What's Up? with Merlene

About this time of year, ­organizations and foundations look for qualified candidates to give scholarships to.
Let that sink in for a minute.
These folks are trying to give you or your child real money to ease the ever-increasing burden that a higher education puts on your wallet.
Being a parent who has had to stand over college-bound children while they applied for financial aid, I feel obliged to let others know when I hear of scholarships that might not be on their radar.
The Lexington Clinic ­Foundation’s Fergus Hanson ­Memorial Scholarship just might be for you. It is awarded to students enrolled in allied health-related training programs such as nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy or maybe a clinical lab technician, said Ginny Van Horne, ­community liaison for the foundation. ­Students hoping to become ­dentists, veterinarians or ­medical doctors are not eligible.
The foundation awarded 11 scholarships last year, ranging from $1,000 to $2,500 each, divided over two semesters, Van Horne said.
“We are looking for people who will stay in Kentucky,” she said. “We are ­targeting students in Central and Eastern Kentucky because, traditionally, Lexington Clinic serves that area.”
There is no age limit, so I encourage displaced ­workers who are pursuing careers in allied health to join high school seniors in ­applying. Or maybe the ­scholarship would be just the life preserver needed to keep a student in school. ­Applicants can be full or part-time students.
“The deadline — March 9, 2012 — is fast ­approaching,” Van Horne said. The ­scholarship is sent directly to the student’s school to be used for tuition, she added.
Here are the scholarship requirements. Applicants must:
■ Be ­residents of Central or Eastern Kentucky and plan to work there.
■ Have a high school diploma or equivalent.
■ Show evidence of need and academic promise.
■ Desire a career in a health-related field.
■ Provide evidence of good character and a ­willingness to help others.
“We like to see that they have volunteered,” Van Horne said.
The application, ­requirements and reference questionnaire can be found at Lexingtonclinicfoundation.org.
The scholarship is named for Lexington Clinic’s second and longest-serving ­administrator, who served from 1956 to 1978, Van Horne said. Hanson was honored for his devotion to the advancement of medicine and technology, she said.
Formerly called the Health Scholarship Program, it was established in 1993 and administered by the clinic until the foundation took over the responsibilities in 2003. Scholarships have been awarded to 160 students since then, Van Horne said, adding that 51 students applied last year.
I think the possibility of fulfilling a dream is worth the effort it takes to complete an application.

Fergus Hanson
Memorial Scholarship
Deadline: 4 p.m. March 9.
Application and information:
Lexingtonclinicfoundation.org

Although Kentucky’s unemployment rate is decreasing ever so slowly, the jobs that are and will be available might not be the ones that were lost during the economic downturn.
Many people of my generation could support a growing family on a high school diploma. That doesn’t appear to be the case going forward, however.
High school graduates and workers displaced by layoffs need to find skills or earn degrees in order to survive. No group needs to understand that more than racial minorities.
Kathryn H. Hunt had always wanted to be a physical therapist, but she ­attended a school that didn’t give her the training she needed. Later, she ­postponed that dream in favor of marriage.
Four years later, while ­working as a physical therapy aide, Hunt realized she wanted more. She enrolled in the former Lexington Community College, now Bluegrass Community & Technical College, and got the encouragement and direction she longed for.
“They put me on the right track to learn how to study again and how to take tests again,” she said.
She graduated in 1989 and, with the encouragement of counselors, Hunt transferred to the physical therapy program at the University of ­Louisville, where she became the first black to graduate from the program. She now works at Drayer Physical Therapy Institute.
From 2001 to 2009, 150,000 ­bachelor’s degrees were awarded by ­Kentucky colleges. Black students claimed less than 10,000 of those and Hispanics only 1,331.
To help change that, the ­Kentucky Community & Technical College System is hosting its second Super Sunday event on Feb. 12.
The 16 KCTCS colleges and the KCTCS System Office are joining forces with black churches and community ­leaders hoping to present a united front in changing how ­minorities see higher education in Kentucky.
“We, as educators and community leaders, need to work together and teach our youth there is a vision,” said Erin Howard, the Hispanic/Latino Outreach coordinator at BCTC.
National statistics show minorities are not enrolling in college at the same rate as their white peers, she said, and they are not graduating at the same rate if they do enroll.
By changing that, by ­increasing the number of college graduates, “we are improving the entire ­community,” Howard said. “We are building ­communities.”
Last year, the first year for the event, 4,000 people listened as officials and ­pastors discussed the ­importance of a higher ­education and the need for early planning, and invited them to a college fair where they could speak directly with a college administrator.
The Super Sunday event is based on a ­successful initiative at California State University, which has hosted its fair since 2005. California State started with only 23 churches and has ­partnerships with more than 100 now.
And that’s what KCTCS wants to do, said Charlene Walker, vice president for multiculturalism & inclusion at BCTC.
Last year, 400 ­prospective students signed up for more information at the 23 churches that took part in the event statewide. About 80 prospective students were in Lexington alone.
This year, she said, 42 churches are involved. “We are trying to double our efforts, bringing in more churches,” she said.
While they targeted larger churches last year, ­organizers are focusing this year on churches in rural areas where the need might be greater, she said.
The Kentucky event will be held in churches in the communities where the ­colleges are located. The BCTC fair will be at ­Consolidated Baptist Church, 1625 Russell Cave Road, Lexington; St. James AME Church, 124 East Walnut Street, Danville; and First Baptist Church, 37 North Highland Avenue, ­Winchester. BCTC has ­campuses all three cities.  KCTCS is hosting an event at Evergreen Baptist Church, 749 Florida St., in Lexington, and First Baptist Church in Versailles.
“We want to make sure they are aware of the ­possibilities and let them know that college is ­accessible to everybody, no matter where you are,” Walker said.
Hunt agreed.
“No goal is impossible,” she said. “Continue to strive for what you can and want to do. At the community college level, they treated me like I was their family and they pushed me to thrive for more.”
For a list of Super Sunday event sites, times and the ­local contacts for each ­college, go to Kctcs.edu/
supersunday.

