On David’s 63rd birthday, we will gather to celebrate his legacy by watching the award-winning film “Life in the Sacrifice Zone,” by Soul Ash Pictures.

Presented by Working Films, Dan Riverkeeper and The Lilies Project

From elder voices opposing the Dakota Pipeline to young people running for office to advocate for change, every day we see real-life stories about how women are making a collective difference on climate justice. Women are also disproportionately impacted by climate change and thus are critical to transforming society away from dependence on fossil fuels and toward renewable energy and environmental equity.

As a mother and a professor of environmental education, Mallory McDuff wanted to give her two daughters and her students a roadmap to engage in climate justice in their communities, rather than be left feeling paralyzed by the enormity of the problem. She set out to find women of diverse ages, backgrounds, and vocations--one from each of the fifty US states--as inspiration for a new kind of leadership focused on the heart of the climate crisis. Love Your Mother lifts up the stories of these women working toward a viable future, from farmer and rancher Donna Kilpatrick in Arkansas to writer Latria Graham in South Carolina.

From Alabama to Alaska, from Wisconsin to Wyoming, these women are poets, physicians, climate scientists, students, farmers, writers, documentary filmmakers, and more. Their work lights the way for conversation and collective action in our homes and in the world. It's time we follow their lead. 

"Expressed in these fifty stories is a wild love for Mother Earth and her children--a love for all of us, alive together, indivisible. These fierce American voices filled me with two emotions I had not allowed myself to experience in a long time: pride and hope." --Will Harlan, author of Untamed: The Wildest Woman in America and the Fight for Cumberland Island

"Through vivid, thoughtful storytelling, McDuff's profiles emphasize a timely truth: climate leadership isn't a monolith. Matriarchs, farmers, writers, rebels, scientists, doctors, innovators, influencers, teachers--all of us, in short--have a home in this movement, if we choose to seek it." --Georgia Wright, co-creator of the podcast Inherited

Mallory McDuff teaches environmental education at Warren Wilson College where she lives on campus with her two daughters. She's the author of five books, most recently LOVE YOUR MOTHER: 50 states, 50 stories, & 50 women united for climate justice and OUR LAST BEST ACT: Planning for the end of our lives to protect the people and places we love. She's written for the New York Times, Washington Post, WIRED, Shondaland and more. 

Tracey Edwards is a community activist and mother of two from Walnut Cove, NC. She helped bring justice to her community by addressing the issue of coal ash created by Duke Energy polluting the air, water, and soil with serious health impacts for local residents. 

Caroline Rutledge Armijo is an environmental advocate, artist and mother living in Greensboro, North Carolina. Since 2010, Caroline has advocated with the Belews Creek community around threats of fracking and living with coal ash. Caroline is the Founding Director of The Lilies Project, an ArtPlace America creative placemaking grant that worked with NC A&T State University to make art out of coal ash. Caroline is a founding member of ACT against Coal Ash. 

From Scuppernong Books

We will paint a series of wildflowers on multiple coal ash posts, which will hang in close proximity to the Corinthian Bells around town. This will not be our only opportunity to paint the coal ash posts, but we are preparing to install all of the art by June 17th for the Town of Walnut Cove Juneteenth Celebration.

Join Will Warasila for his book release for Quicker Than Coal Ash at the Walnut Cove Public Library on Saturday, February 25th at 11:00 am. The book is published by Gnomic Book.

Press Release with images from the book

For Black History Month, The Lilies Project and the Stokes County Historical Society will host a screening of The Lilies of The Field, featuring local composer Jester Hairston on Sunday, February 12th at 2:30 pm at the Palmetto Theater. A Mountains to Sea Trail representative will present images from 1940 USDA Aerial Photographs of the area to help identify landmarks prior to the creation of Belews Lake in the early 1970s.

According to Dr. Dana Dalton, Jester Hairston was born at her grandmother’s home, which was located where Duke Energy’s Power Plant currently stands.

The photographs are available online as part of North Carolina’s State Archives Collection on Flickr. A direct link is available on The Lilies Project web site: https://theliliesproject.org/events.

Join us for the dedication the brick-inlaid labyrinth behind Christ Episcopal Church during their Sunday morning worship. All are welcome.

At 1 pm, group members from The Lilies Project welcome the community to walk the labyrinths, learn more about opportunities to engage in the labyrinth walking practice, and connect with other community members. At 2 pm, the event will shift to Cove Square to spend time walking the labyrinth there. Walking Tour Information will be available on the Christ Church Community House porch at 412 Summit Street until 2:30 pm. The event concludes at 3 pm.

