Gratitude in Uncertain Times

After a 45-year run of amazing luck, which had included no broken bones, my luck ran out this week. I fell from a trailer doing a community cleanup and gave myself a concussion, broke two bones in my arm, and cracked a rib. A couple days later I got dizzy from the concussion and fell and broke and sprained fingers on my broken arm.

I wrote about how I am dealing with the experience and how it is far from my worst week. Still, it’s not been a lot of fun.

We were looking at a federal grant that would carry our work at The Alabama Center for Rural Organizing and Systemic Solutions (ACROSS) for months, but the Trump Administration terminated the grant. As an organization that doesn’t keep much on hand this could have been the end for us.

But it wasn’t.

While I recovered from those injuries the communities where we work, the people in town around us, and the people on here came together to raise the funds needed to fight on until the grant is hopefully awarded.

It will repair dozens of homes in the community of Camp Hill, Alabama, after a disaster where a federal disaster declaration never came and where, just two weeks after the storm, some our best and brightest children were killed in a mass shooting.

Sometimes it feels like we are on an island and few care. We are, however, still standing on that island moving forward because so many around us do care.

My gratitude is more than I can express in a few simple words. Simply put for those who stepped up- thank you so much. Because of you the work continues.