If you go
Super Sunday event, sponsored by the colleges of the Kentucky ­Community & Technical College System
When: Various times Feb. 12
Where: In cities where the 16 colleges of KCTCS are located. For more information, go to Kctcs.edu/supersunday

More than 150 years before University of Kentucky basketball star Valerie Still and her brother, Art Still, an All-American football standout, were on campus, their ancestors lived and worked in the vicinity as slaves.
The information came as a surprise to Valerie Still, the New Jersey native who is the UK women’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder. And it enticed her to explore more about her family, which has a rich history in America dating back to the 1700s.
“I have always been very proud of my family, but in the past I tried to emotionally distance myself from its legacy because it includes slavery,” Still said last week. “For a long time, I didn’t want to admit having any connection to that ‘peculiar institution.’”

Valerie Still

Had she persisted in that belief, she may never have discovered that in 1807, two of her great-great-granduncles, Peter and Levin Jr., were sold to John Fisher, a brickmaker and builder in Lexington.
The two boys, ages 6 and 8, were sold from a plantation in Maryland to the brickyard owner after their mother, Sidney, successfully escaped and joined her husband, a free man in New Jersey.
Sidney, who later changed her name to Charity to avoid recapture, had taken two daughters with her and had planned to return for the boys, whom she left with their grandmother. An earlier attempt with all four of her children had failed.
For 11 years, the boys carried thousands of bricks near where UK is located, before they were sent to Alabama as part of an inheritance.
“When I discovered this I had chills,” Valerie Still said. “On the place where UK sits today, a place where I eventually set records, my ancestors were enslaved.”
Though she may be known in Kentucky for her 2,763 points and 1,525 rebounds, “I also have an extremely interesting history with my ancestors being fundamental in the abolishment of slavery,” she said.
Valerie Still is writing a series of books, aimed at fourth- to eighth-grade students, depicting her family’s history. She will sign copies of the first volume of the series, Still Alive on the Underground Railroad, at Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Saturday at noon.
Still has been researching and writing the series for a while, she said.
In 2004 she was asked to give a presentation at her 8-year-old son’s school during Black History Month. She  couldn’t find a lot of reading material appropriate for his age group, so she discussed her family’s history and the class seemed interested, she said.
About that time her marriage to former UK basketball player Rob Lock, whom she had met and married while playing in Italy, was breaking up and she was working on her master’s in African and African American Studies at Ohio State University. The divorce, which was finalized in 2007, was stressful and caused her to doubt her self-worth, she said.
In April 2010, while Still was living in Ohio and completing her doctorate exams, her mother died.
“When she died all of a sudden, I wanted to die,” she said. “My world was over. I was a Momma’s girl. The worst thing is my mother’s death. The divorce was bad enough.”
A couple of months later, she and her son, Aaron, now 16, packed up and moved to Kansas, where she has coached girls high school basketball and works with her brother, Dennis Still, at his Ol’ School Sports Academy in Overland Park, Kan.
Her brother has become a father figure and the central male role model for her son, she said.
The move helped her regain her footing.
“My mother always quoted Scripture,” she said. “I heard her quote Romans: ‘All things work for good.’ I didn’t understand that then, but now I do.
“I’ve been through some really tough times,” she said. “I used to be angry with God, but I know now God is with me. It is not a religion for me, it is a relationship — and my relationship is strong.”
Since refocusing on her research, Still has learned her ancestry is filled with interesting characters who succeeded despite their circumstances.
■ Her great-great grandfather, Dr. James Still, “The Black Doctor of the Pines” and brother to Peter and Levin Jr., practiced medicine in the 1800s and became one of the largest landowners in Medford, N.J.
■ In 1871, James Thomas Still, son of Dr. James Still, was one of the first black graduates from Harvard Medical School.
■ Her great-great-granduncle William Still, activist and abolitionist, was instrumental in the success of the Underground Railroad. He kept meticulous records and later published them as part of a memoir in 1872. It is considered the most important resource on the history of the Underground Railroad. A documentary about him, Underground Railroad: the William Still Story, will air on KET in February.
■ Her great-grandaunt Caroline Still, William’s daughter, became one of the first black female physicians in America in 1878.
Valerie Still said her family’s history isn’t black history but American history.
“I hope the series encourages young people to learn about who they are by studying their ancestors,” she said. “When I learned about my ancestors I became more self-confident. Regardless of life situations, whether challenging or pleasant, we can use all of our experiences for good.”