In keeping with the walking theme, The Lilies Project supported the development of Walnut Cove’s Greenway Plan, which the Town of Walnut Cove adopted at the September Town Council Meeting. During the October 16th gathering, Armijo plans to kick off community conversations around developing a friends group to support the Walnut Cove Greenway, Mountains to Sea Trail and other recreational development in the Southeastern Stokes area.

Press Release

Celebrate at the Closing of the H2O Exhibit at Greenhill. Greenhill staff and the seven artists will be available to answer questions about the various takes on water and its importance in our life.

Please feel free to coordinate with Caroline in advance.

Hosted by our Dan Riverkeeper, the United States Environmental Protection Agency seeks your direct input on Environmental Justice concerns regarding pollution from local power plants. 

When: Starting 6pm on June 23

Where: Lakeside Event Center @ Carolina Marina

Show up and let your voice be heard! In person and virtual options are both available.

From EPA:

EPA is conducting an environmental justice (EJ) analysis to look at pollution exposure from coal-fired power plants. EPA would like to meet with community members to talk about the following topics:

1. Ideas and strategies for limiting pollution from power plants.

2. Concerns from community members related to power plants or other sources of pollution; nearby rivers, lakes, and streams; or their drinking water.

3. Community health, social, or economic concerns.

The Steam Electric Rule Listening Session – Dan Riverkeeper/Belews Creek will be held on Thursday, June 23 from 6:00pm – 7:30pm EDT.

More Information:

Flyer | PPT

How to join the session:

Online

Join ZoomGov Meeting

https://www.zoomgov.com/j/1605160036

Telephone

Meeting ID: 160 516 0036

One tap mobile

+16692545252,,1605160036# US (San Jose)

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Dial by your location

+1 669 254 5252 US (San Jose)

+1 646 828 7666 US (New York)

+1 551 285 1373 US

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833 568 8864 US Toll-free

In 2018, Linda Villarosa's New York Times Magazine article on maternal and infant mortality among black mothers and babies in America caused an awakening. Hundreds of studies had previously established a link between racial discrimination and the health of Black Americans, with little progress toward solutions. But Villarosa's article exposing that a Black woman with a college education is as likely to die or nearly die in childbirth as a white woman with an eighth grade education made racial disparities in health care impossible to ignore.

Now, in Under the Skin, Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to their white counterparts. Today's medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from white bodies. Study after study of medical settings show worse treatment and outcomes for Black patients. Black people live in dirtier, more polluted communities due to environmental racism and neglect from all levels of government. And, most powerfully, Villarosa describes the new understanding that coping with the daily scourge of racism ages Black people prematurely. Anchored by unforgettable human stories and offering incontrovertible proof, Under the Skin is dramatic, tragic, and necessary reading.

LINDA VILLAROSA is a journalism professor at the City University of New York and a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, where she covers the intersection of race and health. She has also served as executive editor at Essence and as a science editor at The New York Times. Her article on maternal and infant mortality was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. She is a contributor to The 1619 Project.

For more information from Scuppernong Books

Wednesday, June 15, 2022 - Signing Line at 5:30 pm, Talk begins at 6:00 pm

Click to Flyleaf’s web site to order your book, and please indicate in the comments if you’d like 1-2 seats held for you at the event!

Flyleaf will offer seating for up to 75 in-person guests, with priority access given to folks who purchase the book. Masks recommended.

This event is presented in partnership with The Lilies Project, the Southern Environmental Law Center, Appalachian Voices, and PEN America.

From an award-winning writer at the New York Times Magazine and a contributor to The 1619 Project comes a landmark book that tells the full story of racial health disparities in America, revealing the toll racism takes on individuals and the health of our nation.

In 2018, Linda Villarosa's New York Times Magazine article on maternal and infant mortality among black mothers and babies in America caused an awakening. Hundreds of studies had previously established a link between racial discrimination and the health of Black Americans, with little progress toward solutions. But Villarosa's article exposing that a Black woman with a college education is as likely to die or nearly die in childbirth as a white woman with an eighth grade education made racial disparities in health care impossible to ignore.
Now, in Under the Skin, Linda Villarosa lays bare the forces in the American health-care system and in American society that cause Black people to “live sicker and die quicker” compared to their white counterparts. Today's medical texts and instruments still carry fallacious slavery-era assumptions that Black bodies are fundamentally different from white bodies. Study after study of medical settings show worse treatment and outcomes for Black patients. Black people live in dirtier, more polluted communities due to environmental racism and neglect from all levels of government. And, most powerfully, Villarosa describes the new understanding that coping with the daily scourge of racism ages Black people prematurely. Anchored by unforgettable human stories and offering incontrovertible proof, Under the Skin is dramatic, tragic, and necessary reading.

