We would like to acknowledge Phyllis Delph as the recipient of the Americans Helping Americans^® – Helper of the Month award for February! Congratulations, Phyllis!

Phyllis has volunteered with our partner, Of One Accord Ministry in Sneedville, Tennessee for over 20 years at their thrift store.

Phyllis serves her neighbors in every way she can. She has helped the local United Methodist Church ministry since 2000, called the Community Clothing Center. Children’s clothing is collected, sorted and parents are allowed to come weekly to find clothes for their children.

Phyllis has also been a member of Modern Woodmen Insurance Company for about the same period of time. Typically, non-profits in Appalachia struggle to find support for their work within their own communities. Phyllis has worked hard to find matching grants that help support a number of other non-profits in the area.

But the one volunteer effort that makes Phyllis shine most is working at the Shepherd’s Corner, the thrift store and food pantry headquarters for Of One Accord Ministry.

Phyllis came to volunteer with the ministry in 2000, putting in the same amount of hours as a full time employee. She began by sorting through clothing or giving away food. She helped plan events and it wasn’t long until she started to run the store; directing the other workers and volunteers.

Because of the dire poverty inside her county, outside churches often offer to come all and do distributions of new and used items. Phyllis has helped plan those events and has offered additional time to come and be a part of them. Some are done in the city park, some in the gym of the old high school or other places, but she has helped serve tens of thousands of people over the years with food, clothing, household items, backpacks, and other essentials.

Phyllis has given over 5,000 volunteer hours just with Of One Accord Ministry, which we believe makes her a hero and, according to Of One Accord’s director Rev. Sheldon Livesay, she is, “a champion in the Kingdom of God.”

The Helper of the Month Award is designed to show the amazing, wonderful, hard-working, and dedicated people in the Appalachian communities we serve every day. Each month, we’ll be sharing these stories with you in the hopes that you’ll walk away as inspired as we are to do good things in your community!