If you go
What: Valerie Still will be signing copies of her book, Still Alive on the Underground Railroad.
When: Noon, Saturday.
Where: Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Lexington Green.
Also: Underground Railroad: the William Still Story, a documentary about Valerie Still’s great-great granduncle, will air on KET beginning Feb. 6.

Recognizing that adults with intellectual or cognitive disabilities are also sexual beings is about as uncomfortable for many of us as imagining our parents being intimate.
Our discomfort, however, does not change the facts.
That is why Bruce Burris wants to give the disabled, their caregivers, guardians, and professionals an opportunity to discuss openly what has often been cloaked in secrecy.
“Most of us agree that sexuality is an important part of being a human being,” said Burris, of Latitude Artists Community, which helps people with disabilities realize their artistic gifts.
But, “sexuality, in general, is something that does not often have a place in the life of a person with a disability,” he said. “It is a very easy thing to feel uncomfortable with the topic. We want to put it off. I’ve done it myself.”
Burris said he was inspired to open the discussion after reading about two intellectually disabled gay men in Hazard who were expelled from a public pool in June 2011 by a city employee because of their public display of affection. They both were in the care of Mending Hearts Inc., a program that provides services and support for those with developmental disabilities.
Burris joined forces with Progress LEX, the Nursing Home Ombudsmen Agency of the Bluegrass, and the Human Development Institute at the University of Kentucky to host the “Undressing Normal, An (Un)conference on Sexuality for Those of Us DisLabled,” on Feb. 10 in Lexington.
The goal is to have those attending determine what topics are discussed, he said. The larger group will break into smaller groups and participants will be the discussion leaders. The concept of the participant-driven gathering or (un)conference has been used by Progress Lex before, he said.
Bev Harp, who is autistic, said there are people in group homes or under guardianship who are not allowed to be sexual beings. She’d like to talk about that.
“Our goal is to get the key stakeholders together, working with people who have power alongside of those who don’t have power, to have a conversation about the barriers to people being free to live their lives,” she said.
The (un)conference doesn’t want to attack guardianships, which are needed, or the laws meant to protect the disabled, she said. Many times agencies simply want to avoid problems of liability and to protect their charges from predators. But that may lead to lumping the disabled together.
Jeff Bradford of the Human Development Institute said the conference is controversial and the format is quite different. “We don’t know where people are or what they want to talk about,” he said. “So we thought we might as well go at it from this angle.”
The hosts are not trying to figure out ways for people to have sex, Bradford said. “That’s not what this is about. They are already having sex.
“But people with disabilities are often cast in a forever-child model,” he said. “We have to figure out a way to educate people so they can make good choices.”
The conference is open to a maximum of 100 people from a variety of sexual orientations and disabilities. Will it change things?
“I don’t really think so,” Burris said. “But I do think this is a bold first step. We are putting ourselves far in advance of other states that don’t broach the subject. It shows commitment and courage, and it is the right thing to do.”
Harp agreed.
“We want to open the door, get the conversation started, advance it, and see where we can go with this,” she said.
By discussing the issues, we just might understand one another a little better.

