“For the first time signs of progress have come to the area – but not to the most isolated hollows”
~ALCOR: Bi-Annual Report, 1969-70
As part of the “Action in Appalachia: Revealing Public Health, Housing, and Community Development Records in the UK Libraries Special Collections Research Center” CLIR funded grant, UK SCRC has completed processing the Appalachian Leadership and Community Outreach, Inc. records collection. The re-housing and description of these files was finished with the help of our graduate student workers and will provide an irreplaceable insight into community outreach in Eastern Kentucky through college student’s eyes. College student interns were the main backbone to all Appalachian Leadership and Community Outreach, Inc. programs and projects. ALCOR’s goals were to:
1. Provide centers of enrichment in each community;
2. Provide the children with new experiences through group activities, creative expression and broadening horizons;
3. Provide improvement of health and sanitation standards;
4. Make people aware of the available resources and how to use them;
5. Encourage individual members of the community to communicate with each other.
(Appalachian Leadership and Community Outreach, Inc., 1969, p. 5)
The Appalachian Leadership and Community Outreach, Inc. records, dated 1969 – 1982, contains nearly 49 cubic feet of documents related to project development and programming. ALCOR hired college student workers to live with the families they were helping in 16 different communities located in Knott, Floyd, Letcher, Perry, and Leslie counties. Community centers were developed by using vacant buildings, church facilities, and one-room schoolhouses to provide nutrition education, dental and cleanliness hygiene, medical care, recreation, and community development. In addition to paperwork, college files provide us with publications such as “Mountain Memories” and “Appalachian Heritage” that incorporate personal stories and poems together. In addition to the publications, various nutrition pamphlets and posters are supplied giving rigorous nutrition information; such as, bread information and the dangers of eating too much sugar. Perhaps the most interesting parts of this collection are the surviving journal entries from several of the student workers detailing their day-to-day activities and the photographs depicting all of the work they accomplished over the decade of the 1970s.
The Appalachian Leadership and Community Outreach, Inc. records’ finding aid is now available on ExploreUK!
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| Eastern Kentucky Health Services Mobile Clinic, undated. |
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| Woman, man and three boys setting up game of horseshoes, undated. |
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| Beech Creek Center Cookout, August 1976. |
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| Girl receiving vaccination, undated. |
Blog post by University of Kentucky School of Information graduate
student, Ashley Martin Keith.
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