We are excited to be hosting a family from Cincinnati to the farm in September. They will be with us for 1 month . While there they will be helping with many of the fall projects .. Harvesting and canning, delivering school supplies, picnics with the schools , serving the seniors and coal deliveries.
I got a message from the oldest son Henry. He was wanting to have a bit more information about the coal deliveries. He has been working and saving his money to purchase coal and wanted to know how much he will be able to purchase so far.
Its exciting to me when I see young people get excited about helping people. He has enough saved so for for about 5 tons / enough for 5 families. We got talking bout the entire Coal process, and I got thinking maybe you would be interested as well, and maybe like to donate toward the Henry Coal fund.
We have so many needs right now like the Summer camps, the Dentist, the back to school packs and some needed medical care that I was wondering what to do about the Coal . So for the next month I will continue to focus on the other needs , but let people know that Yes we will be delivering coal, or at least at this point 5 tons of coal thanks to Henry. Please consider supporting his efforts, in the memo line please put Henry's Coal Fund.
So here is the coal story.
Coal comes to Tokmok aby train a couple time a week. There are a few different types of coal. The best coal is shinny and has larger pieces and very little dust . It burns hotter and longer. But which ever coal you get it is all the same price, usually around $80 USD a ton. but we will not know the prices until the season is in full swing. Right now the demand is low so the price is a little lower.
Coal trucks fill up then it is up to the truck driver to purchase the coal and resell it at a profit. We purchase so much coal that the drivers want our business so they are always on the watch for the good coal and let us know when they have it.
In the past we have tried delivering directly to peoples homes so they would dump part of the load in the front of the different homes , this was difficult to deliver evenly as well when a person is Old, disabled or single mom with little kids , this is difficult for them to move in before the neighbors start to help themselves. So we have it delivered to the farm .
The deliveries come to us where the boys break up the bigger pieces and lode everything into bags . 20 bags = one ton of coal . This is about 1/2 the coal a family will need for the winter, but it gives them a good start and the encouragement to keep working to purchase more coal . In those cases where they people are too sick or unable to get more coal on their own, we try to do a second delivery in the new year if we have the funds.
Once the coal is bagged up it goes into the barn out of the weather until we are able to deliver it. We also collect construction material all year and cut it and bag it as well so we can give a few bags as fire starter .
When we have the funds available we make up small food packages that we deliver along with the coal
On these deliveries we see the specific needs that families might have, and we sometimes receive other donations of things like Hats and clothing or vitamins and we are able to bring them.
It is very humbling to go on the deliveries. Our teams start out excited about being able to help , but very quickly they start to become overwhelmed with the needs .
Starting in Mid August, people start to see the snow on top pf the mountain, every day the snow is a little lower as the summer starts to cool off. Lower and Lower until the winter hits beginning of November can still be warm but people are worried because in justa couple weeks by the end of November, temperatures will drop to -20 and -30.
This is such an important and life saving cause .. Thank you Henry for caring.
