WHITLEY CITY, Ky. (ABP) — Wilma Prater has lived in McCreary County, Ky., for 20 years. She likes the peace and quiet, the mountain scenery she can see from her porch, and the friendliness of her neighbors.
She said she wishes McCreary County was a little bigger and had more to offer, but that doesn't bother her too much. After all, she said, she didn't move to the county because it was booming with activity and growth. To that extent, Prater is like many McCreary residents who say that home is wherever their family lives.
“There are a lot of good people here. They are family oriented. They love their land. This is home,” said Nancy Sutton, a 32-year resident of the county who works at the local Catholic mission.
Unfortunately for residents like Sutton and Prater, the area is one of America's poorest counties, according to federal statistics. The community includes families that have lived in the area for generations, dating back to when McCreary had booming coal and lumber industries.
Now coal mining has slowed because coal is expensive and difficult to mine. Partly due to affordability of overseas production, the textile industry has mostly left the county. The county's largest employer is the school system.
In McCreary, limited industry translates into one of the highest unemployment rates in Kentucky. A business strip along U.S. Highway 27 lies in Whitley City, the county seat, but a lack of retail stores forces many residents to shop in nearby cities like Oneida, Tenn., and Somerset, Ky.
Named by United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development as an Enterprise Community in 1994, McCreary County and neighboring Scott County, Tenn., received federal funding for county improvement and economic development based on benchmarks set through community assessments.
One benchmark was improved housing, which led to the formation of the McCreary County Community Housing Development Corporation. It builds affordable, sustainable homes designed to serve a family for several generations. The local board of directors set a higher standard for these homes because they are an investment in the family and the community, according to executive director Donna Thrush.
“To me, housing changes lives. Housing heals,” she said. “Living in a home you can be proud of changes the way you see yourself and your future.”
Poverty is not something McCreary County residents are proud of, Thrush said. That's why doing well what they can do — like building quality houses — is important. Funding for the homes comes from federal, state and private grants, as well as low-interest mortgage loans secured by participating families.
The housing development corporation employs a construction crew of local residents. Donated home-improvement supplies are also distributed to Appalachian homeowners for a minimal handling fee that helps support the program.
According to Thrush, it's just one way to plant seeds of change as residents learn they can revitalize their own lives.
The Kentucky Baptist Fellowship, in conjunction with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, has also partnered with the development team and recently built a home for a McCreary family with a disabled child. Organizers said the partnership, which involved 150 volunteers, was important not only to building the house but to encouraging a community organization.
“It's really hard to do affordable housing, and it's expensive to do it right,” Thrush said. “When you have volunteers come in, it says that what we're doing is important.”
The Kentucky group also partnered with the Christian Appalachian Project, which operates a community center and a child-development center that offers GED classes. The community center houses support groups for alcoholics and narcotic addicts and offers community meeting places.
Good Shepherd Catholic Mission also emphasizes families. They run a mobile preschool, where a parent joins his or her child in the learning activities. The church also houses a clothing closet and started a medical clinic among other ministries.
Another partner is the McCreary Christian Center, which offers a food pantry, free medical clinic and pharmacy, nutrition classes for diabetics, an annual community health fair, and health screenings a few times a year.
Collectively, these efforts contribute to community development, a long-term process that could make McCreary County a better place for its residents.
“It's a beautiful place to live,” Thrush said. “Right now there's not a lot of opportunity, but we're trying to change that.”
-30-
— Carla Wynn is a news writer for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Photo available from ABP.