Volunteers pay tribute to King with service to others

By Cheryl Keenan

BEARDS FORK — Each year on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, volunteers from the Southern Appalachian Labor School (SALS) pay tribute to the slain civil rights leader by helping others. The 2010 “Day of Service” was observed last Monday.

Volunteers worked on three different projects, along with the addition of a special project to raise donations to help in the recovery effort in Haiti. The projects ranged from construction crews working on the rehabilitation of a house in North Page to constructing planting boxes for a gardening project at the Beards Fork Community Center.

Also that day, a tribute concert was held featuring West Virginia’s First Lady of Gospel, Ethel Caffie-Austin, a Mount Hope native who has traveled the world performing and teaching.

Caffie-Austin reminded those gathered the importance of passing along the message of Dr. King and accounts of the struggles faced by African Americans to achieve equality.

“A lot of kids today don’t know anything about this. We need to try to instill in them the idea of the importance of this day. It takes us to do that because the kids don’t know,” she said. “They just take what we do for granted and how we live for granted.”

Caffie-Austin recounted a story from her youth to illustrate to the youngsters in the audience the trials people faced and the degree to which society has changed.

“My grandfather lived in Birmingham, Ala., and we’d go visit him. I can recall one time my mother sent me to the store to get some hamburger. My mother sent me to the store and she was not thinking. I know she was not thinking.

“I was in Birmingham, Ala., and I went to the meat counter and the man, he threw that hamburger at me.

“I had never encountered anything like that. I was from Mount Hope and everyone got along there. All I knew was I wanted to get out of there and get back home,” she said.

In addition to Caffie-Austin’s performance of such favorites as “We Shall Overcome” and “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” the Step By Step players led the audience in sing-alongs, and the SALS Choir performed “Abraham, Martin and John” while a candle-lighting ceremony was held. Charlene “Red” Newkirk, director of the SALS after-school program, and Olivia Grasty, a Valley High student, lit candles in memory of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and John and Robert Kennedy. Finally, following a prayer by Caffie-Austin, a candle was lit in memory of those who lost their lives in the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Dr. John David, director of SALS, and Alicia Young, a WVU Tech history student who volunteers at SALS, both spoke to those gathered of the connection between the United States and Haiti, and the need for support of the relief efforts in that small island nation.

“This country would not be in existence if it weren’t for Haiti,” David said, going on to explain that Haitian soldiers joined the French in fighting the British in this nation’s Revolutionary War.

“We have a significant debt to the Haitian people,” he said. “We have a strong historic relationship with Haiti and a responsibility to her people.”

Young discussed the efforts of a number of Tech students to raise donations for recovery in Haiti, and reminded those gathered of the 2001 floods which devastated Fayette County.

“It’s very important that we help them,” she said. “It’s just like the flood in 2001. If nobody came down here (in Beards Fork) and helped us, where would we be?

“They had almost nothing to begin with, now they have less than nothing. We’ve got to do something. I just want to encourage you to donate. I don’t care if it’s 50 cents. Send something.”

SALS volunteers have also been working the computers, sending e-mails seeking donations for Haiti relief.

Since its organization in 1977, initially to educate local workers and others about labor law, unions and organization, SALS has grown to include programs for low income housing, weatherization and rehabilitation of homes, three programs for children, two separate food assistance programs, and Youthbuild/Americorps/Americorps VISTA programs through the Corporation for National Service.

David said the organization has expanded over the years as needs have grown.

“I think that we have a situation where the conditions have gotten worse in our area and people are in greater need,” he said last week.

“If they have any income, it’s less. If they are employed, they’re often under-employed. They’re all having problems.”

To learn more about SALS, call 304-779-2772, or visit the program housed at the Beards Fork Community Center, the old Beards Fork Elementary School.

— E-mail:

ckeenan@register-herald.com