Casks for a Cause Article
Casks for a Cause and Music for the Mountains!
By Amber Kozecak
On July 17th, Wild Virginia volunteers and members alike joined for Casks for a Cause fundraiser at Brothers Craft Brewing. Supporters came from all over to try the specially brewed “Bee Wild” summer beer—a mix of the brewery’s “Outdoor” beer series blended with ginger, lime and local honey by some of our very own Wild Virginia members the week before. It was a beautiful night for the family of Wild Virginia to come together and share some laughs while enjoying beer whose sale went straight into the nonprofit to fund our goals of preserving the national forests of Virginia!
The next day, Wild Virginia participated in the Music for the Mountains benefit concert at Devil’s Backbone Brewpub and Meadows, organized by Friends of Nelson and Friends of Augusta. Other sponsoring organizations included Free Nelson, Augusta County Alliance, Wild Virginia, Pledge of Resistance to the Dominion Pipeline, Pipeline Education Group, and the Chesapeake Bay Group Sierra Club. The day began for Wild Virginia around 3pm as volunteers began arriving to set up our table alongside these neighboring organizations before the festivities began. As people came in, they were able to meet with any of these organizations as they wished, sign petitions, buy T-shirts and talk about the pipeline issue. From there they got to choose food from a variety of private food trucks, from Kona Ice with its naturally-flavored shaved ices to Blue Ridge Pizza which acquires all its produce from local vendors.
To top it off, bands such as Gene and Gayla Mills, the Will Overman Band, and The Sally Rose Band expressed how we felt with songs about nature and a few specifically about the pipeline Dominion and other companies are trying to force on our beautiful wildlife areas. The night was capped off with a performance by Trees on Fire, who came together for the first time in three years to help us all in our fight against the pipeline. All these events took place surrounded by the breathtaking mountains of Nelson County, emphasizing the purpose behind the benefit concert and Wild Virginia’s own goals of protecting this unique and gorgeous nature that we have all around us.