The Friday Finish - Elders Eating Local - Enrollment Rising - Scrubber Needs to Retire - AppalReD Helps Closure - "One of a kind" - The Mountain Still Remembers
- Tim Crawford
- 8 hours ago
- 10 min read
May 29, 2026
Fresh Garden Food, Without All the Hoeing: How Senior Farmers Market Cards Help Our Elders Keep Eating Local
For a lot of elders in our hills, “going to the garden” used to be as normal as breathing. They were raised on beans, corn, and tomatoes they grew themselves. As the years go by, though, bodies slow down. Knees hurt, backs get stiff, and that long row of beans doesn’t look quite as inviting as it used to. The Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program steps in right at that gap, helping elders keep fresh vegetables on their tables—without having to do all the hard work of tending a garden themselves.
This spring, Red Bird Mission received 39 Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program cards for Clay County residents age 60 and over who meet income guidelines. Each card is worth $50 and can be used at the Red Bird Mission Farmers Market to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables. By Wednesday, May 27, local interest has been so strong that 38 of those 39 cards have already been claimed, with only one card left.
The idea is simple, but the impact spreads in a lot of directions. I spoke with Tracy Nolan, who helps coordinate the Red Bird Mission Farmers Market. She said participants really seem to benefit from the program, especially when it comes to access to fresh, local produce. She encourages everyone to sign up on the waiting list. The cards can be used on Fridays at the market, which runs from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Red Bird Mission. Elders can walk through, talk with neighbors, and pick up garden goodness grown right here in our own community.
That connection between elders and local producers is by design. When a senior uses their card, they’re not just buying food—they’re supporting a neighbor who is still able to plant, pick, and haul produce to market. It keeps garden food flowing from the same hills and hollers many of them once farmed themselves. I spoke with two participants, Ruby and Ester, at Community Outreach. Both of them have signed up for the program before and were quick to say they find it helpful and enjoyable.
The Farmers Market itself is getting ready for another busy season. The grand opening for this year’s Red Bird Mission Farmers Market is set for Friday, June 12. This season, 18 vendors are signed up to accept both WIC and Senior Farmers Market benefits—a big jump from the early years, when only 5–7 vendors participated, and even from last year’s 10. That growth means seniors have more options than ever. They can choose from a wider variety of produce, meet more local growers, and find the specific foods they grew up on, whether that’s half‑runner beans, tomatoes, new potatoes, or greens.
At the heart of it, this program honors something true about our elders: they built their lives on garden food. Most of them spent decades planting, hoeing, canning, and putting up the harvest so their families could eat well. Now, as age brings its own limits, the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program offers a way to keep that tradition going without asking them to push a tiller or drag a hose. In a small but powerful way, those $50 cards do more than stretch a grocery budget. They help elders stay rooted in the food and fellowship that has always sustained our mountains, one basket of garden goodness at a time.
- Kayla Smith, Development Gifts and Media
2026-27 Enrollment Rising
Principal Jennifer Wilder reported Tuesday that new enrollments for Red Bird Christian School (RBCS) have already increased the student population to 130 for the upcoming 2026-27 school year, and more may be on the way. Seven new students have enrolled after the Red Bird Mission (RBM) Board of Directors abolished the student tuition requirement on May 14th. With limited RBCS Office opening days during the summer, families can also pick up applications at RBM Community Outreach and the RBM Community Store five days a week. Principal Wilder also reported that the dormitory applications are also higher for this year with 16 students accepted.
RBCS depends on private contributions as a non-public school operating without public funding. Meals are covered by the Hot Lunch Program, and some services are provided through Title I, but it still costs approximately $7,000 to educate a student each year. The RBM Board asks that individuals and churches consider a monthly donation to invest in the Christian leadership formation taking place at RBCS.
