Mountain Justice Spring Break has been kicking it up in southwest Virginia this week.
I got here Tuesday night and through the week over 100 students, youth, environmentalists and activist-organizers have been working on building that better world we all work to see.
Folks from all over Appalachia, the Mid-West and the Southeast are here. Folks from Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Washington DC and California are here getting their activism on as well. I’ve helped facilitate a lot direct action and direct action trainings for the youth climate movement in the past few years and things are really building.
Some this week’s activities have included:
-A whole bunch of workshops, trainings and skillshares.
-Strategizing for campus campaigns.
-Community service projects like working in local area damaged by a recent tornado in Big Stone Gap, VA.
–About 25 MJSBr’s joined an Appalachian Blue Grass band for an action at Bank of America in Boone, NC
-About 75 MJSBr’s marched to the Va. Dept. of Environmental Quality’s office in Abingdon, VA and held a rally. Groups of MJSBr’s went into the DEQ to deliver letters and ask questions about Dominion Resource’s proposed coal fired power plant in Wise County, Va.
I’ve been saying to friends and colleagues ALOT lately that this issue and this part of the country are taking off.
But don’t fret if you think you have missed out. There is another Mountain Justice Spring Break in two weeks in Ohio and Mountain Justice Summer in May in Kentucky. Go now, it’s well worth it!
