Nashville angles step up to help homeless veterans after media coverage

This is what can happen when reporters want to help. They end up letting the public know what is needed and then mountains can move! What a great country this is when people set themselves aside to help those in need!

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 • July 14, 2009

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.
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Campground residents struggles hit home with readers