If you go
“Undressing Normal, An (Un)conference on Sexuality for Those of Us DisLabled”
When: 10 a.m.- 4 p.m. Feb, 10.
Where: Clarion Hotel, 1950 Newtown Pike, Lexington.
Cost: $10, but scholarships are available. Register at Undressingnormal.wordpress.com.
Information: Email Bev Harp at bevharp64@gmail.com.

There are times when we all get a bit discouraged and can’t think of a good reason why we should continue to fight against what appear to be insurmountable odds.
Will we ever overcome?
It is at those times that we need some inspiration, a role model we can identify with and be encouraged by.
For that reason, I ­present to you Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley.
Born into slavery in Virginia in 1818, Elizabeth Hobbs received her first beating at age 4. It would not be her last.
“Mrs. Burwell gave birth to a daughter, a sweet, black-eyed baby, my earliest and fondest pet,” she wrote in her book Behind the Scenes or Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House. “To take care of this baby was my first duty. True, I was but a child myself — only four years old — but I had been taught to rely upon myself, and to prepare myself to render assistance to others.”

Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley

Intent on performing well, Lizzie, as she was called, rocked the infant too briskly, causing the baby to fall to the floor. Her owners were not pleased.
Lizzie’s mother, Agnes, was the seamstress for the household of 10 children, making clothes not only for the owner but for the slaves. Lizzie’s father, George, was a slave on a plantation miles away and could visit only twice a year, at Easter and at Christmas. When her father’s owner moved West, the family was never reunited.
Lizzie helped her mother with the sewing until she was 14 and was sent to live with her master’s son, a minister with little money and a cruel wife.
When she and the family moved to North Carolina, the town’s schoolmaster was given permission to beat her because the mistress wanted Lizzie to be more submissive.
“It cut the skin, raised great welts, and the warm blood trickled down my back. Oh God! I can feel the torture now — the terrible, excruciating agony of those moments. I did not scream; I was too proud to let my tormentor know what I was suffering. I closed my lips firmly, that not even a groan might escape from them, and I stood like a statue while the keen lash cut deep into my flesh.”
Once a week for about a month, the schoolmaster came to beat her. At the last flogging, Lizzie wrote, the schoolmaster changed.
“As I stood bleeding before him, nearly exhausted with his efforts, he burst into tears, and declared that it would be a sin to beat me any more. My suffering at last subdued his hard heart; he asked my forgiveness, and afterwards was an altered man. He was never known to strike one of his servants from that day forward.”
The wife and minister tried a couple of more beatings before they, too, relented.
Those beatings and Lizzie’s will to maintain her pride should be enough to show us we have the strength to overcome a lot of adversity. Although she was enslaved physically, she was not about to allow anyone to own her mind.
We all can learn from that. Despite our circumstances, we can survive.
But there was more hardship in Lizzie’s life.
Raped repeatedly over a period of four years by a friend of her master, Lizzie gave birth to a son she named after her father. A few years later, she moved back with her mother. They moved to St. Louis, where Lizzie used her sewing skills to provide for the 17 people in the household who depended solely on her income.
While in St. Louis, Lizzie met and married James ­Keckley. She discovered that he was not free as he had claimed and that he was an alcoholic, so she left him.
So where is the joy in Lizzie’s life? After enduring so much, shouldn’t there be some kind of reward?
Lizzie, after several of her patrons lent her $1,200 to buy freedom for herself and her son, moved to Washington, D.C., where she became a dressmaker for many women in high society, including Jefferson Davis’ wife and Mary Todd Lincoln. From 1861 to 1865, Lizzie worked in the White House and became a trusted confidante to President Lincoln’s wife.
She was there through the death of their son William “Willie” Lincoln and through the president’s assassination.
In 1868, the friendship ended when Lizzie published her book, which revealed some insights into the Lincolns. Lizzie’s business declined after that, and she died in 1907 in the home she had helped set up during the Civil War for poor women and children.
But did she see her life as a failure? Not quite.
“I have experienced many ups and downs, but still am stout of heart. … Though poor in worldly goods, I am rich in friendships, and friends are a recompense for all the woes of the darkest pages of life. For sweet friendship’s sake, I can bear more burdens than I have borne.”
Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley’s fortunes ebbed and flowed, but the one constant was her will to remain true to herself. That’s why I see her as an inspiration.

