AFSCME Local 4011 helps brightens Christmas for Bremen and Mayfield

By BERRY CRAIG

AFT Local 1360

Members of AFSCME Local 4011, Jefferson County Association of Educational Support Personnel, have helped make Christmas a little brighter for tornado victims in Mayfield and Bremen, communities hit hard by the twister that spun a path of death and destruction through western Kentucky on the night of Dec. 10.

The local partnered with Springdale Presbyterian Church, also in Louisville, to deliver on Monday "compassion, kindness, love and goodwill on 9 pallets to our Muhlenberg families" (Bremen is in Muhlenberg County) and donated more than $4,600 between "Mayfield-Graves County and Muhlenberg United Way" programs, said Sue Foster, Local 4011 president. 

The relief aid ranged "from work gloves and boots, safety glasses, batteries, facemasks for children and adults, medical supplies, school supplies, socks and underwear, toys and books, blankets, diapers and baby wipes, hygiene supplies for both men and women, can openers, brown paper lunch bags, lunch baggies, non-perishable food items, baby and pet food [to]...water and juice," Foster added.

Foster and Samantha Perla, also from AFSCME Local 4011, drove a box truck down from Louisville Monday morning while attorney Ellen Suetholz, a Muhlenberg County native; and Jerald Adkins of Working Strategies 2, drove in from Frankfort in his pickup truck. The quartet rendezvoused in Bremen and unloaded the supplies.

Foster also thanked everybody from Central City, near Bremen, who helped offload the supplies. 

Adkins drove on to Mayfield and delivered $3,040 in checks to Mayfield's temporary city hall that is open in a part of town not damaged by the tornado. 

Local 4011 has an additional $1,600 that will be delivered to Bremen and Dawson Springs, a Hopkins County community the tornado also devastated.