This week, Letcher County member, Carrie Wells, helped to build our I Love Mountains Day pinwheel collection with her art classes in Knott County.  Students from 1st grade to 12th grade made pinwheels throughout the day, ending with a total of over 200 pinwheels! 

During the day of pinwheel making, a dozen Cordia high school students signed up to travel with "Ms. Wells" and other east Kentucky KFTC members to I Love Mountains Day in Frankfort on February 14th!  The theme of this year's rally is the community health impacts of living near mountaintop removal in Central Appalachia, which has been highlighted dozens of times in the past 2 years in regional, peer-reviewed studies.   Everyone is being asked to bring one pinwheel to the rally to represent 50 people living with cancer that has been linked to the pollution from mountaintop removal mining. A study that came out in July that found that 60,000 people living in Central Appalachia have cancer because of mountaintop removal.  So, 1,200 people expected to attend with pinwheels x 50 = 60,000. You can learn more about this data on our 'Health Impacts Fact Sheet' or by registering for our upcoming Webinar on the health impacts of MTR in preparation for I Love Mountains Day! 

Making pinwheels has proven to be a blast for all ages, so get started on your own!  As the pictures below illustrate (and more on our flickr), your pinwheel can be as unique as you!  One six year-old, Cash, said he made his pinwheel "yellow and blue for the sun and the sky"....