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August 28, 2008

Ken-Tenn would like to say in memory of all how perished in the storms, and to all the millions of people affected by the storms, we will remember you and we honor all the thousands of men, women, and children that worked so hard volunteering , trying to give what they could, if it was only donating a dollar, or spending weeks, and months, rebuilding the coast, to what the children, parents, and family and friends remembered what life was like, the day before.  Jim Paul

August 21, 2008

Pictures of some of the Million Books

and our warehouse

As you read this article which was published by the TIMES TRIBUNE in Corbin, KY.  you can see we have been very busy with a new outreach of our ministry. Ken-Tenn has shared these books with schools, churches, libraries, prisons and various organizations throughout the state of Kentucky. We still have a multitude of  FREE books to distribute. If you or someone you know are interested in new children's books, top sellers, Christian resource guides and magazines geared toward teens and young adults, please contact us at (606) 524-1988.

Published: July 14, 2008 09:09 am

A million books

Christian Appalachian Project, Ken-Tenn team up to distribute books

By Samantha Swindler / Managing Editor
What do you do with a million free books?
If you’re Jim Paul, you put out a call for help.
About one million books have been donated to the Christian Appalachian Project, whose largest of two warehouses is located just outside of Corbin in Knox County. There, hundreds of pallets of new books are sitting, waiting to be distributed to non-profit organizations who can use them.
The problem — not many agencies will have use for a 1,000 copies of a single book.
So CAP is giving many of the pallets to Ken-Tenn, a Williamsburg-based relief organization that will redistribute each pallet.
Ken-Tenn organizer Jim Paul talked with CAP Assistant Director Carol Parrett and agreed to help distribute the books — which continue to arrive — but he originally thought he was taking on a much smaller project.
“Whenever Carol said ‘do you want these books,’ for some reason I had it in my mind that it was 50,000 to 60,000 books,” Paul said. But when he revisited with Parrett, he learned his estimate was way off. “She said, ‘Where’d you come up with 50-60,000?... It’s more like a million.’ I thought it was five or six tractor trailer loads. There’s almost 50 tractor trailer loads. So Wendy (Allen) and I decided that if we could find a warehouse to store the books, that we could do it the right way.”
The “right way” includes breaking up the pallets of a single book so they can be of use to smaller organizations. A school may not have need for 1,000 copies of, say, the late George Carlin’s “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops” (just one of the book titles available), but they could use 1,000 books of various titles.
A friend of Wendy and Gary Allen, owners of Burkman Feed and Penske Rental in London, has donated a free warehouse space for Ken-Tenn to resort the books. With the help of volunteers, Paul hopes to have the books separated and ready for distribution within a month. Books will start with local distribution, and will then be given out to organizations across the 13 states in Appalachia.
“Jim and them are doing a wonderful thing,” Parrett said. “They are taking the books to their warehouse and they’re going to mix them up on the pallet... Probably, right now, there are probably 35-40 tractor trailer loads of books in this warehouse. That’s just books.”
CAP takes and distributes just about anything donated — books, clothes, furniture, household items and non-perishable food. Most of the products are overstock from stores and manufacturers. CAP even trucks most of the items to those who need it.
“I always tell people if we ain’t got it, we’re going to get it,” Parrett said. “If it’s out there, we’re going to get it sooner or later.”
CAP was founded in 1964 by a priest, Father Ralph Beiting, who was stationed in Kentucky after graduating from seminary. The organization started with an integrated boys summer camp, and eventually led to a number of other programs.
“Father had a vision. He had a vision of helping the children and the poor people in the Appalachian region,” Parrett said. “He had opened up the trunk of his car one day and it as full of clothes and he just started handing the clothes out there in Berea. Well, he gave all those clothes out in no time so he thought he would keep on doing it, and he kept on doing it and then he thought if I can give clothes away, I can give other things away, and it just grew from that... He didn’t care the ask anybody for anything, and he expected the people to give to him, and they did.”
Today, the distribution centers are just a small part of CAP’s outreach. CAP has more than 70 programs that include home repair, spousal abuse and child abuse prevention. CAP’s Corbin warehouse opened 12 years ago, with the main office in Hager Hill. Beiting, now in his 80s, is still involved in the program and serves as pastor of St. Jude Parish in Louisa, Ky.
This will be the first year CAP’s distribution center won’t be able to hold a school supplies giveway. Parrett said the company that normally supplies the goods has moved its production overseas.
“I don’t know what the school systems are going to do this year because they’ve depended on us for the last 12 years for binders and school supplies,” Parrett said. “They were so disappointed and we were, too. We get 10-15 calls a day about school supplies. “
But when it comes to books, CAP has a surplus.
The vast majority of the tomes have been donated by Brother’s Brother Foundation of Pittsburgh, Pa., and came from McGraw-Hill Books.
McGraw-Hill supplies books for public schools, so the donated books can go to a variety of non-profit or educational programs (private schools and universities, libraries, or literacy programs) but not public schools. That would interfere with the company’s sales.
Organizations must take at least 500 books on a pallet. If you have a registered non-profit organization that could use some of the books, or if your organization would like to help in the sorting of the books, contact Jim Paul at 524-1988

