Update: Churches Donate 36 (now 62+!) RVs to Hurricane Hellene Victims - Amish Donate $300K and Build 12 Tiny Homes
Art of Liberty Foundation Readers Donate A Fully Stocked RV + $4800
Etienne Update: I originally wrote and published the article below to the Art of Liberty Foundation’s Daily News Substack on Dec 13th as our featured charity for the Christmas season. Our readers responded with $4800 in donations to the church, and readers Brook and Heather S. donated a 2017 “bunk house” travel trailer that they fully stocked with cooking utensils, bedding, blankets, upgraded propane tanks, propane, and food. The trailer went to a family of five that had been living in their flooded home, where the mold and dampness had given all five respiratory issues.
Trailer and Supplies Donated by Art of Liberty Foundation Readers to the Effort!
The $4800 donated was used by Christpoint Church in Sparta, TN, to buy another RV, bringing the church’s contribution to eight (8!) donated trailers and the overall effort, organized by TLC Community Center in Elizabethton, Tennessee and Summit Leadership in Johnson City, to 62 RVs donated, up from 36 less than a month ago. They are sorting out some title issues, and the final total will be closer to 70 RVs by the end of the week!
But Wait! There is more!
I did a call with Angie Odom from the TLC Community Center in Elizabethton and was amazed at the efforts on the ground and in TLC itself. TLC started as Abortion Alternatives and Women’s Center, a crisis pregnancy center which has helped to provide 49 free adoptions in thirteen years… the only thing families have to pay is the legal fees, to a full-fledged community center that provides 114,000 meals for kids from June - August on their own nickel which is impressive for an organization with an annual budget of less than $170,000! They are not reimbursed by any state or local “government”… Volunteers cook food for hungry kids in their commercial kitchen supplemented with vegetables from their community garden, and other volunteers and Angie drive the food to pick-up points around town where anyone who needs a meal can get one… No paperwork required!
TLC’s Charlie Bus Distributes Aid Around the County!
The center offers a free grocery store (food bank), a clothing store, the Cup of Grace food trailer, which was used extensively to provide food and drinks during the hurricane aftermath and the Charlie Bus, a converted school bus used to distribute donated supplies around the county.
TLC Town - A Sensory Playroom for Special Needs and Autistic Kids
They also have The Clothing Truck - a converted box truck with racks of donated clothing and a 2000 square foot indoor sensory playground for special needs kids they call TLC Town.
Angie Odom, Holding Baby Bella, Adopted From A Mother Who Overdosed and Gave Birth in a Vegetative State, who Angie & Family Have Nurtured Back to Health.
TLC town was created after Angie and her husband Earl adopted Bella, a baby born from a mother who overdosed during the first trimester of pregnancy; she is believed to be one of the only babies ever to survive an overdose and gestation in a mother kept alive in a vegetative state and delivered during the 34th week of pregnancy. Angie and her family have loved and nurtured Bella back to health and she is now thriving under their care.
70,000+ Homes Destroyed… RVs, Campers and Trailers to the Rescue!
Hurricane Helene Damage - Image from the New York Times
When the Hurricane hit, Angie and Tyler Mackie from Summit Leadership, a Christian fellowship that helps connect over 150 non-profits, ministries and churches, immediately realized the need for housing, with 70,000+ homes destroyed. They had an initial cash donation and began wheeling and dealing to purchase RVs and recruit churches and partners. Word of the program spread, and people began to donate RVs, campers, trailers, cars, and even a Bayliner boat without a motor that slept 6-8 and could be hooked up to “shore power” to power the heater and amenities.
The community pitched in, including Ridgeview Campground, Whitehead’s Campground and River Valley RV, which either donated spots or leased them at a discount. Crowder RV donated $10,000 in services to fix up donated RVs, and Christpoint church members have been fixing them as well. Other businesses like Harry Stout Locksmith and Larry & Terry’s Propane have also been part of the effort.
The RVs are only part of the story as TLC, Summit Leadership, Christpoint Church, and others have mobilized TENS of THOUSANDS of relief items ranging from electric blankets to diapers to heated RV water hoses to help the 200,000+ people who have been displaced or impacted by the Hurricane. TLC has also facilitated the donation of eleven vehicles. When two families arrived to pick up vehicles that were too small for their needs, Angie gave away the two vans the center uses for food deliveries during the summer, confident that the good Lord would provide replacements by the time they are needed again!
”Government” Made the Problems Worse
While the federal and local government's response has been roundly ridiculed, Angie described FEMA's response as “a complete joke.” She suggested they swap the “F” in their name for a “B” for the Belated Emergency Management Agency. Senator Rand Paul recently released his Festivus Report outlining over $1 Trillion Dollars in government waste.
According to Angie, also an elected country commissioner, the local “government” is no better! Angie explained that the local county mayor has been using the emergency declaration for the hurricane to waive purchasing requirements for committee review to buy what many feel are unneeded purchases that may or may not be reimbursed by the federal government that could require a tax or fees increase on a community devastated.
