We hope you and all your loved ones are doing as best you can right now.

Most Americans are now having to consider alarming issues that we don’t normally have to face each day. Our inboxes and newsfeeds are inundated with tips on how to stay healthy in both body and spirit while trying to navigate stay-at-home orders, work layoffs, and fears for the health of our families and communities. 

Beyond washing your hands often for 20 seconds at a time and maintaining physical distance from others, several oft-repeated tips include checking up on others by phone and digital means, setting daily goals, and deepening the sense of purpose you create for your life by your actions and activities. 

Heeding that advice, we want to share some actions you can take today.

Only Two Days Left to Comment: Speak Up for Appalachian Crayfish
The endangered Guyandotte River crayfish and the threatened Big Sandy crayfish (left) only live in the coal-bearing regions of West Virginia, Kentucky, and Virginia.

Mountaintop removal coal mining is killing these species off by destroying their habitat.

After decades of delay, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finally proposed robust protections for 445 stream miles of critical habitat for both of these struggling species.

You know that the mining industry will fight this proposal tooth and nail. That’s why we need you to speak up on behalf of these creatures that have no say on how mining activity threatens to wipe their kind from the face of the Earth.

Please take just a few moment to tell the Fish and Wildlife Service that you support strong protections for these imperiled species, and the our life-giving streams they depend on!

Our allies at the Center for Biological Diversity have made it easy to comment; please click here and comment today. Please personalize your letter. It will have more impact when you say why this issue matters to you.

The Center for Biological Diversity will compile and submit our comments. Please give them time to do so: make your comment by the end of the day on Friday, March 27.

Please ask your friends and family to take this action too.

Help Spread the Word About Voting Options in the Time of COVID-19
Here in West Virginia, many people are wondering how the COVID-19 crisis will impact the May 12 primary and judicial elections.

Update 4:30 p.m. March 26: All registered voters will be mailed an absentee ballot application for the May 12 primary. Repeat, if you are registered, you do not have to request the application. It is automatically being mailed to you.  

The Secretary of State says that voters can expect to receive an absentee ballot application sometime during the week of April 6. Voters who have already requested or submitted an absentee application to their county clerk will be excluded from the mailing to prevent confusion and duplication. However, there may be overlap in requests and mailings by clerks due to natural postal delays, so any voter who receives more than one absentee application may disregard additional application mailings.

To receive an absentee ballot, you must be registered to vote. Use this online tool to check your voter registration status. If you are not yet registered, register and request an absentee ballot. Details on how to do that are here and also here. 

The deadline to register to vote in the WV Primary and Supreme Court election is April 21.

Help Spread the Word About the Need to Take Part in the 2020 Census
Your household can take the 2020 Census in just minutes online.

The annual allocation of $1.5 trillion in federal funds hinges on the decennial Census data, including funding for state and local governments, as well as for nonprofits to deliver services to individuals and communities.

Key programs that receive funding specifically from federal grants include the National School Lunch program, Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Medicaid, Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), Head Start, and Early Head Start.

If you are not a citizen, or otherwise worried that you risk something by taking part in the Census—don’t worry! Your responses to the 2020 Census are safe, secure, and protected by federal law. Your answers can only be used to produce statistics—they cannot be used against you in any way. By law, all responses to U.S. Census Bureau household and business surveys are kept completely confidential.

Stand up and be counted! And please encourage everyone you know ti make certain they have filled out the Census for their households.