praise today - this time from Current.com contributor Peter Grumbine during an interview with CNN.
After panning the latest Britney Spears album, Grumbine introduced CNN to Aurora Light's new release (see video at 3:08).
"I know it's kind of a hot-button issue for a lot of people and whenever environmental things come up people imagine hippies and sandals... but this is actually a very local movement of people who have lived in West Virginia for generations.... A lot of great artists have come together to help support the locals that are fighting against the big companies that are basically ruining their backyard."
Grumbine continued, explaining mountaintop removal and why it's so destructive.
...
Oct 31, 2009
CMT's Craig Shelburne recently recognized three new albums for bluegrass fans - and at the top of his list is Aurora Light's Still Moving Mountains: The Journey Home.
Shelburne writes:
While going through a stack of new releases, I grew particularly fond of three bluegrass albums, so I figured I'd share them with you. The first is Still Moving Mountains: The Journey Home, a compilation from Aurora Lights that aims to bring attention to Appalachian mountaintop removal. Songs like Blue Highway's "Clear Cut" illustrate the environmental...
Oct 31, 2009
Aurora Lights' Concert Release of Still Moving Mountains: The Journey Home raises enough money to award first grant
Non-profit organization Aurora Lights celebrated the release of its long-awaited compilation CD, Still Moving Mountains: The Journey Home Sunday August 23, 2009 at a benefit concert on the Capitol Grounds in Charleston, WV.
Headlining the concert was the Morgantown based band, The Halftime String Band. Andrew McKnight, Osha and Samples with special guest Matt Parsons and the Nashville based band The Lonetones. Coal River Valley residents spoke between the bands and told of how their lives have been changed because of mountaintop removal.
Jul 24, 2009
Still Moving Mountains: The Journey Home, and its companion website, Journey Up Coal River, have been released! Order your copy today and check out the additional resources and lesson plans located at Journey Up Coal River.
