Friends of the Smokies and Ole Smoky Distillery Partner to Support Great Smoky Mountains National Park — Mon, Nov 17, 2025

Ole Smoky Distillery continues to support worthy causes in the community, including their longtime support of Friends of the Smokies, one of the non-profit partners of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. 

Ole Smoky Distillery has supported Friends of the Smokies since they opened, and starting in 2020 the distillery donated a portion of their sales of their Blackberry Moonshine each year to Friends of the Smokies, a tradition that makes a huge difference in the community where Ole Smoky got its start. The distillery presented a check for $105,000 on Thursday. 

"It's very exciting for Ole Smoky to be able to give back to Friends of the Smokies and particularly this year, with all of the challenges of operating national parks that we've been able to contribute to keep the parks open so that everybody can continue to enjoy the Incredible experience here in the mountains." said Ole Smoky CEO Michael Novy

Friends of the Smokies is a nonprofit that helps support Great Smoky Mountains National Park in a number of ways, most prominently through its Trail Forever and Forever Places programs.

“The support we get from Ole Smoky is critical in helping us meet the park’s most critical needs, and this year our park needs our support more than ever,” said Friends of the Smokies President and CEO Dana Soehn.

“This long government shutdown really impacted park operations and if it weren’t for our communities and Friends of the Smokies our park would not have been open in October and this November the last couple of weeks. But with their support we have been able to keep the park staffed during this busy holiday season and funds from our friends at Ole Smoky are going to help us to continue to offer the support to the park in the upcoming year.”

Trails Forever is an $8 million endowment that supports a full-time trail crew to reconstruct and rehabilitate some of the park’s most impacted trails. Some of the trails they have rehabilitated include Alum Cave, Forney Ridge, and Rainbow Falls.

The Forever Places program helps to protect and preserve some of the historic sites in the park, including cabins, churches, mills and barns. The Friends of the Smokies started Forever Places with an endowment established in 2020 with a goal of raising $9 million. That fundraising goal is getting closer to realization.

For more information about Friends of the Smokies, visit friendsofthesmokies.org.

Source: The Mountain Press