Mission Appalachia - The Story of Red Bird, Chapter 1

you when he arrived in the Redbird Valley dr. John de Waal was overcome with inspiration he remarked when the Lord made the land surrounding red bird in the Cumberlands he made a great creators masterpiece as if in a happy playful mood he piled the rocks and dirt into high majestic mountains then he clothed those mounds like Jacobs favorite son with a coat of many colors colors of green and amber and scarlet and gold then with a mighty finger he traced the course for the mountain streams in the summertime these streams happily chant a great creator's praise in the rainy season órale declare his mighty power overall this grandeur and beauty the Creator has stretched a canopy of the bluest blue set in the daytime with most dazzling sunlight and in the nighttime the brightest star light and whitest moonlight of any place in the world deep within the forests of Eastern Kentucky as a mission community of refuge and hope the mountain people of these hollers refer to it simply and affectionately as red bird this mission has been in operation for nearly 100 years the dedicated staff and countless volunteers are committed to bringing relief and support to the people of this mystical region what makes the Redbird mission so unique is its methodology this effort seeks to partner with mountain people of Appalachia providing them encouragement and the resources lift themselves out of sometimes dire circumstances and into a more hopeful future nearly 3,000 volunteers from all over the United States make the trek each year to bring relief to the people of Central Appalachia tens of thousands are in need here and here we will find a wonderful exchange of culture and spirit between the volunteers and the mountain people they have come to serve when that was taken as years and years ago Reva Hubbard is an 88 year old who lives alone in her sparsely populated holler she explains why she first contacted the people of commission they come a store wind storm here and hit blow part of a roof off of the pass back here and I couldn't get nobody to get up her agreement back then well I picked fold up a dark hole or where and a man milling my John answered me and I said Jill I said my house part of it just blowed off the top of it well he said honey I'm sorry I can't cover today that was old a Friday but he said I'll be there abundant in and open the morning just a little later I got out of bed while he was out here now looking at the house and they come straight old and put me on the top over a her sister lives right over here mister comes up every day and checks on a reserve robbing really takes very good care of car and it's just the two of them left out of eight siblings of your parents the working conditions and small homes can often be crammed working in a home up in a holler called fish trap these volunteers are quickly learning to be flexible and resourceful on the jobsite sibiu 916 that's a full set take that back to chuck not that one the next one down there you go mary suffers from macular degeneration she can see some like and she can get around the house by herself I picked cataract surgery both eyes that's when they found out I had a michael generation disease that's what's wrong my eyes but Mary does not allow her troubled eyesight to impair her sense of viewer I don't have very much of a psychic I can't read I'm not reading my my own Guignard she tells the story about a volunteer from the mission that she recently encountered and for whom she has developed a fondness a group here from Oklahoma and Candace and when the neighbor hand was here he's trotting around her got on the corner line laid she laid and she started cackling and he said what um this woman said what's had he in a saying hey he said she's a saying that she's laid and you leave her eggs along she don't want touched he said Oh Marie you leave post Ellie there was a fire in inside the trailer and there were obvious smoke damage and fire damage inside the trailer justice was in his mid to late 40s and he had been involved in a fairly serious motorcycle accident so he was still in the process of recovery every time I bugs a little black bugs they stay late now I'll jump up every morning put bug goes on there that d-von such the hunt forget I ordered that now electric bug but hidden they ship you tell me and I plant it they're older dad's and poor little bushes up early fat little trees bushes back here my name is Elaine and I'm from upstate New York Webster New York I'm dental hygienist she lost her trailer to a fire she's had this replacement trailer for a year my name's Harry I'm 61 year old retired railroad engineer from manlius New York which is right near Syracuse a couple of knowledgeable people here the rest of us are sorta you know you tell me where to put the nail and I'll do it she was a truck driver had a truck rollover and she was in pretty bad shape it's falling down in all regards and it's the roof leaks the ceilings falling down this is her family's mountain she's lived on this place for 32 years each team of volunteers is assigned a crew leader from the mission such as the case with Tim ball Tim is a new addition to the mission staff one year ago Tim's family was abruptly cast homeless while having their mobile home positioned