About His Ministries

His Ministries’ mission is to combat substance abuse.

His Ministries provides services and programs for the prevention and intervention of substance abuse. A certified counselor provides free substance abuse recovery services to youth, adults and families in the Big Stone Gap area and the surrounding areas. Services and programs include counseling, referrals, education on substance abuse, a support group, alternative activities for youths, providing a certificate drug abuse class to inmates and assisting needy families.

Prevention activities for youth include The Edge Music Venue, free to all youth. The Edge is a venue where bands with a message to youth ‘not to use harmful substances’ come and give the youth a free show. Bands come and play free to more than 30 to 90 youth during a show. All youth have the opportunity to have a positive environment to participate in ‘to prevent’ them from hanging out with the wrong crowd. The Edge provides alternative activities throughout the year, as well. Outreach programs for area needy families have included providing food, winter coats, blankets and school supplies. In addition, His Ministries provides a place for offenders to work community service hours. Programs and services include:

• The Edge Music Venue provides youth a safe positive environment to hang out

• Counseling and referral services for individuals with addictions

• 12-Week Drug Abuse Program for inmates

• Support group for those with addictions

• Provide basic essential needs for needy families, when supplies are available

• Community Service Workplace for those with fines to be work off

• Drug Abuse Education for the prevention of substance abuse

• The Shop Around the Corner Thrift Store Student Training Program. The thrift store building is 98% complete: The thrift store is designed to give students training in small business, and assisting needy families through outreach projects.

In 2009:

More than 211 were assisted throughout the year with counseling, substance abuse classes and or referral services. 152 attended the 12-week certificate program and 6-attended the support group weekly.

More than 30 to 90 youth attend the Saturday night events at the Edge and sometimes weekly events throughout the summer.

Outreach Programs consist of helping needy families with the support of individual donations, businesses and mission groups who provide basic essential needs for needy families. More than 21,750 lbs of food were given away, serving more than a 1,000 individuals, in addition to giving away clothing, school supplies and winter items to needy families.

More than 500 individuals received information on substance abuse. Numbers do not include seminar, website, myspace, speaking engagement and facebook participants.

3-individuals were supervised in community service, working more than 1,000 service hours.

12-Volunteers adults and youth work weekly & monthly assisting in programs and operating the Edge.

Mission Groups throughout the year assist His Ministries in building projects and outreach programs.

Restaurants in Downtown

In an article in today's Kingsport Times News, Sharon Caskey Hayes discusses the importance of restaurants in downtowns. Several new restaurants have opened recently in downtown Kingsport. According to Lisa Childress, executive director of the Downtown Kingsport Association, said a growing restaurant sector is a sign of a strong downtown.
"Restaurants are the leading traffic generators for downtowns, and they are common in successful downtowns," Childress said.

Also, check further down in the article where they interview a friend of mine that I grew up with in Appalachia, Tom Keller, owner of TK's Big Dogs. Tom started out with a hot dog cart and after successfully testing the market, moved into a permanent location. After that he started hosting weekly "jammin" sessions which led to the beginning to a summer concert series. Another lesson we can learn and utilize as we take advantage of our location upon The Crooked Road, Virginia's Heritage Music Trail.

Movie Website Update

The movie website continues to generate a large amount of traffic. Here are the stats for the last two months:

January 2409
February 1760

I am getting ready to do some redesign on the website since the General Assembly is over. I am trying to get new information up there, so if you know something about the movie, email me and make sure I know it too. Thanks!

Tupelo Scores Again

In today's Richmond Times Dispatch, it was reported that Tupelo, Mississippi will be the home of it's newest U.S. manufacturing plant which will be dedicated to the manufacture of the Highlander SUV.

The $1.3 million facility (similar in capital outlay as the Dominion Power plant project being planned for Virginia City) will be constructed on a 1,700 acre site.

Both Tennessee and Arkansas were in contention and further down the list was Virginia (somewhere within the Roanoke Valley).

I'm anxious to talk to Vaughn Grisham to understand the dynamics of Toyota's decision and how Tupelo rose to the challenge.

Community Development in Gwinnett Co, Georgia

Attached is a recent article featuring bold economic development activities in Gwinnette County, Georgia. The article describes how Gwinnett plans to launch a five-year economic and community development plan to create over 65,400 new jobs the Gwinnett Chamber plans to implement. Partnership Gwinnett plans to create more than 65,400 new jobs and $5.8 billion in net new wealth over next five years.

This is certainly a much larger initiative that The Gap Partnership, but I think it describes what is possible with vision, a "do-able" strategy and resources to support the initiative.

Wellness Center Letters of Support

We need letters of support for a VTSF grant to do a feasibility study for our Community Wellness Center. If you or your agency/company would be willing to do one, please send me an email at nbailey@frontierhealth.org. I'll send the information about who to write and what needs to be included in the letter. Thanks in advance.
Nancy

Blog Training

We were able to get some "blog training" in today, in spite of the weather. We were small in numbers, but Barbara Polly, Tony Palubicki and Ray Moore were attentive students. Thanks guys for your interest in this important communications tool!