KEEPER OF THE MOUNTAINS FOUNDATION

Larry Gibson's family has lived on or near Kayford Mountain since the late 1700's. More than 300 relatives are buried in the cemetery on Kayford Mountain. Larry and his family used to live on the lowest lying part of the mountain, and looked "up" to the mountain peaks that surrounded them. Since 1986, the slow motion destruction of Kayford Mountain has been continuous -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Eighteen years after the "mountain top removal" project began, Larry Gibson's cabin now occupies the highest point of land around; he enveloped more than 7,500 acres of destruction of what was previously a forested mountain range.  The 50 acre tract Larry occupied atop Kayford Mountain is family land on which relatives and friends gather all year round for recreation. It also includes a family cemetery, dating back to the 1700's. Unfortunately, it is also surrounded by one of the largest mountaintop removal coal mines in Appalachia.
 
President/Chair Paul Corbit Brown and other volunteers regularly lead tours of Kayford Mountain to thousands of US and International students to show the general population what Mountaintop Removal looks like, and to encourage them to rise to help stop this destruction.

The Dandelion Project is a new project designed to aid impoverished communities with their own alternative energy network. Our first project is focused on a small sustainable community in Las Marias, Puerto Rico. Though the island is still suffering from the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria, many are finding new, innovative ways to survive on their own.