on their new home site an accident during the move severely damaged the structure trailer was literally broken in half across the middle they quickly purchased another mobile home but it was uninhabitable so they contacted the mission nearly every corner of the structure required work from setting the foundation to preparing the roof for a new coat of sealant - connecting the sanitary sewer line and installing Windows the volunteers work alongside Tim's family their daughter Amber picks up a shovel to help dig the trench so that the new sewer line can be placed their son Nicholas is an energetic curious young boy one of the volunteers is an 11 year old girl named Savannah she becomes fast friends with Amber and Nicholas the kids take up the task of setting posts that will support the steps to the front door thanks to the aid of volunteers down from Indiana the home will be ready for Tim's family within a few days the need goes much farther than repairing homes Tracy Nolan is the director of community outreach she had members of her staff working in conjunction with state and federal programs are mounting a response to the hunger problem community aid services like the food bank Red Bird missionary conference right now is helping to purchase the food we use God's pantry out of Lexington I'm Bob Greene from Centralia Missouri I'm a commodity tech I've been well trained I'm proud to be here serving Jesus Christ some residents are able to drive themselves to the mission but many others are family members picking up the boxes for their elderly parents or grandparents on this day basic food resources will be distributed to approximately one hundred and sixty-eight residents mostly elderly sometimes disabled oh I forgot all about the car didn't know did I give you one for Lola alright next month I should have more you doing all right well we all have knuckle cold we gotta kind of get lowered but the need continues even beyond housing and food this is the clothing that has brought in from various loads and we start stacking here Kraig dial is the director of economic opportunities he oversees a seemingly impossible task of receiving processing and distributing an enormous volume of clothing and other household items it provides clothing for people at low prices it has nine full-time employees our sales are about two hundred forty five thousand dollars a year early in the 20s the missionaries were handing out the clothing and one of the gentlemen who gave the land to the mission to have the school said you ought not to do that these people have some pride and so since then the mission has always charged little something for clothing because when you pay for clothing you have a sense of ownership and you also have a sense of providing for your family in the year 2000 it became apparent that more space was needed in order to stage a larger response so the mission mobilised a team of volunteers yet again this time they were given the task of building the warehouse to support the community stores growing inventory when the structure was complete the first trucks began to a small team of employees that work here along with the occasional volunteers process nearly 40,000 cubic feet of donated items each year and each item is inspected by hand one article at a time it will be sorted categorized cleaned and made ready for the showroom floor when people look at this and see all this that's in front of them they say well that looks like it's going to be really impossible to do and I say don't tell them it's impossible they don't know that all we've been interested in public health and community health nursing but I wanted a deeper purpose in life we have to partner with the local government with churches with individuals to make a difference is the whole community effort clients come in I don't necessarily see them as a client that is beyond help I see them as a child of God that is just burdened or is in a very difficult challenging place it does come with some sadness there are some difficult situations where families find themselves struggling for a long time or we don't come out with a solution that fixes everything but definitely may improve things are less than the pain or lessen the hardship I want them to feel good about themselves so they can go home and enjoy their family and look forward to the future and then hopefully in return they'll want to get back and it'll be better place a wonderful community for my children to grow up in and I look forward to continue to serve for many years to come well I just picked me some four-leaf clovers this one Vera pick here's the finally see the Tiffany's right in the center I've got live little leaves in there extra good I'm trying to get saved there were no doctors in the Redbird Valley when at the wall in 1981 the school and gymnasium were destroyed by fire

Channel: Todd Scoggins

Views: 643,358

Keywords: mission, appalachia, the, story, of, red, bird, todd, scoggins, troye, kinnett, human, rights, compassion, charity, louisville, international, film, festival, clearwater, rivers, edge, macon, sierra, nevada, award, mountain, kentucky, cumberland, documentary, homer, ledford, steve, eulberg, david, powell

Id: AwwlPGXJeT8

Length: 18min 7sec (1087 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 10 2011