Campground residents' struggles hit home with readers

Gifts, job offers pour in to help people who lost jobs and homes to the economic downturn and are now living in campers and tents

By Jennifer Brooks
THE TENNESSEAN

Kathy Newton opened her eyes Sunday morning to find a BMW parked outside her tent.

Her visitors unloaded a brand-new tent, offered to pay off the money she owed on her storage unit and were on their way back to Nashville before the delighted woman fully realized what had happened.

It was the first stroke of luck in a long time for Newton, a disabled veteran living full time at the Timberline Campground in Lebanon. But it wasn't the last.

Donations and job offers are pouring into Timberline as Tennessean readers react to a front-page Sunday story about residents who lost jobs and homes to the economic downturn and are now living in campers and tents.

"I wasn't expecting it," Newton said, admiring her new tent as it stood drying in the sun after Sunday's storms. "I just wanted to get the point across about what the economy was doing to people."

As the day wore on, donations began to pile up at the tents and trailers of the people who appeared in the article. People came with food, clothing, toys for the children, refrigerators and air conditioning units.

A delegation from the Veterans of Foreign Wars Chapter 5015 and Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 104 rushed out to offer Newton help with her disability benefits and to offer her rides to church and doctor's appointments. One man picked up a gallon of milk when he found out she had nothing to drink with her chemotherapy drugs.

"How is this happening to veterans in Wilson County, in the city of Lebanon?" said Richard "Doc" Kraft, a Vietnam veteran who came out to help. Just in one visit to the campground, he said, his group met four or five other veterans.

'People are suffering'

Troy Renault, a father of five who lost his construction job and then his home, came back from church Sunday to find a cooler full of KFC chicken that someone had dropped off and a woman who held up a newspaper, compared the face in the photo to his, and then offered him a job.

"They told me, 'People have been coming in all morning, wanting to give you a job,' " he said, fanning out a stack of notes and business cards. One woman left a message at the front desk, offering a house on a 36-acre farm where the family could stay rent-free.

What touched the family most deeply were the people who were struggling through their own financial problems but still wanted to reach out. One unemployed woman showed up with a trunk full of vegetables fresh from her garden.

"People are suffering. Whether you live in a campground or in a fancy neighborhood, you can look around and see the need and try to fill it," said Renault, who has been sharing the donations with as many of his neighbors as he can. "It doesn't have to be financial. You can look around and find little things you can do to make a difference in people's lives, day to day."

When someone dropped off an envelope stuffed with $100, Renault shared it with his neighbor, Terry Ballard, an unemployed songwriter who spends most days looking for day labor jobs in front of the Lebanon Lowe's home improvement store, holding a sign that reads "Almost Homeless."

Ballard promptly took the money to the front office to pay off the back rent he owed on his campsite.

Food pantry gets boost

The outpouring of support has highlighted a little-known housing crisis. Timberline is only one of many campgrounds in Middle Tennessee that host a growing population of full-time residents.

Manager Tammy Page estimates that 85 percent of Timberline families are full-time residents, not vacationing visitors. Six months ago, recognizing that few social agencies or churches were offering help to her residents, Page organized a food pantry in the camp office.

"If you need it, take it," reads the sign over the neat shelves of personal care items, boxes of cereal, tinned meat and canned goods. "But only take what you need. Others need it too. If you can donate, it would be greatly appreciated."

The food pantry got an unexpected boost Monday when a Nashville ministry dropped off four bulging bags of bread and heaping trays of pastries, cake and baked goods. They'll be returning every week to replenish the stores.

"A lot of people don't realize this is happening," said Page, who extends credit to residents who can't make their monthly campsite rent. "You get people who were making $20 an hour and now they're getting $7 an hour and trying to feed their families.

"It's not just the lower class here. It's your middle class; it's your upper class. It's everybody."