Old North News

Those who want to help Pilot Mountain State Park continue to recover from last year’s devastating wildfire and have a bright future have a simple way to help thanks to the recently introduced Pilot Mountain license plates.

The license plate was devised as a way to raise money to preserve the fire after someone contacted a local non-profit, the Friends of Sauratown Mountains, about a year before the most recent blaze roared through the park. Almost a year to the day after the 2021 blaze started, the fundraising program has already helped the park down the path to recovery.

"One of our goals of Friends of Sauratown Mountains is to preserve our parks,” Debbie Laden, president of the group, said in a WXII report. “Any funding, donations, fundraisings such as this campaign is very important to us to support the park.” 

The license plates carry a higher annual fee than North Carolina’s standard designs, with $20 of each fee going to help preserve the state park’s trails and to fund educational programs that include teaching about how to prevent forest fires.

"A lot of this community rose up, and said, ‘Hey this plate, we need to get behind the support of this plate,’” Vaden said. Her organization has sold more than 350 license plates so far, generating more than $7,000.

Vaden said she's very grateful for the community's support.

”We often take for granted what’s in our backyard, and it made our community realize, we love our mountain,” she said. “We need to do what we can to support and preserve it. So people stepped up." 

Kathy George, who purchased the plate to support her hometown community, said it’s a simple thing people can do to make sure future generations can get in touch with nature at one of the state’s more popular attractions.

"It’s very big to give back to the community because the community being a small town, we have to depend on each other, and we’re lucky to have Pilot Mountain,” George said.