First let me be clear about something: The Christian Appalachian Project (CAP) is an amazing organization that has done more good in Eastern Kentucky, and throughout Appalachia in general, than any other organization with which I’m familiar. Furthermore, I am proud (and thankful) to say they are headquartered in Johnson County, Kentucky, my favorite place on the planet. CAP is the 12th largest human charity service in America and provided services for 36,000 Eastern Kentuckians, and reached over one million people in all 13 Appalachian states in 2014. That didn’t happen by accident or dumb luck. It was the result of more than half a century of hard work and ceaseless dedication to bettering the lives of the undeserved populations of Appalachia. I am humbled and honored to have an organization of that caliber working in and around the hills that raised me.
That being said, their newest ad featuring Martin Sheen, –who I firmly believe is the BEST fictional president that this great nation has ever had– is truly appalling.
I’m not saying there isn’t truth to the recently released CAP ad, there is. Eastern Kentucky is different place. We don’t care for change and it takes us a while to warm to new people and new ideas. It is a hard place to eek out a living, and it isn’t getting any easier as jobs run from the hills faster than mountain water runs over limestone. But it is heart-breakingly beautiful, brilliant in its simplicity, and full of people who don’t take themselves too seriously and are loyal to a fault. So CAP please don’t act like poor, unemployed, under-educated, struggling people are all we are, or that the situation is somehow unique to Appalachia. That is a story that resonates across America. The Appalachian refrain just makes for better copy because we have been turned into a comic troupe of toothless hillbillies without running water who can’t do any better so we need a handout from people with the good fortune to have been born somewhere more socially acceptable, like Atlanta, Chicago, or Beverly Hills.
As a child I always wanted to go on church mission trips to developing countries, and while my parents ardently supported travel (I’ve got the passport to prove it) my Dad’s eternal refrain on the subject was:
“If you want to help someone, start in your own backyard. Go up to West Van Lear and volunteer. There are plenty of people there that need your help.”
So I did that. I volunteered with my church youth group and my school right in my backyard like he suggested. It certainly didn’t feel like it at the time, but years later people I worked with and served with told me that my consistent presence made a difference in their lives. Now that I am older, I see the true value in the idea of improving your own backyard, as well as the danger of dropping into a culture that isn’t your own and trying to change it, even with the best intentions.
To make true change, people have to trust your intentions. Especially in Appalachia. We know if you aren’t invested. We’ve seen lots of companies come in, rape our hills and leave us with little more than the idea that “Coal-mining used to pay real well.” CAP is invested in the communities where they work, but you would never know it from this ad. This ad only tells you children are hungry, but it doesn’t tell you what programs your donation would support or the value of a dollar in the hands of CAP versus the value of a dollar donated to another group.
CAP, you are so clearly invested in Appalachia. You started out helping people in your own backyard in 1964 and that grand tradition has continued. As such an invested community member, because that is what you are, a community member, maybe your next ad will showcase the great things you’ve already accomplished and the projects you continue to support, rather than playing into a stereotype that does nothing but harm the people you already work so hard to help.
Clearly, CAP, you don’t see this ad as harmful. If you did, I feel certain you never would have created it. The one thing Appalachia needs more than anything else is a boost to the economy, an ad like this further hinder any outside investment in developing the local economy in a sustainable fashion. What business will invest in these communities when all they learn about from this 80 second glimpse into the mountains is that we are poor and uneducated? I have a gamblers heart, but my MBA head wouldn’t let me make that bet if this was all I saw about Appalachia.
And Mr. Sheen, if you really want to use your celebratory to help the people of Appalachia, give them a hand-up, not a hand-out. Lobby for a factory to be built in these mountains. Maybe Mitch McConnell will listen to you, he sure doesn’t listen to me. Take a vacation to Red River Gorge or rent a houseboat on Lake Cumberland and see the only moonbow in this hemisphere, and then Tweet and Instagram the heck out of it. Tell your friends to leave the LA sound stages and start filming in Appalachia, we are all getting tired of FX pretending that Pasadena passes for Harlan. It isn’t nearly green enough. Or come for a festival and be amazed at the exquisite hand-made quilts and hear the best bluegrass music of your life. I’m willing to bet you can’t help but dance to the fiddle.
I know that is a hard sell because we are an area of the country known for coal miners and moonshiners, boasting a skill set many times not viewed as commercially applicable at first glance. But we have excellent train lines, winding rivers, and a surplus of 18-wheelers that don’t haul too much stuff now that coal production is down that will get goods in and out with ease. We have amazing natural resources, and beautiful vistas, but what is more, we have an under-utilized, smart, hard-working population that prefers to work for something than have it handed to them.
Finally, I’m not saying don’t donate to CAP. Quite the opposite. Please donate to them. They do excellent work. But for those of you who only see a snippet of this beautiful place I call home, please don’t view this ad as a complete picture of Appalachia or our people. We are more than poor and under-educated, just as you are more than a ditzy surfer from LA-LA land or an unsmiling, hurried jerk from the northeast.
Criggerpalooza! 