July 7, 2008 Update on Iowa floods

They call this a flood of every 500 years. Not only did this flood devastate Iowa, she included Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska. At one point in June she had damaged or destroyed over 48,000 homes and business in the Mid-West and over half of them were in Iowa. Pictured below is pictures of Ken-Tenn's first trip to Iowa with disaster supplies to be used by the volunteer organizations helping with clean up and rebuilding Iowa's homes and business.

Pictured above a home in Iowa affected by the flood. Ken-Tenn volunteers, Adventist Community Service volunteers , and Iowa Homeland Security personal unloading Ken-Tenn's 18 pallets of supplies at the Multi Agency Distribution Center in Ankeny, IA. We would like to thank Joyce Flinn of Iowa's Homeland Securities Emergency Management Division  for her help in placing the donated items to where they are needed.

From left to right part of over 3,000 homes and business affected in the Cedar Rapids area of Iowa. The last picture is of Regina, Vern, and Phil Oliver owner of the Stewart Funeral Home in Cedar Rapids. They are unloading cleaning supplies  help for the oldest Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids, and to help Michael Papich owner of the Papich-Kuba funeral home.

May 21st

This was a great day for Ken-Tenn. We were able to enjoy the testimonies of Dominic and the famous The B.A.D.D. break dancers that performed for over 700 students at Oak Grove Elementary School in Corbin, KY. and then at Briar Creek Park in Williamsburg, KY. Below is pictures from the performances and information about B.A.D.D. "Born Again Delivered Disciples".

B.A.D.D. was founded in 1993 in inner- city Los Angeles to help people that had been dependent on drugs, alcohol, gang members or they were from broken homes and needed the support of others. You can read about them at www.thebadd.org

May 14, 2008

We are still sending 26 ft PENSKE trucks to the coast with supplies. Some of the groups that are getting donations of snacks, cleaning supplies, water and food are Lutheran Disaster Relief in Ocean Springs Ms. Presbyterian Recovery D'Iberville, Ms. and  Mennonite Disaster Relief Pass Christian, Ms.

March 24, 2008 pics and news update

From left to right

Ken-Tenn work crew cleaning debris from Bill Collins house that burnt down so that he and his wife could move their new home on to the lot. Some of the supplies donated to Oak Grove School from us. Ken-Tenn work crew roofing a storage building for Carrie Moore in Williamsburg, KY. and last the crew celebrating Jims 45th birthday on the 13th after a long hard day of volunteering.

Above pictures from the load of supplies donated to local Laurel Co. Ky. churches. In the third picture is Garry Allen owner of Penske trucks in London who has been so good to Ken-Tenn for the last two years. This load made the sixth tractor trailer of supplies donated in the last three weeks to local schools and churches.

March 5, 2008 update

Christian Appalachian Project has been so good to us by donating two tractor trailers of supplies for Whitley Co, McCreary Co. and Williamsburg City Schools. The items were anything from cups and plates to stuffed animals and baby bugs bunny scrap books. We also donated some of the supplies to local head start programs and several local churches. Some of them were Central Baptist in Corbin, Ky. White Oak Baptist, Briar Creek Baptist, Corn Creek Baptist, Wolf Creek Baptist, Emlyn Baptist, Frankfort Baptist, Riverside Church of God, River of Life Ch. of God in Lexington, Ky. and Mtn. Ash Baptist Ch. We also took four pallets of food to the new Christian Shelter in London, Ky. they house about 40 adults and 10 children. Yaden Church of God was also given light fixtures for their new fellowship hall.

Pictured above the men who work so hard at C.A.P.S. to load the supplies that are donated to Ken-Tenn. Ray Storm, Marvin Roark, Brian Johnson, Jeff Burchett, and Pete Lambdin.

Above from left to right, a picture of the second load to Whitley Co. bus garage, Johnny our faithful drivers from CAPS. and the workers at McCreary Co. School Community Distribution Center

February 2008

This month has been very productive for Ken-Tenn. We have sent supplies to a Hispanic Mission in Lexington, Ky. and this week we are sending another truck of supplies to Ms. with Gatorade, Propel and snacks for the volunteer groups still on the ground after two years.

