Serve More, Serve Better

By Brianna Stephens

For more than 50 years, Christian Appalachian Project (CAP) has continuously fostered a culture of improvement to guide the work being done to help children, their families, and seniors in the region. After the challenges that have impacted Appalachia in recent years, CAP saw the need for additional help to serve more and serve better through home repair services. In April, CAP leadership announced a plan that would add eight new positions to and restructure the Home Repair program.

“The restructuring and added positions set us up to develop high-impact teams, serve more families in a wider area, and give more short-term volunteers a place to serve,” said Bryan Byrd, assistant director of CAP’s Home Repair program. “We are excited about the possibilities moving ahead.”

Home Repair was previously divided into two regions of service — Sandy Valley (Johnson, Martin, and Floyd Counties) and Cumberland Valley (Rockcastle, Jackson, and McCreary Counties). While the number of one-year volunteers was not increasing, employees identified a potential growth opportunity for short-term volunteers to help on worksites. They needed more employees to supervise these volunteers which would expand their capacity to serve more families.

With the additional employee positions and the new restructuring, Home Repair was reorganized into four subregions – Sandy Valley North, Sandy Valley South, Cumberland Valley East, and Cumberland Valley West – and will expand services in three to four additional counties in Eastern Kentucky.

“The change allowed us to consider expanding our coverage area and support families with offices in their communities,” Byrd said. “It will also allow us to serve more families, reduce waiting time for services, and take advantage of more group volunteers to complete more home repair jobs.”

The pandemic, historic inflation, and back-to-back natural disasters over the past few years have greatly increased the need for home repair services in Appalachia. The pandemic slowed services drastically while the need continued to grow, and material prices and availability impacted the work that could be done. And over the past year, CAP has diverted substantial resources to flood recovery efforts in our service area.

“We expect that we will now be able to serve more and serve better to help the many families who have been impacted by or face challenges after the events of the last few years,” Byrd said. “We are also excited about new initiatives we will have to partner with local schools, churches, and individuals to develop a pipeline of local volunteers and build skills in local men and women that can benefit them and the communities they live in.”

The addition of the positions and the expanded capacity align with CAP’s 30-year vision, set forth by Guy Adams, president/CEO. His vision is intended to inspire, challenge, and focus the creative energies and labors of CAP toward a shared vision of the future. As part of that vision, Adams hopes to see CAP eliminate 80% of substandard housing in the organization’s service area.

“We will have given hope to that many more children, their families, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities,” Adams said. “For each person in need, we must set our sights high, and we must act boldly.”