Making the problem worse, the local hospital provider, Wellmont Health Systems, was bought out by Mountain States Health Alliance, which was run by Alan Levine, a politically-connected CEO who then engineered a government-sponsored monopolization of 20 hospitals under the merged entity: Ballad Health. The company lobbied the legislatures of Tennesee and Virginia to pass a Certificate of Public Advantage to waive existing anti-monopoly laws and creating barriers to competitors entering the market. Sen. Rusty Crowe (R-Johnson City) co-sponsored the bill allowing for the merger, which was later mirrored in Virginia. Crowe was also working as a contractor for Levine’s Mountain States Health Alliance when the bill was introduced. Ballad’s marketing company has approached at least one local elected representative offering to help with their campaign so assuming they are doing that for others. They have spent hundreds of thousands in lobbying and executives have made almost $100K in donations to individual politicians, PACs and political parties.
Under the government-granted monopoly the company has closed the community hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, downgraded the capabilities of trauma centers at Bristol Regional Medical Center and Holston Valley Medical Center. Ballad also shuttered the Holston Valley neonatal ICU. Local residents were so angry that protesters gathered outside Holston Valley for eight months. Ballad Health’s 20 hospitals remain the only option for hospital care for most of about 1.1 million residents in a 29-county region at the nexus of Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina. Three of their hospitals, including their flagship hospital in Johnson City have seen their quality of care decline from being two star facilities to one-star facilities under ratings from The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
#Voluntaryism for the Win!
While the federal “government” was wasting a trillion dollars and making the situation worse, local individuals, non-profits, and churches have, quite literally, saved the day. While this article spotlights one specific and highly sucessful local relief operation, the entire hurricane relief effort has been a textbook case of voluntaryism, where people from all walks of life have banded together to do what they can to support the efforts to rebuild communities lost to the hurricane. The hurricane wiped out an estimated 73,000-100,000 homes in Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennesee, displacing an estimated 200,000 people, many of whom are still living in tents and flooded homes.
The response has delivered targeted relief in unique and innovative ways.
These range from dozens of private helicopter owners making hundreds if not 1000+ rescue flights on crowd-funded aviation fuel to boat owners operating as the “Cajun Navy” doing search and rescue and delivering privately donated relief supplies.
In December, 50 Amish carpenters from Lancaster, PA, donated a week of their time and $300,000 collected from the Amish community to build a dozen tiny homes to shelter families displaced by the hurricane.
The private, faith-based relief organization Convoy of Hope has delivered over 3,000,000 pounds of aid to 60+ communities. For Christmas in Ashville, NC they created a Candyland-themed event and distributed 1500 turkeys, 3000 bags of groceries, and toys for every child.
North Carolina manufacturer, Hoodsly, that makes kitchen range hoods, began fuelling and loading private helicopters with relief supplies. Company founder, Kevin Garrison, organized a Go Fund Me that raised $1.2 million.
In country music, Luke Combs and Eric Church helped put together a massive benefit concert that raised $24 million. According to a statement from Luke Combs, all the money was sent to “hyper-local charities originating & operating in WNC.”
These examples just scratch the surface of what individuals, non-profits and churches have provided!
Imagine what kind of relief effort could have been provided if the organized crime “Government” hadn’t wasted a trillion dollars last year as outlined by Senator Rand Paul’s Festivus Report? OR if Americans hadn’t been robbed of half their income in overt taxes, covert taxes, and inflation?
Do we really need “government”?
Post Script: In interviewing Angie Odom from the TLC Community Center for this follow up article, Angie shared that the owner of their building has notified them of its impending sale and that they are going to lose the building that has housed and supported them for 13 year of their 25 years in service. They have identified a new building and are raising $400,000 in a GoFundMe for its purchase. You can contribute to the GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-tlcs-25year-mission or through PayPal at https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/babyandmom23
There is a link below to donate to Christpoint Church’s relief effort where 100% of donations are also going directly to those in need. The church has donated or purchased around 10,000 items so far and continues to organize volunteers for targeted relief. Pastor Steve Qualls told me they are going to be building fences for farmers so they can get their livestock back in the fields as one example of neighbors understanding the intricacies of exactly what needs to be done.
Original December 13th Article:
Churches Donate 36 RVs to Hurricane Hellene Victims - Desperately Need 30 More
Christpoint Church in Sparta & Smithville, Tennessee has been collaborating with other churches in the area to provide 36 RVs plus supplies, propane and cash to the on-going relief efforts for Hurricane Hellene.
The church members have provided six RVs and have a team working on fixing up the donated RVs to help provide shelter to refugees living in tents as winter approaches. The hurricane-devastated areas of Eastern Tennessee and North Carolina are still in desperate need and saw two suicides last week.
In addition to accepting donations of RVs, the church is soliciting and distributing contributions of heated water hoses for RVs, electric blankets, foodstuffs, propane, and cash, and 100% of donations go directly to the victims of the tragedy.
You can donate at https://christpointlive.churchcenter.com/giving/to/emergency-response
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The foundation’s recent conference, Liberty on the Rocks - Sedona - The Voluntaryism Conference featured leading economists, legal scholars, and political theorists explaining how the free market can provide all the legitimate, non-redistributive services provided by monopoly “government” better, faster and cheaper without the waste, fraud, abuse and extortion.
The foundation also publishes “Government” - The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! - How Inter-Generational Organized Crime Runs the “Government,” Media and Academia and the upcoming book: Voluntaryism - How the Only “ISM” Fair for Everyone Leads to Harmony, Prosperity and Good Karma for All!
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