By 8 a.m. Saturday, tables of donated clothes, books and household items lined a Morgan County yard, each price tag doing double duty: raising a few dollars and sending a message to a company the community has been fighting for months.
The sale was organized by Say No to Data Centers Morgan County, a group that formed to oppose a proposed bitcoin mining facility near residents’ homes. What started as a request for donations on Facebook turned into a full-fledged fundraiser, with neighbors contributing whatever they could spare in the weeks leading up to the event.
“Find a different place,” organizer Lyndsey Hutson said, describing the group’s central message. If a data center has to be built, she said, it shouldn’t be next to where people live.
Hutson said the opposition isn’t rooted in politics but in everyday concerns: noise, traffic and strain on power infrastructure.
“We have people all across the spectrum on our street, in our community, and we’re saying as a whole that we don’t want things here — they need to be in certain places. Ideally an industrial park,” she said.
The fight has grown more complicated as the project’s ownership has shifted. The company originally behind the facility, Voltcore, is now operating under eight different shell companies, according to organizers, making it hard to know who to hold accountable. A moratorium the group previously fought for hasn’t offered the protection they expected, either.
“We got the moratorium, but it was in name only,” organizer Carlee Carlton said. “We found out they were doing it essentially to pacify us, and about a month later we understood the county wasn’t doing anything to protect us. We were going to have to do it ourselves.”
Every dollar raised Saturday will go toward environmental studies and legal fees, Hutson said, describing the sale as one more tool in a fight that’s stretched on far longer than organizers expected.
“We just feel that these companies are taking advantage of the fact that we have minimal regulations out here,” she said.
For organizer Hannah Landers, the turnout was a reminder that the fight has resonated beyond her own street.
“This is happening all across the country. I never thought it would happen in my little hometown of Somerville, Alabama, but here we are,” Landers said. “The power of community and the love we’ve felt from people donating and sharing on Facebook, coming to our events, has truly been uplifting. If there’s any encouragement I can give to other communities, it’s to get out and get involved.”
Their goal, Carlton said, is simple: “To not have the data center built right next to everybody’s house.”
Those who missed Saturday’s sale can still get involved. The group’s Facebook page and a link to donate are available HERE.