Day 90 of 110: Miracle in the Mountains

During our chapter's 110th anniversary celebration, we reminded members that April was National Child Abuse Prevention Month. DAR supports The Crossnore School in Crossnore, NC and many of the children there are victims of abuse.

In 1913 doctors Eustace and Mary Martin Sloop started a school in the poverty drenched mountains of western North Carolina, holding strong to a simple and elegant belief: Education is the best way for a child to rise above his circumstances. The two doctors trudged on foot and rode horseback up steep dirt trails in isolated valleys to bring medicine to mountain families and convince farmers to let their children come to school. Because of poverty and distance, the school in Crossnore, inspired and directed by Mary Martin Sloop, eventually took in boarders, then built dormitories to accommodate them.

To learn more about this school and it's outstanding programs, visit their website. DAR and The Crossnore School relationship developed around 1924. Our chapter is proud to continue the tradition of DAR to support this school and the outstanding work they do for children to provide an education, safe place to live, and hope for the future. Crossnore's accomplishment is true miracle in the mountains.

"Without the help of the DAR we would never have been able to expand our facilities as we have done, and we could never have served the boys and girls of our mountain section to the extent that we have in the three decades since Betty Bayley hit upon that wonderful idea,"

wrote Dr. Sloop in her 1953 book.