Spilled Jar of Coins

10-year-old Collects Coins for Coughs

by Friends of Mountain HopeNewsworthy

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.”

Little Children Reading Books Smiling

Brownie Group Collects Books for Clinic

by Friends of Mountain Hope

Members of a local Girl Scout group told their leaders that they wanted to do something to help the children who visit Mountain Hope Good Shepherd Clinic. The result: Brownie Group 20055 made a donation of children’s books to the Clinic.

Brooke Blair, who with Michelle Callon and Rhonda Ratcliff leads the Brownie group, said the girls brought gently used children’s books from home. Brownies are Girl Scouts who are in second and third grades, aged 7 to 9. Some of the Brownies delivered the books to the Clinic. They were Izabella Watkins, Charlie Callon, Roslyn Hallam and Abigail Hallam.

Some of the books remain in the Clinic’s waiting room for children to look at and read. Others went home with the young patients.

“This was such a kind and thoughtful donation,” said Ashley Burnette, the Clinic’s director of fund development. “The books help reassure our young patients in what may otherwise be a scary situation for them.”

Mountain Hope 1

Clinic Volunteer Donates Examination Table

by Friends of Mountain HopeNewsworthyVolunteers

Jerry Sandifer isn’t content with volunteering his time and expertise to Mountain Hope Good Shepherd Clinic.

He’s also donated an examination table for use in one of the Clinic’s examination rooms.

Jerry is a Realtor who has owned Exit Tennessee Realty Pros in Wears Valley since 2005 and will shortly open another branch in Sevierville.

As a volunteer firefighter and paramedic for more than 20 years, he has medical training that he puts to use on a regular basis by volunteering to do whatever is necessary to help the Clinic’s medical staff. While he’s here once a week, he enjoys both patients and staff. “Everybody’s really, really nice,” he said. Being at the Clinic “uplifts me.”

He saw the need to replace the old examination table to offered to replace it. “In this world, we should help one another,” he said. “If everyone helped everyone else just a little, the world would be a better place.”

His aid to the Clinic does not stop there. He’s also spent a lot of time advising Bradley Minton, who landscaped the grounds as part of his Eagle Scout project, and donated mulch for the landscaping.

IMG_1485

Eagle Scout Project Beautifies Grounds

by Friends of Mountain HopeNewsworthy
 Bradley with his grandparents, Earl and Linda Oliver, and his siblings, Jacob, Jarrod, and Katie, after clearing all of the landscaping at the clinic. The Olivers came on vacation to the mountains and brought their landscaping tools for Bradley to use on his Eagle Project.

Bradley Minton had a very busy summer.

He went to high school band camp. He went to church camp. He climbed mountains in New Mexico. Between and at the end of all those activities, he qualified to become an Eagle Scout by planning, supervising and coordinating the beautification of Mountain Hope’s landscaping.

It was all in the nick of time. He completed the project just before he turned 18 last month, the cutoff date for completing Eagle Scout requirements.

The Mountain Hope grounds have a new, cleaner, tidier appearance. Bradley, with help from younger brothers Jacob and Jarrod and with other members of his Scout troop, cut down some trees at the front of the clinic, trimmed other trees and shrubs, laid a weed barrier and mulch, then bordered the gardens at front and back with stones. They laid stones around a perennially damp area near an air conditioning unit behind the building.

They took down an old wooden gazebo at the back that serves as a break area for Clinic staff in good weather, and replaced it with a stronger steel one, complete with curtains and netting that form an attractive screened picnic area.

“A lot of things were donated,” said Bradley’s father, David Minton. The Minton family, which owns a business, donated the gazebo; Jerry Sandifer donated mulch and advised Bradley on how best to do the landscaping; Lowe’s donated the weed barrier and gave discounts on other items, and a Blount County firm gave a discount on the two truckloads of stones and waived the delivery fee.

Jacob Minton, Jarrod Minton, and Gabe King helping with the mulch

“We enjoyed the project,” David Minton said. However, they ran into delivery delays and bad weather – the kind of things that complicate any project, but which provide good experience for a young entrepreneur like Bradley. In all, David estimates 200 or so hours went into the project.

Bradley has been told officially that he’s completed all requirements to become an Eagle Scout, though he hasn’t gone through the ceremony yet. When he has, he’ll be in good company: his father is an Eagle Scout and so are a nephew and cousin.

David has worked in health care and he and his wife own a home health care agency. “I’ve had friends and employees who have used the Clinic,” so Mountain Hope was a natural beneficiary of the project, he said.

Attendees of the Titanic Event, photographed by Angie Carriere.

Team 22 Helps with Titanic Event

by EventsFriends of Mountain Hope
Attendees of the Titanic Event, photographed by Angie Carriere.

Team 22 Studios husband-wife owners went the extra mile to make Mountain Hope Good Shepherd Clinic’s fundraiser at the Titanic Museum truly memorable for the participants.

Not only did Ken and Angie Carriere donate a superhero photo shoot for a youngster as an auction item, they also took stunning 8-by-10-inch black-and-white portraits of everyone in attendance at the Roaring Twenties-themed event on July 15. Sensible Concrete sponsored the photos. Angie Carriere also took a beautiful photo of the guests gathered on the Grand Staircase of the Titanic Museum.

“Angie is really the talent,” Ken said. “I’m just the bragger.” She’s a wiz at photo editing and other technical work the couple produce, but she has a strong artistic streak too. “Angie is one of the most talented people on the planet,” her husband said. Apart from her work with the studio, she performs at the Hatfield and McCoy dinner show. She sings, writes, arranges and produces music and plays nine instruments.

It was her theater work that drew them to Sevier County three years ago. However, it was Ken’s past history that got them involved in the Titanic fundraiser. As a seven-year-old boy, he had Hodgkins Disease, a very serious form of cancer, especially in 1962. His family could not afford treatment for him, so a local organization paid the bills and provided him with the health care that allowed him to survive without dire financial consequences to the family.

Many years later, when the couple heard about the Titanic fundraiser, the Carrieres decided to help as a way of paying back. “Mountain Hope provides services that would not be available otherwise to people with no health insurance,” Ken said.

Team 22 provides all kinds of photographic services, from the traditional to the innovative. As you might expect, the Carrieres shoot weddings, senior portraits and family reunions, etc. and also produce videos. In more offbeat work, they also create superhero or princess packages for children. Using creative technology, they transform the photos they take of boys and girls into large pictures starring the children as superheroes or princesses against an appropriate background. The resulting pictures are available on 16- by 20-inch framed canvases or as large movie-style posters.

Another innovation is the Carrieres’ use of “gray-screen technology,” with which “you can make things look three-dimensional,” Ken said. “It’s pretty amazing what can be done using this technology.” Angie can also take a photo and, using a digital painting technique, make it look like a real painting.

Team 22 Studio is at 837 Newport Highway in Sevierville. You can see examples of the Carrieres’ work at team22studios.com or on their team 22 studios Facebook. Their phone number is 865-366-1213.