Where to read the book
An electronic version of Elizabeth Hobbs Keckley’s book can be found at Docsouth.unc.edu/neh/keckley/keckley.html.

I love two-fers, and that’s exactly what you will get when you donate old or damaged electronics to the Office of Educational Outreach and the Green Society at Kentucky State University.
The donated items will be recycled and the money made from that recycling will be used to help fund the Green Hill Cemetery Revitalization Project.
Green Hill, which was established in 1800, once served as the final resting place for black residents in Frankfort. It is listed on the National Historic Register, as is nearby Frankfort Cemetery where Daniel Boone rests. But the Frankfort Cemetery is well maintained, while Green Hill, at the corner of East Main Street and Versailles Road, has fallen into disrepair.
The outreach service program coordinator, Irma Johnson, said she and groups of KSU students have been working with the cemetery since last year cleaning brush and weeds, and painting the chain-link fence. The city provides some funds, but simply mowing the grass depletes most of them, said Johnson, a cemetery board member.
“This cemetery houses one of the four African-American Civil War monuments in the entire country,” she said. “But that monument is hidden by overgrown trees.”
The monument was donated by the Colored Women’s Relief Corps No. 8 of the Grand Army of the

Kentucky African-American Civil War Monument

Republic in 1924. It is the only monument dedicated to Kentucky African-American Civil War soldiers.
Blacks and whites contributed to the monument, which features the names of 142 African-American soldiers from Central Kentucky.
“We have so many things to do to give the cemetery the dignity and pride it deserves,” Johnson said.
In the rear of the cemetery, she said, is the potter’s field, where the bodies of some 200 unknown or indigent people are buried. The wooden crosses that once marked the graves have long ago disintegrated.
“We want to put a monument up with just the names of those buried there,” Johnson said. “Even my students who haven’t quite caught up with my passion say we have got to clean that up.”
Nancy Thompson, an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer in the outreach office, said the cemetery needs a new fence as well as a new retaining wall that runs along Main Street.
“It is bulging now,” she said, “and it will give way in the future.”
Graves sit along the top of the wall, so if it is compromised, the graves will be disturbed.
Johnson hopes to send two large shipments to a recycling company by March so that the money can be used on Earth Day in April when students and area volunteers will descend on the cemetery to work.
“It is a win-win symbiotic relationship,” Johnson said. “You could have a yard sale, but this way you know it will go to a good source.”
Jeanette Walker, president of the Green Hill board, said once the immediate issues are addressed, the board wants to make a grid of the grave sites in the older part of the cemetery. Many of the headstones there are missing.
“Once or twice a month we receive a call from someone looking for their dad’s grave or looking for their mother’s grave,” she said. “Our vision is to have a grid made, and that is a long and tedious job.”
The board wants to hear from anyone who knows where a relative may have been buried in the old sections so grave sites can be pinpointed, she said.
Meanwhile, get your churches, classrooms and clubs involved to help provide a better final resting place for those who have gone before us.

Want to donate?
The Office of Educational Outreach and the Green Society at Kentucky State University is accepting donations of discarded electronic devices, which will be recycled and the money used to revitalize Green Hill Cemetery in Frankfort.
What: Cellphones; inkjet cartridges; laptop computers; netbooks; iPads and other tablets; iPods and MP3 players; digital SLR cameras and camcorders; handheld game systems and game consoles; range finders; sky caddies; GPS devices; radar detectors; E-book readers; mobile hotspots and MiFi devices; 4G USB air cards; TI graphing calculators; and gold, silver and platinum jewelry.
Where: Items can be dropped off at the Roy Chappell Building, 400 University Drive, Kentucky State University.
Information: Call (502) 597-5845 or (502) 597-6799 for more information or to schedule item pick up.

In recent weeks, various contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, when surrounded by a crowd of white people, have taken potshots at black people.
Here are a couple of examples:
■ Newt Gingrich opined that inner-city families (read that as black) don’t have a work ethic, so he plans to put young inner-city (read black) students to work as janitors in their schools. Gingrich later said the work wouldn’t be hazardous.
■ At a recent political stop, Rick Santorum said, “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.” Santorum later said he didn’t say “black.” He said “blah.”
■ Seeing Santorum steal some of his thunder and his potential votes, Gingrich last week said, “I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.”
I don’t want to even go into Rep. Ron Paul’s alleged rants in his newsletter years ago, which he now says he didn’t write.
What is going on here? Doesn’t it seem like this political season is set in a Back to the Future sequel?
After all the sensitivity training we’ve sat through and all the years of attending school together, why are white politicians rolling back the years to an era when promoting a fear of black people was in vogue?
These are all intelligent people. Why has disparaging black people become the cornerstone of the Republican efforts to regain the White House?
Do they think characterizing black people as leeches will galvanize their base into a voting bloc that will oust a black president? I think they do.
Here are some statistics I’ve discovered: According to the 2010 census, some 26 percent of food stamp recipients are black, while 49 percent are white and 20 percent are Hispanic.
United States Department of Agriculture data gathered in fiscal year 2010 shows this ethnic breakdown: 35 percent of welfare participants are white, 22 percent black, 10 percent Hispanic, 4 percent Native American and 2 percent Asian.
So, why aren’t the Republican candidates talking about the white welfare recipients? I think we know why. We all know what’s happening here. These men are smart. They know the statistics. They are simply pandering to a set of voters who need to demonize a group in order to energize the masses.
By painting black people as a group that is taking what doesn’t belong to them, what hasn’t been earned, they can then perpetuate the belief that President Barack Obama is a poser as well.
That feeds into the birthers’ belief that Obama shouldn’t be in the White House because he isn’t really an American. He doesn’t have the right to govern this nation because he wasn’t born here.
And if black people are the enemy, so then is Obama.
Tell me another reason intelligent people, vying to be the president of the greatest country on this planet, would perpetuate the lies that blacks are shiftless and lazy and need white people to save us from ourselves.
It is a familiar strategy. Just wait. As the campaigns weave through the Southern states and more evangelical strongholds, gays will be added to the list of boogeymen. And, depending on who is in the lead, so will Mormonism.
For the life of me, I don’t understand why that has to be. Aren’t political issues enough to get you elected these days?

My parents thought that the busier my siblings and I were, the less trouble we could get into. Plus, our mother believed girls should learn how to sew, knit and crochet to become better marriage ­candidates, I guess.
Anyway, after washing several loads of clothes, hanging them out to dry, ­gathering them back up before they hardened on the lines or the birds bombed them, dusting and sweeping the house every day, and just before washing supper dishes, my sister and I learned to sew by making ­clothing out of flour sacks my father brought home from the ­granary where he worked.
Don’t laugh. We didn’t get into trouble, and some of those sacks were transformed into very nice summer dresses.
Take that same principle and add a healthy dose of purpose, and you’ll get the Lyric’s Little Dresses of ­Lexington initiative, which eventually help will young girls and boys learn to sew and encourage them to reach out to others who are less fortunate. It will be the first service project ­initiated by the Lyric Theatre and ­Cultural Arts Center, said Yetta Young, executive ­director of the center.

One of the creations of Joyce Gray using a pillow case

The first phase of the ­seven-month project will ­begin Monday at the Lyric, where Young’s godmother will teach any ­interested ­parties how to make ­sundresses out of pillowcases.
“My godmother, Joyce Gray, was working on Little Dresses for Africa, and she told me about these little pillowcase dresses,” Young said. “Once I saw them, I wanted to implement something here.”
Little Dresses for Africa is a ­successful program started by Rachel O’Neill of ­Michigan. In the three years since its ­inception, the national charity has shipped more than 500,000 dresses to young girls in Africa. Dresses have been donated from every state, and the project has been featured on the NBC Nightly News.
“I call it the pillowcase movement,” Young said. “They are sending dresses to ­underprivileged girls in Africa, and we want to give dresses to girls in Lexington.”
In eight months, Gray has sewn 100 ­dresses for the national program and has helped or encouraged women who made 500 more. At the Lyric, she will demonstrate how to make dresses from pillowcases or fabric, Gray said.
Once the technique is learned, Gray said, people can ask their ­neighbors for gently used or unused pillowcases, or contact hotels or motels for pillowcases they will be discarding.
“When I come, I will bring stuff to show how to doctor up a plain white ­pillowcase,” she said.
The program Monday, which is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, will be primarily informational. There will be refreshments and time to interact. Times for future meetings will be discussed.
When school is out this summer, those girls who receive the expected 250 dresses will be invited back to learn how to make the dresses themselves. Their work will be distributed to other little girls, Young said, in war-torn and weather-beaten countries such as Haiti and parts of Africa.
You don’t have to know how to sew to participate in the project, Gray said. You can help by cutting the fabric and ironing the seams, which will allow others to concentrate on sewing. Donations of fabric, pillowcases and ribbon are welcome.
Young got caught up in her godmother’s enthusiasm for sewing and bought a ­sewing machine. But she didn’t follow through on the promise to learn how to ­operate it.
“More than likely, it should come off the shelf now,” Young said.
She hopes the project will catch on as quickly in Kentucky as it did in Michigan.
“We’re going to start slow and branch out from there,” she said.