C.A.P.S.  also donated to us a tractor trailer load of school supplies and church supplies that was donated to 8 local schools in Whitley Co. Ky. and 7 local churches and ministries. The twenty seven pallets contained cups, plates, infant and young children games, stickers and toys.

In the next two weeks we will be distributing several loads of donated supplies to other local school districts and churches.

Pictured above is several volunteers from the Whitley County Family Resource Center and local churches, Jerry Trammell, Hazel Goff, Jeff Trett, Della Rose, Melissa Prewitt, George Leach, Kenny Carr, Judy Lawless, and Beverly Elliot.

January 27, and 28

Below to the left is a picture of part of the 60 pallets of lighting that was donated from Ken-Tenn to the Waveland Citizens Fund so that the lights could be distributed to all of those needing them on the Coast.

Volunteers Barbara Hanna of Pass Christian and Joan Coleman of Waveland, Ms. standing beside Johnny Bufkin of Bay St. Louis, Ms. Johnny is the husband of Carmel Bufkin, she has been battling cancer since last summer. She has had surgery and is still taking chemo. They lost their home to Katrina and they have been trying to rebuild since. Jeff Parness of the www.NewYorkSaysThankYou.org is going to bring a group to Bay St. Louis in the spring and rebuild their home for them. Jeff and his organization are not knew at this, last spring they rebuilt a home for a lady name of Bonita Keely from Bay St. Louis. www.wlox.com/Global/story.asp?S=6276829 and http://www.bonitaswish.org/ please check out both sites. Ken-Tenn is just glad to be involved with Jeff and his organization and on Tuesday we met with Carmel's husband Johnny and gave him the light fixtures we brought from Ky. for their new home to be.
 

Pictured in the last two is Janelle Graham daughter of the Bufkins and Tammie Tyra

Pictured below , we picked up two pallets of medical  supplies and baby formula for the D'Iberville Free Clinic in Ms. To the left is Beverly and Clive Sqembo of Lamar, Mo. they have been helping since two weeks after the storm. In the middle is Dennis Hamblin and Wayne Heming of Biloxi. The last picture is part of 20 pallets of green tee that we sent down a couple of weeks ago.

January 25, 2008

Ken-Tenn was recently donated over 60 thousand brand new novels from Christian Appalachian Sharing. We are donating these books to  www.bookstoyou.org  and organization established by Dr. Ken Mask and Wynton Marsalis of New Orleans in 2002. They are in need of a place to store these books and distribute them to the people of New Orleans and all of La. It will take at least five tractor trailers to move this many books if any one would like to make a donation to provide transportation for this, please contact Dr. Ken or myself through our organizations. Any help would be very much appreciated.

Pictures of some of the novels donated so that you can see the quality of the books.

January 2008 update

In the last few months we have been working with Dr. David Karl and Joan Coleman from the Waveland Citizens Fund www.wavelandcitizensfund.org   in moving supplies from Ky. to the coast. The city of Meridian has donated the fuel and tractor and trailer to transport  three loads of donated materials and supplies, such as lighting fixtures, building materials, food, water etc. These supplies are stored in a warehouse in Long Beach and then distributed to the organizations still doing volunteer work on the coast.

Pictured above Reagan, Gina, Hagen, Mason, Jim and Flynn Paul

with out them and their support and the help of numerous volunteers we would not have accomplished all that we have.

SUNDAY, JUNE 25, 2006

Today we learned about two small towns in South Mobile County , Alabama , Coden, Alabama and Fowel River , Alabama . Together they have about 400 elderly, single mothers and disabled families that need help in getting their homes repaired before the next storm. Most of these families have not had any help since Katrina hit the coast. We need volunteer teams that can do repair work. If you have a team or would like to start one, please contact us at (606) 524-1988.

Mrs. Maize Johnson is just one of the families in Coden, Alabama that needs your help. Mrs. Johnson is 87 years old and this is her granddaughter.

JUNE 18, 2006 -  JUNE 23, 2006

Greenland Baptist Church from Corbin, KY spent the week at Calvary Chapel in Bay Saint Louis, MS. Their youth group led by Roy Keys had a blessed week helping families remove debris from their homes and yards.

These groups were responsible in helping Ken-Tenn provide and deliver the food and water that was needed in MS. and LA. the week of May 28th - June 5th. 

Below you will see, Pastor James and his crew from Calvary Chapel, Bay Saint Louis, MS., along with David Baker, Greg Conklin and Robbie Woods of Operation Love Thy Neighbor from Pascagoula, Ms. and from Florence, KY., Pastor Jerry Zehr and his youth group from Florence Christian Church.