Vintage Scrubber Needs to Retire
Thanks to the installation of the new chiller at Red Bird Christian School, building maintenance this summer won’t be as dangerous for the custodial staff and volunteers when the temperatures rise. Regardless of the building temperature, stripping and re-waxing floors is one of the important jobs done each summer to prolong the longevity of the floor tiles. Allen Wilder, Red Bird Mission Compliance Support Manager, has been offering his decades of previous experience to guide Custodians Ethan Smith and Amey Gibson as they came new to these positions last year.
Like most equipment at Red Bird, the floor scrubber at the school needs to be retired to improve the floor preparation process. Allen researched costs and found funding sources to cover the two-thirds of the cost of a new scrubber, but $2,800 is still needed to make the purchase. If you’d like help replace the “vintage” floor scrubber with a new, efficient scrubber, click the link to make a contribution, or mail a check payable to Red Bird Mission, Inc., 70 Queendale Ctr, Beverly, KY 40913-9607 marked “school floor scrubber.”
Ethan and Amey thanks you!
AppalReD Helps Bring Closure
The AppalReD Legal Aid free legal assistance clinic is on the Red Bird Mission (RBM) Queendale Campus today providing materials and information to help people bring resolution to legal issues. RBM Community Outreach Director Tracy Nolan shared that one person got closure this week on an issue that AppalReD Legal Aid staff assisted with at one of the monthly clinics hosted by Red Bird Mission.
She had been separated for over 5 years and her ex even lives in a different state, but she didn’t have the funds for a divorce lawyer and didn’t know where to start. She responded to the free AppalReD law clinics held here at Red Bird Mission 6 months ago. Today, in the mail, she received her final divorce decree. She was very thankful for the free local assistance that enabled her to complete this for herself.
“One of a kind”
Kim Nantz, Red Bird Mission Volunteer Coordinator, shared with us this week that one of our faithful, long-term volunteers, Hope Duke, passed on to glory. Hope blessed the ministry of Red Bird Mission (RBM) and the people served by Red Bird with her caring, thoughtful service for many years. She first came as a Work Camp team member, but decided to come back as an individual volunteer to help sort and prepare the loads of clothes and donated items for sale in the RBM Community Store.
Kim first met Hope in 2017 when Kim was working as the Red Bird Clinic, Inc., bookkeeper. Kim recalls,
I became friends with Hope when Marsha Roark was the HR Director/Volunteer Coordinator. When she would come in for a week, she always baked brownies or chocolate chip cookies and brought some to the Admin office for us to share.
During the pandemic, I was moved to Volunteer Coordinator and got really close with Hope. We would call often and chat for at least an hour.
She would say,
"Are you home?”
And, I would say
“Yes.”
"Good, we can talk a long time!"
I will forever remember her kind and sweet heart. She was one of a kind.
The Mountain Still Remembers: Wiley Asher, Decoration Day, and the Ones Who Served
Link to this story by Kayla Smith for more photos and layout in the blog post.
When Memorial Day rolls around, the whole country takes a quiet moment to remember the brave men and women who went off to war and laid down their lives for our freedom. But down here in the Red Bird River valley, the holiday has always stretched a little wider. Following our old mountain traditions of Decoration Day, late spring is when we go up on the hillsides, clean off the graves and lay flowers for all our people who have gone before us—our kin, our neighbors, and the folks who made this valley what it is. When you stand in those cemeteries scattered across Clay, Leslie, and Bell counties, you notice a special kind of mountain hero: the boys who went through the fires of combat, made it back home across the ocean, and spent the rest of their days pouring their hearts into these hills.
From the Red Bird Hills to Patton's Tank Army
One of those boys was my great great-uncle, Wiley Asher (1925–1996). Wiley was born right on New Year’s Day in Roark, and he grew up like most mountain boys back then, knowing the value of hard work. When World War II broke out, he didn't waste any time. Just three days after he turned 18, he walked down to the draft board in Manchester to sign up.
