The lore surrounding the early days of the Christian Appalachian Project tell us the first direct mail fund-raising effort was kick-started in the mid-1960s. Volunteers copied names from phone books in northeastern cities and sent letters asking for support for the fledgling program in eastern Kentucky. Maggie Kane firmly believes that story is true. In 1965, she received just such a letter and began supporting the Christian Appalachian Project with regular financial donations. “I don’t know why, but I always had a liking for Appalachia,” Maggie says. Years later, that liking for Appalachia led her to volunteer for CAP, bringing with her an abundance of life experience that she is now sharing with the people of Owsley County.
Over the years, Maggie, her husband and their two sons moved from place to place in the northeast, midwest and south. Somehow, “CAP always managed to find me, even though I never gave them a forwarding address!” Maggie says.
After the death of her husband in 2006, Maggie moved to Wisconsin to be near her sons and grandchildren. “And CAP found me again—it was like a cosmic two-by-four!”
Her love for CAP and a love of adventure prompted Maggie to investigate CAP’s volunteer program. Although her sons were apprehensive about seeing their mom pack up and leave for Kentucky, eventually they came around and she became a CAP volunteer with their blessing. Maggie has started on her second year as a volunteer and says, “I’ve always loved CAP, but now I’ve fallen in love with Kentucky!”
Maggie’s love for Kentucky is centered on Owsley County where she works in CAP’s elderly services. She believes the name of the program would come closer to describing her work if it was called “elderly advocacy.” Although her main job is to visit with the more than 40 seniors in her program, Maggie finds herself also helping seniors to find resources and stay connected with services that are available to them through the government and non-profit agencies. She helps people to read through the confusing paperwork that often accompanies Medicare and Medicaid information.
Maggie has taken her advocacy to the pharmacy counters in Booneville, the Owsley County seat. She keeps handy a list of medications that are available for minimal co-pays from larger stores in adjoining counties and negotiates a lower co-pay in local pharmacies. It’s a time consuming process, she says, but saves hundreds of dollars in medical costs for the people she serves. It’s just one of several ways she advocates for Owsley County’s seniors.
The people in the program are as old as 90, but some are younger than Maggie who describes herself as a “young 67. I’m very healthy and a lot of these people in their early 60s aren’t healthy.”
Maggie believes that her age suits her well for her work with the Owsley County seniors. “It’s not a job for young people. When you’re going out to talk to people, it can be hard if you’re 23.”
Her experience of raising children, losing a husband and enjoying grandchildren gives Maggie plenty in common with the people she visits.
“We’ve lived our lives and we’re sinking in to see what happens next,” she says.
When she first arrived in Kentucky as a CAP volunteer, Maggie lived with the volunteers in Jackson County and enjoyed living with the younger volunteers. But after a few months, Maggie realized that the time she spent on the long commute from Jackson County to Owsley County could be better spent in service to her people. She is now an “independent living” volunteer and has an apartment within walking distance of her office in Booneville. She enjoys looking out her office window to see people gathering on the courthouse steps. “Watching people has helped me learn to slow down!” says the fast-talking, fast-moving North Easterner.
Maggie and 17 other independent living volunteers are part of a new category of CAP volunteers. “Baby-boomers are coming to us with different life experience, not just career experience,” says Kathleen Leavell, manager of volunteer recruitment, admissions and placement. “Some of them love living in a volunteer community, but for some, they find themselves taking on the role of parent or grandparent and they just don’t want to be the ‘adult’ voice in the community.”
For these people, living away from the volunteer house, but joining the community periodically for meals, worship and meetings seem to be mutually beneficial for both the individual and the community, Kathleen says.
Maggie lived in the Jackson House during the first of her volunteer months and while she appreciates the time she spends with the younger volunteers (“It really reenergizes me!”), she says she loves living in Owsley County and enjoys socializing with the other volunteers who are closer to her age.
As she has done everywhere she has lived, Maggie has immersed herself into the culture of the community and finds herself feeling accepted by her neighbors. She is a member of the community action council and took part in a recent “Walk for Jesus” that saw Owsley county residents march in from the school to the courthouse.
“I try to shop here, too,” Maggie says. “Like every place I’ve ever lived, it’s fun to fit in and do what the natives do. I’ve eaten things I never thought I’d eat, but I like to garden and my grandparents were farmers, so that’s something else I have in common with some of the people.”
In her second year of volunteer service, Maggie can see herself staying on for several more years, taking the summers off and spending those months with her four sisters, two sons, four grandchildren and an array of nieces and nephews.
“I know I won’t be here forever, but I’m not sure where I’ll end up,” Maggie says. For now, she says, she loves her work in Owsley County, working alongside friendly people who are dedicated to improving their county.
