Family Advocacy

A visit to Ruby Alcorn’s cozy trailer in Rockcastle County is to revel in stories about the people she has known and the activities she has participated in during her 40 plus years of friendship with the Christian Appalachian Project.

She recalls a special relationship with Sister Sara Fredlock, one of CAP’s earliest volunteers, who would come to the family’s home to give Ruby a break from caring for her eight children. She remembers Keith Gilbertson, a CAP teacher, who gave Ruby the encouragement to write personal memoirs while she was working on her GED. And Becky Kana, at the Child and Family Development Center, who taught her grandson, Joe.

While Joe was enrolled in the program, before starting kindergarten, Ruby volunteered at the school. With other parents, she helped in the kitchen, supervised children in their play activities and served as a “surrogate grandmother” to the preschoolers. And to the volunteers who taught in the school, as well!

When Ruby’s children were young, the family participated in CAP’s Christmas Basket program; today, Ruby and many other participants in CAP Elderly Services receive a box of food and a small Christmas remembrance. CAP celebrates Christmas, as well, with the families who participate in Family Advocacy, Family and Child Development Centers and housing programs. Robyn Renner, manager of the Family Advocacy and Housing programs, says the Christmas Basket program is a celebration intended to solidify the organization’s friendship with people who participate in CAP programs throughout the year.

The celebration begins with a service that includes scripture reading, singing and praying. Several days later, families gather at distribution sites to pick up a basket of gifts that have been selected specifically for them by CAP donors who have been matched weeks earlier as family sponsors. In 2009, donors from all over the United States sponsored nearly 700 families in a dozen counties served by CAP in Eastern Kentucky.

CAP Christmas Baskets are still a part of the Alcorn family Christmas as they not only attend the yearly service, but Ruby’s daughter, Cynthia Harms, comes to Mount Vernon from her home in Arizona to help with distribution every year. In 2009, Cynthia again worked with a group of volunteers from St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati, who have made a trip to help with the distribution of CAP Christmas Baskets every year since the mid-1970s.

Ruby’s stories of the Christian Appalachian Project are older than many of the volunteers who visit her now. Her stories are so compelling, that not long after an assignment, Family Advocacy volunteers arrive on Ruby’s doorstep to hear more.

“Ruby comes to the office at least once a month to visit and check in on us,” Robyn says. “She brings us vegetables from her garden and she always has a big smile. Sometimes she’ll take a look at me and say, ‘Honey, you look like you need a vacation!’”

In 2007, Family Advocacy had changed its name from CAP Outreach. “The new title more aptly describes the goals of the program,” Robyn says. If a family comes to the office with a utility bill that is past due—and many people do just that—CAP helps with the immediate need, but then works with the family to determine why they are unable to meet their monthly bills.

“Has someone in the family been laid off?” Robyn repeats. “That’s been happening a lot lately.” Families might be in dire need because of illness or medical bills or other unexpected expenses. Many times the root cause of the problem is the lack of education.

“For years, we’ve talked about giving people a hand up and not a hand out. It’s slow, but we really see some improvement coming in this area,” Robyn says. “We’re shifting to really working with families and not just giving them $50 which will barely see them through until the next time they come to the office.”

Family Advocacy works closely with CAP’s food pantry, Grateful Bread, and used clothing store, Grateful Threadz, which are next door to the offices in Mount Vernon. “This has been a good partnership because those programs can help people with immediate needs while we are able to look at long-term solutions like budget training and education,” Robyn says.

An annual retreat for women sponsored by CAP Family Advocacy is a highlight of Ruby’s year. In the early 1990s, the retreat hosted about 20 women at Camp Andrew Jackson. In April 2009, 56 women attended the program, which featured guest speaker, Medina Allen. “The numbers have been growing every year,” says Robyn. “We can’t get too much bigger, because of the number of beds at Camp AJ, but the women really love it!”

For many of those who attend, the retreat serves as a vacation from work or children or household responsibilities. Robyn and Ruby agree that the rejuvenation attendees experience has a positive impact on the community as well as their own families. “They come away with so much more to give.”

The women love being accepted for who they are, “and being with people who don’t look down on them,” an occurrence that is far too common for many of them, Robyn reports.

Since so many women come every year, “It’s almost like a big family reunion!” Ruby adds. In addition to group discussions, crafts and speakers, the week includes good food and self-esteem building activities. The women who attend are those who participate in other CAP programs and range in age from their 20s to their 70s. “We had a woman with Alzheimer’s and her caretaker…At the end of the week, we have an affirmation ceremony and everyone writes in everyone else’s program booklet.”

Robyn and the Family Advocacy workers say that the progress of making systematic change on problems that have existed for many generations is slow, but change is coming, nevertheless. Eliminating obstacles in education is one way to make those changes a reality.

The School Readiness program provides progress in education for children. Low income families who have even one child in school often face back-to-school expenses that they are unable to meet. In the late summer of 2009, over 500 students (from kindergarten to 12th grade) returned to school with new backpacks loaded with school supplies and dressed in new clothes that would make the first day of school special. To reduce the barriers that often make low-income children feel second-rate in a school setting, CAP supplies a backpack filled with supplies that will help students succeed. Robyn and the Family Advocacy workers thank CAP’s Operation Sharing, in-kind distribution program.

CAP Family Advocates work in conjunction with other groups in the region, groups that often target only one need. For example, whenever possible, if a person needs assistance with heating during the winter, a CAP worker will connect that person with a local Community Action Agency, which administers a federal heating program from November through January. They work in conjunction with family resource centers at the public schools, as well as extension agencies in all of the counties they serve.

By assuring that it is not providing services that are available from other agencies in the community, CAP is able to stretch its resources as efficiently as possible. Often those agencies have a government mandate concerning their work; as a private group, CAP has more flexibility in the services it is able to provide.

Although Family Advocates have a long-term goal of systemic change, its day-to-day activities are still focused on one family at a time. “We help proud people who are caught by circumstances,” Robyn says. “They need a short-term boost, and we can see a difference in those families in as little as six months.”
Family Advocacy has guidelines and direction, but also the flexibility needed to help people who come in with unusual situations. And those are not at all uncommon, Robyn says. “Sometimes you’ll have a situation that just tugs at your heart, and we’ll find ourselves doing something we don’t usually do. But I say to myself, ‘if we can’t help them, then what are we here for?’”