If you go
Lyric’s Little Dresses
for Lexington
When: 4-6 p.m. Jan. 16
Where: Lyric Theatre & Cultural Arts Center, 300 East Third St.
Information: Rasheedah El-Amin, cultural arts coordinator, (859) 280-2201 or email culturalarts@lexingtonlyric.com.

In October, I wrote about the Central Kentucky chapter of Project Linus, which is a group of women who meet from 10 a.m. to noon the third Saturday of every month at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, 2025 Bellefonte Dr.,  to make blankets or attach labels to those donated by other volunteers.

Project Linus is a non-profit organization started in 1995 and named for Linus van Pelt, Charlie Brown’s friend in the Peanuts comic strip who clung to a security blanket.
The non-profit organization began in 1995 when Karen Loucks read an article in Parade Magazine about a young cancer patient. She began making blankets for the Rocky Mountain Children’s Cancer Centers in Denver. and the program spread from there. Now based in Bloomington, Ill., Project Linus has hundreds of chapters in all 50 states and has given more than 3 million blankets to children in hospitals, and those who have been taken into state care or have suffered other traumatic episodes.

When I wrote about the local chapter, its members were hoping to get a lot more people involved in knitting, sewing or quilting blankets. Over the holidays I received an email from Mary Ann Overturf, who founded the local chapter nine years ago,  along with Donna Pizzuto and Judy Moore.

Daisy Buck, left, and Donna Pizzuto, middle, and Mary Ann Overturf, right, with a few of the blankets made as part of the Central Kentucky Chapter of Linus Project . Photo by Charles Bertram

Overturf said 854 blankets were made last quarter, which was October, November, December.  “I keep adding and re-adding numbers and that’s what it comes up to,” Overturf wrote.  And, she said, blankets are still being dropped off at her door and at St. Michael’s in Lexington.

“I met a lady in Hancock Fabrics who was buying fleece for her church to make PL blankets,” Overturf continued. ” Last Sunday, one of the workers at Hancocks said that the youth at her church made blankets and dropped them off.  I asked if she left a name; she said that they didn’t because they made the blankets for the children, not for their own recognition.”

Overturf and other blanketeers – as volunteers are called – sew, crochet or knit blankets for newborns and children up to 18 years old. Some are made of fleece, others are quilts. All must be washable and “what you would want to give to your child or grandchild,” Overturf said.
There are no economic limits for those who receive the blankets, she said.
The blankets are sent to about a dozen organizations in the area, including the Central Baptist Hospital’s pediatric unit; Shriner’s Hospital; The Nest; Children’s Advocacy Center of the Bluegrass; and PRIDE, the Perinatal Recover, Infant Development and Education program for substance-abusing pregnant women, postpartum mothers and their at-risk babies.
Locally, Overturf said, a lot of the blankets and afghans are made by Sunday school classes, by quilting groups and school groups. Usually, blankets remain in the areas where they were made.

Mary Ann Overturf worked on her sewing machine while making a blanket. Photo by Charles Bertram

She just wanted everyone to know how many blankets have been made and distributed. “I try hard to think, instead of numbers of blankets, that these  numbers are actually children who are comforted during a time of illness or trauma,” Overturf wrote.

What a great project.  If you would like to help out, contact Mary Ann Overturf by email at gingerturf@hotmail.com.

There is evidence of change all around the building in Davis Bottom that has housed the Nathaniel United Methodist Mission since the 1930s.
At the back of the building at 616 DeRoode Street, dirt is being excavated and redistributed to make way for a noise wall along the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks. The wall will separate the railway from a new community that will house residents displaced by the long-delayed Newtown Pike Extension.

