SOMERSET, Ky. — Though no one wants to live through a natural disaster, they can be good reminders of the importance of helping one another.
Sunrise Children’s Services recently posted on social media Monday (Jan. 26) that electricity was out at the Cumberland Adventure Program in Bronston, Ky., where 27 boys live in cabins on campus. The post simply asked people to pray.
“The electricity went out, they didn’t have any power, and we didn’t know when we would get it back,” said Sunrise President Dale Suttles.
That prayer was answered quickly. David Pendley, church administrator at First Baptist Church of Somerset, called CAP and asked if it had generators. He learned the facility had some older units that did not always work.
“David said, ‘Let me get back with you. Lowe’s has three (generators) and we’re going to get them for you,’” Suttles said.
When Pendley went to Lowe’s to buy the generators, store manager Jeremy Smith declined to sell them to the church. Instead, Smith said Lowe’s would donate three Westinghouse 12,500-watt tri-fuel generators along with three 100-foot heavy-duty contractor extension cords.
“He said, ‘We need to take care of those kids,’” Suttles said. “He gave them to us and First Baptist Somerset delivered them. It is all about people caring.”
FBC Somerset member Kevin Newton, president and CEO of South Kentucky Rural Electric Cooperative Corporation, also helped by coordinating crews to the site through texts with the CAP director.
The generators, valued at about $1,150 each, will be especially helpful with frigid temperatures expected to continue across Kentucky for at least another week.
“With these cold temperatures, you don’t know if you’ll lose power again,” Suttles said. “It’s good peace of mind to have those set up just in case.”
He said the temperature in one of the cabins had dropped to 47 degrees.
Suttles summed it up this way: “A good KBC church saw a need for an agency and institution, and a community partnered with a church to make a difference.”
Sunrise had simply asked for prayer, and what followed showed the power of prayer.
“We just said pray,” he said. “This just happened quickly and people responded. You see all this (bad) stuff going on if you watch the news. (But) There’s all kinds of good things going on that don’t get reported. This is one of those situations.”
This article originally appeared in Kentucky Today.
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