Newsletter
Vol. 15, No. 3
August, 2008
We have a website–at last! It’s christianhelpmingo.org. Check it out! And let us know what you think. There are also several other Christian Help sites–one for the Morgantown agency where I worked for twelve years (the website was created after I left); one in Johnson City, IN, started by a friend of mine, Len Murray, who asked our okay to use the name; one in Brooklyn, NY, under the name of CHIPS; and one in Casselberry, FL, serving Central Florida. All are concerned about issues of hunger, poverty, homelessness. There is enough of all of those to go around, and thank God there are Christian Helps in a number of areas. May they multiply, by whatever name!
This Christian Help seems to get busier all the time. I guess all of the “helping in the name of Christ” agencies are, because things are getting tighter all the time for the people we serve. We hear a lot about gas going up, but food is, also. America’s Second Harvest, the organization that serves the nation’s food banks, recently published some figures comparing 2006 and 2008 prices. Corn, for example, has gone from $2.28 to $5.46, wheat from $3.48 to $11.21, rice from $2.25 to $7.20,eggs from $1.45 to $2.18, milk from $3.20 to $3.87. The prices are for the same amounts, of course.
America’s Second Harvest also reports that donations have declined at the very time when requests for food have gone up by 15-20%. The driver for Huntington Area Food Bank, where we get commodities and other food monthly, told me he has never seen that food bank’s warehouse so thin. And you can’t make a meal on salad dressings and ice cream treats!
And we ourselves have noticed the difference in cost of the food we buy for Kentucky families. We are not allowed to give commodities allocated to Mingo County to other states or counties, so we try to keep some basics on hand for our Kentucky neighbors. In just a few months, prices jumped dramatically.
We are also noticing other bad omens for the poor. One is that American Electric Power seems to have toughened its stance. We used to be able to call and request an extension on behalf of one or another of our clients and get it. This week both a worker at the Dept. of Health and Human Resources and I tried to go to bat for some people who received notices on their doors that they were to be disconnected Wednesday. They needed more money than we alone could give. We pointed out that if AEP would give them one more day, they could go to the Coalfield Community Action Program and attend their one-hour Thursday morning class on budgeting and get additional assistance. We both got no for an answer. And it didn’t matter that AEP could just as easily shut them off on Thursday if they failed to attend the class.
And I used to be able to talk a supervisor into breaking Kentucky Power’s horrendous deposits ($220 and up) into two monthly payments. But I have struck out on my last two attempts to persuade them to divide the deposit so that single mothers getting $225 a month (in West Virginia it’s $301) could afford to move into low-income housing. And I was personally told that the fact that a mother needed an oxygen machine in the home was not sufficient cause not to disconnect a family. Maybe they are toughening their workers up for the fall, when utilities are scheduled to go up again.
Health care is another issue. A few weeks ago I had a visit from an older man whose wife had had a second heart attack. We’d helped with medicines after the first until he was able to get her on Medicare for a period. This time, unable to cover her many costly medications on his limited income, he went to two Social Security offices (Williamson and Logan) and was told the only way he could get her on SSI was if he went to the court house and filed for a “friendly divorce.” His eyes filled with tears as he told me he and his wife had married 43 years ago in an Old Regular Baptist Church and they had meant it as a lifetime commitment. He asked me if I thought God would be angry or disappointed in him if he took back his word.
All I could do was assure him that God is more understanding than the Social Security.
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I spent a good bit of time this summer writing grant requests–when I wasn’t working on the Unified Registration System! More later about the URS--I haven’t yet heard from all the states! The grant requests were for our transit program (three of them!) and for our denture program. (We’re nearing 700 dentures.) And we received the second $25,000 from the Steele-Reese Foundation for Martin County, Kentucky, needs. We had no trouble at all spending the first $25,000–plus about $5,000 more. There are a lot of needy people in Martin County.
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Speaking of our transit program, we received a $1,000 donation recently toward the fund for a handicapped accessible vehicle from the family of a young man, Bill Mullin, who died in June at 40 of lung cancer, though he hadn’t smoked for many years. He had become a quadriplegic at 11 as a result of diving into the ocean. Bill had his own handicap-equipped van, which enabled him to volunteer, and he worked as an advocate for the disabled, speaking for better voting booths in his home county and helping others with similar disabilities to learn to use the computer.
We appreciate his family sharing this inspiring story of a man who used his disability to turn outward to help others, and we are grateful for the gift in his honor that will help us to acquire a handicapped accessible vehicle to assist wheelchair bound persons to live more fully.
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Some of you have asked about Sarah. I’m sorry to say that she lost her baby–while she was on bed rest. But she has returned to her day care job and is continuing to work toward certification, so far having passed several qualifying tests, moving toward a career in Early Childhood Education. In the meantime she is making sure that her own older children stay in school and get their education. Peer pressure gets strong for dropping out around here. Thanks for asking!
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We loved having ASP (Appalachian Service Project) in our area once more this summer, making so many homes “warmer, drier, safer ” for Mingo County folks. And we welcomed the Wunderlich family from New Jersey, who spent a working vacation week on their own here, drywalling and making a wood/coal burning stove safe and secure for a home being rebuilt after a fire, and replacing a bedroom floor ruined by water damage for a woman’s trailer.
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Whether it feels like it or not–on this 92 degree day, Christmas isn‘t far away at all. We are very grateful for the things you bring and the boxes you send throughout the year, but if you want to do something special for Christmas, it would be nice if you would send a new clothing article or two–something a child or a teenager would like; shoes (athletic shoes, especially) and sweats are always appreciated. And it doesn’t matter about the size because we generally have over 400 children (up through age 16), and everything fits someone. Teens generally appreciate clothing, as they move out of the toy age. (But they still love electronic games and gadgets!) Please hold all used clothing from Dec, 1 until after Christmas to make the Christmas preparation job easier.
If you would like to be a part of the distribution, it’s on the 20th this year, because the 21st is Sunday. Contact me for details if you are interested in coming. It’s a fun day, and lots of helpers are needed–especially women, to help the moms as they select toys and clothing for their children..
And if you send a gift, please mail it in time to get to us around the 15th. We got lots of nice school supplies, but some boxes arrived after the schools were open (Aug. 12th in Kentucky and Aug. 26th in West Virginia), so the supplies will have to wait for August, 2009. MAIL EARLY!
If you would prefer to help with the food, we usually have around 250 families, some small, some large, most four or five. Just mark your check memo “Xmas Food.” And have a great fall!