Spending a summer weekend listening to music will help ensure a safe school for hundreds of children. How? The Mountain Aid concert June 19th-June 20th at Shakori Hills Farm in Chatham County, North Carolina benefits Pennies of Promise, a grassroots campaign to construct a new building for Marsh Fork Elementary School in West Virginia.

Marsh Fork was made famous in the Gill Holland/Mike O’Connell film Mountain Top Removal (if it sounds familiar). It’s sitting in the shadow of a mountaintop removal mine, a mere 225 feet from the coal silo and 400 yards downstream from a leaking sludge dam that holds back nearly three billion gallons of toxic waste.

Independent tests prove coal dust contaminates the elementary school and serves as a direct threat to respiratory health. Ed Wiley, grandfather of a student at the school, started Pennies for Promise after his granddaughter got sick and West Virginia leaders told him the state couldn’t afford to build/wouldn’t build a new school in a safer location. His goal is to raise $8 million to change things.

On-hand for Mountain Aid will be West Virginia native Kathy Mattea, NPR top-ten-er Ben Sollee, American music icon Donna the Buffalo and roots rockers the Sim Redmond Band.

Advance tickets are available for $22.50 and on-site camping, food and craft vendors will be available. Tickets at the gate will cost you $30. For additional information, please visit MTNAID.com.