Linda Villarosa is a journalism professor at the City University of New York and a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine, where she covers the intersection of race and health. She has also served as executive editor at Essence and as a science editor at The New York Times. Her article on maternal and infant mortality was a finalist for a National Magazine Award. She is a contributor to The 1619 Project.

adrienne maree brown is the writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, and author of Grievers (the first novella in a trilogy on the Black Dawn imprint), Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation, We Will Not Cancel Us and Other Dreams of Transformative Justice, Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and the co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements and How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office. She is the cohost of the How to Survive the End of the World, Octavia’s Parables, and Emergent Strategy podcasts.

Caroline Rutledge Armijo Caroline Rutledge Armijo is an environmental advocate, artist and mother living in Greensboro, North Carolina. Caroline is a founding member of Alliance of Carolinians Together (ACT) Against Coal Ash, a state-wide group that advocated for the nation’s largest clean up of 80 million tons of coal ash in North Carolina. Caroline is the Founder and Director of The Lilies Project, a creative placemaking grant that worked with NC A&T State University to make art out of coal ash.

Event date:
Wednesday, June 15, 2022 - 5:30pm

Event address:
752 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
Chapel Hill, NC 27514

We are saving the date for a centennial celebration of the Walnut Cove Colored School, which is our local Rosenwald School. It now serves as the Senior Center and serves as an important space in the community. We will premiere a short documentary including stories of students who attended the school. We hope this will be a fun outside event, but times and plans are not set in stone yet.

We are celebrating on the last official Saturday of The Lilies Project funding period! So save the date!

Due to the ongoing rain this winter, the basketball court will not be refurbished until April, at the earliest. Check back for a new date.

What magic may unfold here? Great question! Join us and find out as LA-based Mural artist Chase joins us to design the basketball court in London Park.

Will Warasila presents his photography work for his thesis to complete MFAIEDA (experimental documentary arts). His work is focused on explorations of the impact of coal ash on the Belews Creek community and residents of Walnut Cove and the Southeastern Stokes County Community.

“The people of Walnut Cove, North Carolina are living in the shadow of Duke Energy’s Belews Creek Steam Station, where toxic coal ash is kept in a massive unlined storage pond and toxins are pumped into the air, water, and soil. I have been exploring the ways of life of the residents, the affected landscape, and the silent power structures that Duke Energy employs.”

Dates on view: March 16th-27th, 2020

Date of Reception/Screening: Fri Mar 20th, 2020

Time of Reception/Screening: 6:00pm-9:00pm

Panel discussion: 7:30pm 

*Website: willwarasila.com  

*Email: wwarasila@gmail.com

Join us Saturday, February 29th from 9am until 4pm for a mix of art, spirit, nature, and rest as we spend a day creating peace poles for our yard, garden, or community. 

The peace pole movement started in Japan in response to the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Masahisa Goi, the originator, dedicated his life to spreading the message, "May Peace Prevail on Earth." Peace Poles bear this message, typically in different languages, on each of the four sides of the pole. We will be creating our own Peace Poles in an array of colors with this message and/or our own thoughts, quotes, prayers, or poetry, all with the intention of spreading a little more peace, love, and light in this world.

Process over perfection, never a lecture, always hands-on, Art Wanders Creative Retreats, lead by Claudia Fulshaw, invite your spirit to roam. 

Sponsored by The Lilies Project, registration is $75 and includes all materials to create your own 3' tall Peace Pole. Registration deadline is Monday, February 24th at 5pm. Register online at the link below or by phone at 336-593-8159.

Registration Link

State environmental regulators will hold a series of public hearings in February on plans to excavate coal ash at six Duke Energy plants around the state.

An agreement between regulators and Duke last month calls for removing 80 million tons of coal ash at the sites to new lined landfills. 

The Department of Environmental Quality says each of the hearings will include an introduction to the plans and Q&A, followed by public comments.

Information for our public hearing:

• Feb. 18, 6 p.m., Belews Creek Steam Station Closure Plans, Walnut Cove Elementary School gymnasium, 1211 Walnut Cove School Road, Walnut Cove. 

Information Source