You can always tell when the fall season settles on the mountains of Appalachia. Most noticeable to the eye are the magnificent colors of the trees as they turn to brilliant shades of orange, yellow, and red. To complement the sight your nose may pick up the faint smell of a fireplace drifting out of one of the many hollers that connect one mountain with the other. With your senses engaged and perhaps your thoughts of times past, you may quickly believe you are in paradise. However, this paradise is not so pretty.
Below the beauty are hungry children, families living in inadequate houses, isolated elderly and undeserved disabled individuals living in the stark black and white of poverty. Let me tell you about Jessie.
CAP received a referral for an elderly man, who was living in a camper located in a rural section of one of the eastern Kentucky coal-field counties we serve. When we arrived to meet Jessie we found him to be an 80 year old gentleman who was living in an old, 12 ft. pull-behind camper, with no running water, no electric, no septic service and limited propane gas. He even had to cook his meals outside, sometime in miserable weather. Most amazing, Jessie has been living like this for 15 years.

On the outside of the camper he had a make shift table, a home-made fire pit for cooking, a small ice chest for his food that required refrigeration, a love seat that he had attempted to build a shelter over to protect from the weather (the make shift roof with rusted tin attached to a tree.) There was also a shelf that he had attached to the tree to put personal & food items in for storage.
On the inside of the camper he has a small bed and an old car seat to sit on. He washes his clothes and bathes in the creek and has a line in the yard to dry his clothes. He is truly doing the best he can. He said during the summer he stays outside as much as he can and loves eating his caned sausage gravy and eggs prepared over the pit. He was in smiles the day of the visit because he had just returned from the store with candles and would have some light that night; he had not had any candles for 2 weeks.
People of Appalachia are a very resilient people, and so is Jessie. But without CAP's help, he will be left to struggle alone.
Make your generous gift now to CAP so we can continue to offer help to isolated elderly people like Jessie and many other families struggling in desperate need.