Assorted meat and vegetables on barbecue grill cooked for summer family dinner

Mountain Hope Appalachian Field Festival

October 6 is a date to remember. On that date, your taste buds are in for a delight.

On Saturday, Oct. 6, in a field somewhere in Sevier County, Chef Adam Palmeno will prepare a pig roast as a very special fundraiser for Mountain Hope Good Shepherd Clinic. Palmeno and his catering company, Private Chef, are already earning rave reviews across East Tennessee for his wonderful food.

Palmeno will prepare roast pig and all the trimmings in his own style. His specialty is New World cuisine, which takes traditional recipes and adds a twist. This will be no ordinary barbecue.

He grew up in South Florida and learned to cook in the Florida Keys. After a stint in Charleston, NC learning Low Country cuisine, he is now at home recreating traditional Appalachian dishes with a delicious difference.

Private Chef cooks for couples, parties, wedding and anniversary celebrations, creating dishes from scratch on site. Palmeno particularly likes catering big events such as field festivals, where he and his staff build an outdoor kitchen two or three days in advance, then roast pork or other meats slowly and create a delectable buffet.

So save October 6 for Mountain Hope’s own Appalachian Field Festival. Details will follow.

Sports tools

School Sports Physicals are Coming Up

As the summer sports season looms, would-be student athletes have an exam to pass: their physicals.

This exam should not be taken lightly, says Jason Brackins PA(C), physician’s assistant at Mountain Hope Good Shepherd Clinic.

As youthful minds turn to soccer, baseball and softball, school coaches need to know of players’ potential health problems before practices begin in earnest. TSAA rules demand that participating students at the high school level first have a sports physical.

There are two parts to sports physicals. First is a written health history for both child and parent to answer and sign. Without it, the student may miss out on playing the sport. Second is a top-to-toe physical exam by a medical provider.

“We try to uncover potential harms to the children,” Jason said.

“It’s important to be honest” and not omit health problems on the written form, Jason said. Parents should understand that by signing they are taking on liability for the accuracy of the report.

“Sports physicals can’t always ID problems,”  he explained. While a physical exam may pick up some issues, others may not be obvious at the time. For example, swimming may not be the right sport for a child with a seizure disorder.

It’s also important that parents and student athlete inform the medical provider about all medications he or she is taking. For an asthmatic, “before you go running, make sure you have your inhaler in hand.”

Another factor : “If your child is under the care of a specialist, notes from the specialist should be given to the person doing the physical.”

Jason and other medical providers conduct sports physicals at Mountain Hope, which usually incur a small fee. Some local schools offer free physicals on a particular day, when local health providers conduct the exams on a volunteer basis at the school. Jason himself has taken part in these.

Would-be student athletes should ask their coaches or athletic directors about the date of free school physicals, he said.

The exams are good for one year. After that, another exam is necessary.

Spilled Jar of Coins

10-year-old Collects Coins for Coughs

A 10-year-old boy has collected $182.44 from his school class to donate as Coins for Coughs to Mountain Hope Good Shepherd Clinic.

Mark James Howard of Kodak is part of 4-H. He is the service chairman for his club, which comprises Mrs. Benson’s fourth grade class at Catlettsburg Elementary School.  The class has 21 students.

Glenn Turner of the University of Tennessee’s Extension Service gives students ideas of service projects that could be done. 4-H clubs are supposed to do a different service project each month. One idea was a dental hygiene drive for the Clinic. This is a popular idea as Mountain Hope is always in need of toothpaste, brushes and other dental supplies.

However, after consulting with Mountain Hope medical staff, Ashley Burnette, director of the Clinic’s fundraising arm, suggested that cough drops and cough syrup would be more fitting in January. Mark James asked the school for permission, but the school didn’t want to ask the students to bring in medicines. Instead, Mark James chose to do a Coins for Coughs fund drive and the Clinic would buy the cough medications with the proceeds.

Mrs. Benson supported the project and Mark James made up a flyer to hand out to all the kids. His classmates brought in coins and donated what was left from their concessions money.

“This was such a super project,” Burnette said. “We appreciate Mark James’s commitment to this project, and to the support that we get from Sevier County’s school 4-H clubs.”

Reading books with mommy make me happier

Mommy & Me with Team 22

On April 27th and 28th, award-winning Team 22 Studios is offering the public Mommy & Me mini photo sessions to benefit Mountain Hope Good Shepherd Clinic!   Team 22 invites corporate and business sponsors to take part in this promotion to further benefit Mountain Hope.  Contact Team 22 Studios at 865.366.1213 to become a sponsor for this event or schedule your Mommy & Me Session. 

Happy woman doing online shopping at home

Donate the Easy Way through Amazon Smile

Amazon.com offers an enormous inventory of things you can buy, and on-line shopping is becoming more popular all the time. So why not donate to Mountain Hope Good Shepherd Clinic while you shop on line?

Amazon Smile offers an easy way to donate. It costs you nothing extra and once you are signed up, you can forget about it.

The AmazonSmile Foundation donates 0.5 percent of the purchase price of eligible products to charity. Everything available at Amazon is also available at Amazon Smile at the same price.

It’s simple. Instead of going to amazon.com for your purchases, enter smile.amazon.com on your browser. The first time you do this, enter “ Mountain Hope Good Shepherd Clinic” as your choice of charity from about a million charities listed. Then you shop, and Mountain Hope gets 0.5 percent of the purchase price. The next time you return to smile.amazon.com, the Clinic will automatically benefit.

Thank you! You’ll improve someone else’s life while you shop.  Get started here: