Full Circle

By Tina V. Bryson

When April Reynolds was a preschooler in 1993, her parents enrolled her in Christian Appalachian Project’s Child and Family Development Center (CFDC) in Mount Vernon, Kentucky. Now she serves as a teacher’s assistant and bus driver at that very same center. As her life comes full circle, she is in a position to empower others.

“I love that I am able to help others like my family was helped,” Reynolds said. “I know how it is to come from a low-income family where every day can be a struggle to meet basic needs. It makes me happy to be able to help other families, especially parents with children with special needs.”

Reynolds has had the support of CAP throughout her life. Her family particpated in CAP’s Christmas basket program from the time that Reynolds was in elementary school until she graduated high school.

Those gifts were a tremendous blessing. CAP also provided transportation so Reynolds could attend CAP’s day camps. After high school, she earned her bachelor’s degree in early childhood education from the University of the Cumberlands.

“I came from a one-income family that wasn’t making a lot,” Reynolds recalled. “Our family used CAP programs for clothing and school supplies when I was growing up. Family Advocacy helped with utilities sometimes, and we used the Grateful Bread Food Pantry. One year, we even received seeds from CAP to grow our own garden.”

April’s husband, Brandon, also works at CAP at Grateful Bread Food Pantry. Together they pay it forward through some of the same programs that helped April and her family when she was growing up.

April and Brandon also utilize some of those resources in raising their own three children. Being a parent who has benefitted from these services, while also being able to provide these services to other families, has been a double blessing to April.

“We all want to help our students and their families,” Reynolds said. “If we see there is a family that is struggling with something, we try our best to find a resource to help them out. I especially like that we provide services for children with disabilities, such as speech, or that have occupational or physical therapy needs. The CFDC has worked with my own family and provided us needed help for our daughter. She started school with a developmental delay, but after only one year of kindergarten, she is testing on age level. If my children hadn’t attended CAP’s child development center, they wouldn’t have received the services that they needed to succeed in elementary school,” she explained.

Their oldest daughter, Emma, started attending the CFDC when they couldn’t get the services they needed at the local hospital. Emma was able to get help with both behavioral issues and speech therapy at the center. Her formational experiences played a pivotal role in her later success in elementary school.

“After being at the CFDC for two years, she learned a lot. Because she knew her ABCs, she was able to pick up on her letter sounds quickly,” Reynolds explained. “Emma ended up being in the advanced reading group in her kindergarten class and also made the honor roll throughout the entire school year. She struggled a little bit with math but picked it up before the school year was over.”

Emma continues to improve, thanks to the teachers at the CFDC. “If the staff wouldn’t have pushed her so hard to learn what she did at the school, I feel she would have been way behind. She is still receiving speech services at Mount Vernon Elementary, but will soon be testing out of speech,” Reynolds added. “Thanks to all of their time and efforts with her at the CFDC, she is able to go into first grade prepared and ready to learn.”

Reynolds and her husband are grateful to have the opportunity to give back in their own community. They are living transformed lives that build hope for other Appalachian families.

“Really, I want to say thanks to all of the donors because, without them, CAP programs would not be possible. If my parents hadn’t received services from CAP, I would not have had new nice school clothes or supplies for school. I wouldn’t have had a Christmas gift or dinner at Christmas time because my parents didn’t have the money,” Reynolds noted. “There are many families still today like mine that need help and support. I am forever grateful to CAP and its donors for all they do for everyone in Eastern Kentucky.”

Thanks to all of their time and efforts with her at the CFDC, she is able to go into first grade prepared and ready to learn.

Reynolds recalls that the Christmas presents provided by CAP made a real difference to her as a child.

Reynolds posesfor a formal photo with her husband and children.

In 2018, Christian Appalachian Project (CAP) partnered with author and speaker Annie F. Downs to bring Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to children at CAP’s Child and Family Development Centers. It takes $25 annually to fund one child from birth to age five. Children in CAP’s service area began receiving books in December 2018. Ten of the initial recipients have aged out of the program. Currently, 115 children receive books in McCreary and Rockcastle Counties. We have served 125 children in the program thus far, including April Reynolds’s children.

“I am happy that my children get books through this program,” Reynolds said. “If it weren’t for this program, my children would probably not get many books. Although both my husband and I work, we still don’t make a lot. The money we make goes to pay bills or to buy clothes for the children.”

She praised the program noting that most parents in Rockcastle County don’t have the extra income needed to buy books each month for their children.

“Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has taught my children to value books,” Reynolds added. “Each book they get has a wonderful story in them, and many of them also have educational value, too. My children now run to check the mailbox each day because they know there is a chance there could be a book for them in the mail. It makes me smile.”