KFTC Blog

Members left a gubernatorial forum in Louisville feeling like they didn’t hear much, and nothing that they’d hoped to.

The forum was hosted by non-profits that work with health and family services, a setting ripe for hearing some clear plans about policies to reform Kentucky’s tax code and generate good revenue for our schools, health systems, public protection, and a good quality of life.

Heat and threats of storms didn’t keep about 100 people from coming out to Woodwind Farm in Junction City on June 13th for the third annual Wilderness Trace KFTC Barn Bash. The weather behaved just right for people to enjoy a great afternoon of good music, delicious food, beautiful surroundings, lake swimming, and friendly silent auction bidding, all to benefit KFTC.

Thanks to event sponsor, Stuart Powell Ford Lincoln Mazda, the chapter was able to highlight locally sourced foods for the second year in a row. Folks who came hungry were delighted to enjoy sausages from Sunwatch Homestead, hot dogs from St. Catharine Farm, and burgers from Rising Sons Beef. KFTC members filled out the rest of the meal with wonderful side dishes and plenty of desserts.

While folks chowed down on food, they got to hear a little bit from member, Jim Porter, about why he is proud to be a KFTC member.

Dear friends,

What a week it has been. Like most people I know, I’m over the moon with excitement about decisions by the Supreme Court on marriage, health care and racial justice. I’m grieving the killing of Clementa Pinckney and 8 parishioners at Emanuel AME church in Charleston. And I’m inspired by ongoing local struggles for justice, including the minimum wage campaign in Lexington and the Louisville community’s strong response to an awful and threatening letter from the head of the Fraternal Order of Police.

This has also been an emotional week for me on a deeply personal level. June 26 was my last day in my role as Organizing Director with Kentuckians For The Commonwealth. My husband, Justin, recently started a great new job as head of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Our family is beginning to make a transition in that direction.

But first, in just a few hours I will board a plane with my 12-year old son, Hollis, and set out on a 250-mile hike starting in Yosemite National Park! Justin and Myles will join us for the second half of that journey. Once we return in August, I’ll continue to work for a time with KFTC on an exciting special project (shaping a people’s response to climate change and the EPA’s Clean Power Plan), even as our family’s home base shifts to the South this fall.

My job transition is happening almost 23 years to the day after I was hired fresh out of college by KFTC. After my job interview, some friends asked me how it went. I answered, “I don’t think I got the job. But if I did, I think I could be there a long time.” I had a hunch that KFTC would be an extraordinary place for me to learn, contribute, and sink my roots. In the decades since, my respect for this organization and its people has only grown.

It won’t surprise any of you to know that I’m sad beyond words to be leaving Kentucky, our community in Berea, and this remarkable organization. But above all I’m left with overwhelming gratitude. Working with KFTC – and with each one of you – has been the greatest honor and blessing of my life. Thank you for all that you have taught me and shared with me. Thank you for your courage, vision, integrity and love. Individually and collectively, you mean the world to me.

Before I set out on my journey, I do have a few basic requests: 

• Believe in yourselves and take good care of each other. KFTC’s staff and leaders are talented, dedicated and brilliant people. Everything we need is right here. If we lean on each other and support one another, we can bring out our very best.

• Let’s go get ’em (in a loving and non-violent way). This is a critical time for Kentucky and the nation. The politics of Frankfort and Washington are as corrupt, entrenched, and destructive as ever. And yet people everywhere are in motion. People everywhere are pushing back, disrupting the status quo, and striving to create the kind of community and world we want for ourselves and our children. KFTC has such an important role to play. I know you and we will continue to be relentless, visionary, brave and strategic as we push forward.

• Let’s continue to invest in KFTC.  Please consider becoming a Sustaining Giver to KFTC, if you aren’t one already, by clicking here. My own family has, for many years, made modest, monthly contributions to support KFTC’s work. We will happily continue to do so. That’s what it takes to sustain organizations we care about. It’s an easy, important way to help build a powerful and diverse movement for justice in Kentucky. I do hope you’ll take this moment to set up a monthly contribution of any size. And thank you.

As I’ve been preparing for our upcoming hike, I’ve found myself repeating one simple phrase: “Step forward. Step forward. Step forward.” I’ll be doing a lot of stepping on the trail during the month of July. I’ll try to remember to keep putting one foot in front of the other as we make our big move this fall. I am confident that KFTC, also, will keep boldly stepping forward as we rise to meet challenges large and small.

Thank you all for your love and support. I could not be more grateful.

I’ll see you on the trail.

Love,

Lisa Abbott

Elizabeth Wooten, a KFTC member who helped lead the campaign in the 1980s to do away with the broad form deed, died on Monday. She was 91.

Elizabeth and her family fought for many years to protect their land from the strip mining that was rampant in Perry County. The book Making History: The First Ten Years of KFTC, included the following description:

On December 3, 1983, dozens of KFTC members rallied near Bulan at the farm of Perry County widow Elizabeth Wooten … to express their opposition to broad form deeds and their resolve to fight as long as necessary to end their abuses. The Wooten farm lay like a near island, almost surrounded by oceans of strip-mined land. The family had been fighting in court for months to keep Marandco Coal, holder of a broad form deed, off the property, where Elizabeth’s husband was buried. “Before my husband died, he asked [the family] not to let them come on here and strip mine,” Wooten said. “And we’re going to honor that promise. What kind of people would we be if we didn’t?”

With Wooten among the movement’s leaders, KFTC members helped passed a law in the 1984 General Assembly that outlawed the abuses of the broad form deed (these were deeds signed in the late 1800s / early 1900s that severed the ownership of the minerals under the land from the ownership of the land itself; in the 1950s the Kentucky courts interpreted these deeds to allow the mineral owner to strip mine the land without the permission of the surface land owner, and with no obligation to compensate for the damages done).