A Fanciful Flea

A volunteer group in Madison County is hosting a benefit fancy/antique/really good stuff/art market to benefit the Neighbors in Need’s fuel assistance program.

Madison Has HEArT’s mission is to establish a yearly fundraiser to help folks in crisis: the working poor, disadvantaged, low income, single parent, disabled, down on their luck, not enough to go around, residents.

The government can’t help everybody and this is a way the community can step up and donate things they don’t need any more, and help someone in need at the same time.

We are extremely worried about the balance of the winter. We all know there are inadequate funds due to more people registering for assistance and the rise in fuel costs. So this group decided they could probably do more good on their own, than all the political parties, put together.

It seems plain folks have the potential to get more done, for more people, on less money, and create more good will, than politics ever will. The group is dedicated to heating the homes of the disadvantaged in Madison county this winter.

Madison is home to artisans, small business owners, teachers, service workers, Grammy award winning musicians, and even a National Heritage Award winner, Sheila Kay Adams. The county residents are a mixed bag; a colorful community which recognizes that we are in this together.

Everyone reads about disenfranchised people, but you can see it firsthand in Madison County; at the gas pump, and definitely at the grocery. These families have a face. They are not invisible to us. They are our friends and neighbors.

Some of these very people are the stewards of these mountains, holding by the skin of their teeth to land owned for generations by their families. They held close what was dear to them, instead of selling out. We just want to say thank you and give them something so simple… heat.

Join Madison Has HEArT for this fun event featuring live music, food, a silent auction, and bargains galore.

If You Go: Madison Has HEArT, a Fanciful Flea, takes place Saturday, February 15
from 10-4 p.m. at Marshall High Studios, on the Island in Marshall. For more information please visit the website at www.madisonhasheart.org.