My cousin, David Asher, shared some of the family history with me about Uncle Wiley’s time in the service, and it's a story worth telling. Wiley ended up as a tank driver in General Patton’s Tank Army, pushing hard through France. David told me that one day, as Wiley was driving his tank over one of those massive European hedgerows, an enemy shell hit the underside of the tank. The blast didn't leave a scratch on the outside of him, but the pure concussion blew out his eardrum. It caused him hearing trouble for the rest of his days—he used to keep cotton stuffed in his ear later in life—and that blast is what awarded him his Purple Heart. Wiley stayed in for his full tour, pushing all the way westward into Germany at the war’s end.
Wiley didn't fall on the battlefield, but he brought the weight of that war back home to Eastern Kentucky. He went off and got a college education then brought that knowledge right back to the very place that raised him.
-The One-Room School at Lower Blue Hole
Wiley married Mable Collett, and together they set down deep roots. Wiley became a well-known schoolteacher in these parts. Cousin David remembers going to school under his Uncle Wiley from the 4th through the 8th grade at the old "Lower Blue Hole" school, a one-room schoolhouse that stood near the Red Bird Mission Cardinal House. The school room was heated by a big old pot-belly stove, the boys and girls had to carry drinking water in from a well, and they had outside toilets. But David says the education they got inside those walls didn't hold anyone back one bit.
Wiley was a deeply kind-hearted and highly intelligent teacher. He started every single morning by reading out of the Bible and leading the children in hymns. His classroom ran like a little community: everything in its place, older students helping the younger ones along. When lunchtime came around in the fall and spring, they’d swallow down their food real quick so they could get to a big game of softball with Wiley playing right along with them. After lunch, the kids would settle in and listen as Wiley read chapters from The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew.
-His Longest Battle: Fighting for Higher Education
You see, Wiley fought bravely for his country across the sea, but when he came back home to the mountains, his longest and most important battle began. He looked at the children of our valley and decided that a one-room schoolhouse shouldn't be the end of their road. Wiley became an advocate for higher education, believing with all his heart that our mountain kids deserved the exact same opportunities as anyone else in the world.
He didn't just teach those eight grades at Lower Blue Hole; he built a bridge to the future. He fought to pave the way so his own children, his nephews like David, and future generations of mountain kids could break new ground. Because of the trail he helped blaze, local kids could eventually walk out of those hollers and into the classroom, graduate high school, and head off to college. If you pass by our Asher Family Cemetery, right on the hill above the Red Bird School, you can see Uncle Wiley’s headrock. It has a picture of him on it, proud in his Army cap, watching over the school and the community he loved so dear.
Part of a Long Red Bird Tradition
Wiley’s story doesn’t stand alone. His life of service fits into a long line of Red Bird men who went when their country called and then came back home and went right back to work for these mountains.
Senator Johnnie L. Turner: A mountain boy who worked hard to graduate from the Red Bird Mission School, served in the Army in the late '60s, and went on to spend his life as a lawyer and State Senator, always looking out for fellow veterans.
George Norton, Jr.: Raised in the local mission home, he graduated from Red Bird in 1966 and gave over 30 years to the U.S. military. When he finally retired, he came right back home to serve on the Red Bird Mission Board.
Kenneth Lawson: A Beverly native who served in the Army during the Vietnam Era, then came back home to spend years working on the maintenance staff at the Red Bird Mission, keeping the place running.
David Jenkins: A Korean War Marine and fellow Purple Heart recipient who wasn't born here, but fell so in love with the valley that he spent 10 years volunteering his time to help the Red Bird Mission.
Remembering Them Together
These men didn’t lose their lives on foreign soil, but they spent their lives in service—to their country first, and then to this valley. They were given the years their fallen brothers never got, and they used those years to teach, to fix, to vote, to haul, to lead, and to love this place well.
So this Memorial Day, we pause with the whole nation to honor the ones who never made it back—the fallen heroes who gave everything for our freedom. And as we walk the graveyards on our hillsides, brushing off stones, straightening flowers and remembering the ones we loved, we also remember the veterans of the Red Bird valley who came home. We tell their stories, like Wiley’s, and we thank God for the way they spent their lives—showing all of us what faithful service looks like, one classroom, one workday, one child, and one little mountain community at a time.
- Kayla Smith, Development Gifts and Media
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