MountainTrue recognizes all-star volunteers
MountainTrue has recognized the members and volunteers who gave the most to the waters, forests and communities of Western North Carolina and North Georgia this year during a ceremony held in Asheville.
• The Esther Cunningham Award, named for the founder of MountainTrue’s predecessor organization, Western North Carolina Alliance, went to Jane Laping, who founded the faith-based program Creation Care Alliance in 2012 and has served on the Steering Team ever since. Laping filled in as interim coordinator for CCA this year while Director Sarah Ogletree was on maternity leave. She has volunteered in various roles with the national eco-justice network Presbyterians for Earth Care, and in 2007 wrote “Earth Care Congregations,” a certification program for Presbyterian churches. There are now more than 300 certified Earth Care congregations in the United States. Currently, Laping is working with the Plastic Free WNC Coalition.
• Jonathan Micancin, an assistant professor of biology at Young Harris College, was named Volunteer of the Year for the Western Region. Since coming to Young Harris in 2019, he has led MountainTrue’s Corn Creek Riparian Restoration Project, organizing volunteer workdays to remove invasive plants and plant native ones along the stream. Last fall, he started working with the college to replace its landscaping with native trees and shrubs. He has involved his students in all these efforts as well as in studying the behavioral ecology, evolution and conservation of cryptic amphibians. They discovered the decline of southern cricket frogs in the Southeast, extended the known range of Collinses’ mountain chorus frog in Georgia, and are currently studying rare and imperiled Appalachian salamanders.
• Elizabeth (Beth) Porter was named Volunteer of the Year for the Central Region. Since moving to the Asheville area 10 years ago from her hometown in northeastern Florida, she has been an active volunteer on the French Broad, with an affinity for river cleanups and all the interesting things and people to be found on the river. Porter is currently in her second year teaching sustainability and environmental policy in the Department of Business Administration at Mars Hill University.
Additional Volunteer of the Year awards went to Marta Toran, who teaches at Appalachian State University and represents the High Country Region and Michael Cheng, a Broad River enthusiast representing the southern region.
