The ladies auxiliary started with 60 women in July 2007. Before they knew it, just a year after the group's start, they had 5,000 active and nonactive members.
Story by Gretchen Mae Stone
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The Veterans of Foreign Wars has one. So does the Gulf Coast Homing Pigeon Club. And now Friends of Coal has its own ladies auxiliary, too.
The ladies auxiliary started with 60 women getting together for a luncheon at chairwoman Regina Fairchild's Raleigh County home in July 2007. Before they knew it, just a year after the group's start, they had 5,000 active and nonactive members.
They formed to tell the story of coal's importance to West Virginia and its future.
"When you go up to the light switch and flip that on, that's coal, that's burning coal," Fairchild said.
And they've continued their efforts to show that the coal industry doesn't just mine and leave but gives back to the community, too.
Giving back started with a Christmas program that provided clothes and presents to 26 needy families. The Giving Hearts project involved 122 individuals, and provided three toys to each child and two outfits and a coat and gloves to each child and adult.
Families also received food for several days, including ham, turkey, juice for the children, bread, pies and cakes. They teamed with the Salvation Army and will continue to provide anything the families may need in the future, be it a job or a bed.
"It was an experience; it humbled us. I don't think anything can prepare you for that in the different ways people live and what they have to put up with," Fairchild said.
And now the auxiliary upstarts want to go statewide, with curriculum taught in schools and fuzzy, fluffy stuffed animals at every child's hospital bedside.
The school program, Coal in the Classroom, returns to Southern West Virginia. Previously the West Virginia Coal Association reached out to teachers in four-day seminars meant to teach them how to teach about coal.
But this time the auxiliary wants to take teaching directly to the classroom, enlisting retired schoolteachers to formulate a program that explains the importance of coal. Starting March 15, the 20-minute program is scheduled for the end of each Wednesday at Stratton Elementary in Beckley.
The group may try to teach the program at two schools next year and more in the future.
The class will continue the rest of the semester, culminating in a trip to the Beckley Exhibition Mine, with free lunch and a T-shirt thrown in.
Fourth-graders will get coloring books and hear from speakers, including Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association. Other speakers will include an environmentalist, someone from American Electric Power and other coal industry workers.
"We'd really like this to be statewide, that it be mandatory in the schools that they learn about coal. That's who we are," Fairchild said.
Raney stopped by Jan. 15 to learn what the women's group is doing and how the coal association can help spread the word across the state.
"What we've dealt with for years is 'the coal industry comes in here, swoops in, mines the coal and never supports the community.'
"When you begin to finally autopsy what goes on in local communities, then you find out there's a whole lot of silent support there," Raney said.
Members come from all walks of life, Fairchild said -- from local businesspeople, to retirees, to girls and boys ages 8 to 16 in the juniors group. The juniors group only has about 10 members now, but the auxiliary hasn't gone into schools yet to recruit members.
This summer, present members will visit children in local hospitals with a special present, Mr. Coal. Mr. Coal, a friend for life, is a small, black Labrador stuffed puppy meant to bring a smile to kids' faces during hospital stays.
About 500 of the stuffed animals sit in boxes at the ladies' auxiliary headquarters in Beckley, where the upstairs space is dedicated to the organization its cookbook sales and storing coal-filled light bulbs and stuffed animals, all designed to spread awareness about coal's impact on West Virginia's economy.
Their hopes to go statewide could start soon, probably first with a move into Bluefield and Mercer County. The state has 26 coal-producing counties, Raney said, so the ladies auxiliary programs have plenty of room to grow. Raney and auxiliary board members have started a dialogue on how to take the Raleigh County group's successes and duplicate them elsewhere.
Interest already has emerged in Charleston, where opportunities exist for membership growth. Fairchild said initial efforts in Raleigh County centered around showing examples of how coal indirectly can affect those who do not work directly in the industry. For example, a banker who isn't directly involved with coal might loan money to someone who is in the industry.
"If you can get to people and touch their heart with something that relates to them everyday, that's how we get them in here and get them involved," Fairchild said.