License Plate Grant Program Awards $13,000 for Organizations' Enhancement of the Appalachian Trail

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (August 6) — The Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC), through its North Carolina Appalachian Trail license plate program, this summer awarded more than $13,000 to four organizations committed to preserving the Trail through maintenance, environmental monitoring, and volunteer skills training.   An additional $10,000 is available for approved grants between now and mid-October.

The Carolina Mountain Club of Asheville, N.C., and the Tennessee Eastman Hiking and Canoeing Club of Kingsport, Tenn., both received funds for the repair or purchase of equipment for Trail-maintenance work in North Carolina.  Mountains-to-Sea Conservation, Inc., of Marshall, N.C., will work to protect rare plants along the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) by supporting ATC volunteers in need of plant-identification assistance, improving data collection and delivery, and investigating unmonitored rare plant sites. 

The ATC funded a second natural-heritage project that will document and catalogue old-growth forests in close proximity to the Appalachian Trail.  This project is being carried out by the Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition and is structured to educate Trail users and to support protection of forests adjacent to the A.T. by providing a resource for forest-planning efforts.  

“This is the first year we have funded a natural-heritage or environmental monitoring project through our grant program,” said Leanna Joyner, ATC’s program and communications manager in Asheville.

“These are all projects that reinforce the conservation of the national and state treasure we have in the Appalachian Trail.  We’re only able to support them locally because of the license plate program and drivers who own A.T. plates,” said Joyner.  Twenty dollars of the fee for Friends of the Appalachian Trail special license plates goes to the ATC for trail-related work in North Carolina.

The deadline for applying for additional 2007 grants is October 17, 2007.  Interested grant-seekers can find out more on the Internet at www.appalachiantrail.org/nclicenseplate or by calling (828) 254-3708.  

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy is a volunteer-based, private, nonprofit organization dedicated for more than 80 years to the conservation of the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail so that it will forever remain a simple footpath within a protected greenway along the Appalachian Mountains from Georgia to Maine.