Day 7: Open Door Ministries

For our last full day we have here in the Appalachia area, we spent a good portion of our day at Open Door Ministries, which is an organization that with community involvement and support, they are able to feed, educate, and offer living assistance to those in need. We were of course there to help out in the kitchen and thrift store to serve those that visited today, but also to take a look at the different health issues going on in this population and how Open Door Ministries helps improve the health in those that face health disparities. As soon as we got there, I immediately hopped in with a lot of the task-y stuff - like organizing boxes, drying and putting away dishes, and making coffee for the visitors. Later on after doing a few more tasks, I was able to go out and start talking to different people and get to know more about the visitors, more specifically the health-oriented aspect.

You would expect that the problems I noticed in most of these individuals that are in high financial need to have more physical issues going on, such as heart or lung disease; but actually, almost all of the visitors today were struggling with some sort of psychological issue, all the way from things like depression to schizophrenia. There were also a shocking number that easily discussed their struggle with drug abuse or other addictions. What is amazing is how much Open Door Ministries is actually working in these people that are struggling. A large number of the visitors feel they are finally being heard by someone, and Open Door is also very faith-based, so seeing how they restore hope and self-worth to the people that come through the doors, as they encounter the love and delivering power of Jesus Christ is just absolutely amazing. There are also several other places available in the community that are open specifically for mental and behavior health, including the recovery-driven company of Meridian Behavioral Health. Open Door Ministries even has services to pay for prescriptions that are written to patients of Meridian, which helps a lot of them stay on track with recovering.

With mental health issues becoming a growing problem in the United States, I was very glad to see how many companies, services, and people there are in communities like this in these areas. There of course could be a lot more people on board with things like this, but just like Tom from Open Door said: "if you want change, it always starts with a spark."