On Monday, April 17th, Jim flew  to New York   for "Band for Katrina" and "Books to You" and picked up over 5,000 books, 50 bicycles, little league equipment and food and water for the city of New Orleans .

Dr. Ken Mask, founder of "Books to You" and Wynton Marsalis invited us to spend the weekend in New Orleans to enjoy one of Wynton's concerts. Here are some of the pictures from our week in New Orleans . 

Please look at the recent trips page to read about last weeks trip.

     

   

 

From left to right a group from CA. at Calvary Chapel Relief in Bay St. Louis, MS., Campus Crusade for Christ in Pass Christian, MS., Mike McMillian and crew at the Harrison County Fairgrounds, Laura Cales and Grant Cales from Lucedale, MS., and Don Greene from the Mississippi Delta Warehouse in Clarksdale, MS.

Please take a few moments to read the story below. If everyone was this giving, we would have not had a reason to create Ken-Tenn.

When asked why he donated his toys, Erik was quoted as saying...

" I donated my toys because a hurricane hit their states and I wanted them to have some toys to play with because they didn't have anything else to do. I felt horrible that the hurricane destroyed their houses and everything they had, and I wanted to help. Since my birthday was near when the hurricane hit, I wanted to give them my presents. It made me feel good to share with others."

ERIK KADIKIS

Erik Kadikis is an 8 year old boy from Connecticut . On his birthday, Erik asked his mother to mail his presents to the Christian Appalachian Project in Corbin , KY. . He told his mother that he wanted to share his presents. CAPS contacted Jim Paul of the Ken-Tenn Team and asked him to make sure the gifts were taken to the Gulf Coast . On Tuesday, March 14th, Jim called Gulfport 's Memorial Hospital and asked  if he could bring Erik's gifts to the hospital to share with the children. The pictures below are the children who received Erik's birthday gifts and the rest of the presents were donated for future use in the pediatric unit.

From left to right Jayda Ladner age 2 of Gulfport, MS., James Dudzienski age 5 of Gulfport, MS, Madalynne Willis 2 months of Gulfport, MS, Kayla Broome age 3 of Long Beach, MS. Pictured with Erik's other gifts, Jamie Taylor a child life specialist from Gulfport, MS, Susan Collins and Aimee Arnold both pediatric nurses from Gulfport, MS.

Kevin Gates and his mother Nancy Williamson at their home in Stonewall, MS.

The nine pictures below are from Cameron Parish, LA. and the city of Cameron , LA. Since Rita hit in this area five months ago, the parish and towns are still in need of supplies such as storage buildings, food, medical supplies, building supplies and volunteers willing to help the citizen's clean up and rebuild their homes and businesses.

The pictures below are of storm clouds from around the country and pictures of Waveland, MS. during the storm surge.

Thank you for visiting our site. Please come back often. We update our site at least once a week with stories, trip information and a current needs list for distribution centers and food kitchens.

It was a privilege to meet someone as nice as Chely Wright. She is very involved with doing benefit work for several charities. We were ecstatic that she was touched by what Ken-Tenn has done to help in the Gulf Coast . She has pledged her support through her website to assist us in our endeavors.

Bill Bryant and Barbara Bailey of WKYT Channel 27 of Lexington , KY.

Al Smith of KET television and friends from Bay St. Louis, MS.

WWW.ADOPT-A-CHURCH.COM

MBCB.ORG

citiimpact.org

www.southlandmed.com 
BAND FOR KATRINA

Locals have sent $700,000 in aid to Hurricane Katrina victims

Since Ken-Tenn was featured in this news article, we have taken approximately ten million dollars in aid to the Mississippi Gulf Coast , South Mobile County AL .  and LA. as of August, 2008. We have also distributed over a million dollars in aid from the Hancock County distribution warehouse in Waveland, MS, the IDTF warehouse in Biloxi, MS and the Mississippi Delta Councils Warehouse for goods of Hurricane Katrina and others located in Clarksdale, MS.

Since August of last year we have also donated to other organizations in our home states. We have given over five million dollars of donated books, tools, school supplies, and building materials, to our local schools, churches, and other non profit organizations.  

KEN-TENN RELIEF TEAM is a non-profit organization established to meet the needs of those victims who went without help in the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and surrounding areas after Hurricane Katrina.

                                   The KEN-TENN RELIEF TEAM started out as the WILLIAMSBURG TRI-COUNTY RELIEF TEAM.  After the team got local and state government officials involved in our cause, we changed the name to include KY and TN because so much support had come from both of those states. The team decided to establish a group of individuals that would respond to any emergency or disaster in the United States with immediate and continued support until the situation is resolved or under control by the local officials.