Rev. David MacFarland, mission director, in front of the Nathaniel United Methodist Mission, 616 DeRoode St, in Lexington, Ky. — Photos by Charles Bertram

To the front of the Nathaniel Mission sit rows of trailers that have housed those residents for two years and will be their home for a few more because nothing about this project has moved quickly.
On either side of the mission are a few neighbors and businesses awaiting the knock on their doors that tells them their time is up.
And in the midst of all that disruption and uncertainty, the mission has continued to provide free medical, dental and eye care; free emergency food staples and household supplies; a low-cost veterinary clinic; hot meals three times a week; back-to-school clothing projects; an eight-week summer program for children; a Thanksgiving dinner that fed 400 people; Easter programs; and three worship services a week for the soul.
“The road project has asked the mission to tread water for 11 years now, more or less,” said the Rev. David MacFarland, senior pastor and director of the mission, which is south of downtown Lexington. “Organizations can’t do that. The impact has largely been negative. It has hurt all three legs: the clinic, the mission and the church.”
More uncertainty looms. The mission will have to find a new building, maybe more than one, to house the services it provides. And that move will have to take place in the next six months, MacFarland said, with the resumption of work on the the extension project, which will fully connect Newtown Pike to South Broadway some time in the future.
“We are anticipating that in the first six months of next year, they will come and purchase our property,” he said of the local, state and federal agencies involved in the project. “We will be temporarily relocated for five to seven years.
“What makes us different in the neighborhood,” he said, “is we are the only business that they expect to come back.”
The mission will be directly north of its current spot on about 2 acres of land, but no one is quite sure what services it will offer.

Faye Snowden, left, was assisted by Doris Hager as she shopped for food in the food pantry. The Nathaniel MIssion has quitely served a forgotten population for about 80 years.

“The impact also has the potential to be very, very positive,” MacFarland said. “It has called us as an organization to re-evaluate ourselves. What are we doing, why we’re doing i, and who we should be serving. I don’t know if we would have done that.”
Established to serve a forgotten area of Lexington, the mission has watched as some 99 percent of its traditional neighborhood has been uprooted by the Newtown Pike project, which will carry motorists from Interstate 75 to the gates of the University of Kentucky.
When the neighborhood is rebuilt, there will be shared ownership of the land through the Lexington Community Land Trust, which will provide affordable, energy-efficient homes to residents and others who qualify.
Right now, the average annual income for residents is about $10,000, MacFarland said. When the land trust is in place, the maximum income will be $35,000.
He envisions the mission taking leadership in teaching families that have lived in poverty for generations the responsibilities of a middle-class lifestyle and teaching the rest of us that the pitfalls of poverty are deeper than we would like to think.
“We have had numerous meetings and planning sessions about who we will be in a new neighborhood,” said Ann Ross, the president of the mission’s board. “It’s not something that we have taken for granted, that we would move across the road and be the same facility.”
In the meantime, the board has to figure out where it will put the programs and how to keep the disruption to a minimum for those they serve.
First and foremost, the free clinic, founded in 1979, will not close, said clinic director Terry Drum, even though it will be the most difficult to relocate.
“We were serving this neighborhood, but we have expanded to include Fayette County,” he said.
Drum said about 600 patients visit the medical clinic and its 11 volunteer physicians over a three-month period.
The dental clinic has seven volunteer dentists, two hygienists and several dental assistants seeing about 50 patients a month. Still, the dental clinic has a two-month waiting list.
An optometrist, an ophthalmologist and UK optometry students work in the vision clinic and can refer patients with more immediate needs than eyeglasses.
Most of the clinic’s funding is provided by the Good Samaritan Foundation, the Lexington Clinic Foundation and the Lexington Medical Society.
The church, chartered in 1995, and mission may be able to find space closer to Davis Bottom where it is now.
MacFarland said three services are held each week, with a Bible study “for folks without houses” on Sunday mornings. Recently 170 people came for Sunday breakfast.
“The mission has always been the spiritual center for Davis Bottom,” said MacFarland, who came in 2007. “Since I’ve been here, I’ve probably done more funerals for neighborhood folks than church members. I think that tells you something about the mission and this neighborhood.”
But change is coming.

R.N. Dona Barkman takes Tom Isbell temperature before his dental procedure in the free dental clinic.

Eight to 10 feet of dirt will be trucked in to raise the terrain and set new infrastructure. The neighborhood will be revitalized, and Nathaniel Mission will find a way to re-invent itself.
“Part of the culture of the folks on DeRoode Street is that they were the freest people I had ever encountered in my life,” MacFarland said. “If you could accommodate yourself to this living standard, nobody messed with you.
“It’s like what Janis Joplin said: ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.’”
And now the mission will have to find a way to change that mind-set along with the services it provides. “Our view is we just need to try to discern the will of God as to what we ought to be doing,” he said. “We must listen and obey.”
That may take a lot of faith, which is not in short supply.
“If we had as much money as we do faith, we’d be multimillionaires,” Ross said.