Rural community women as leaders in health outreach.

American's tremendous wealth and ample resources provide a myriad of opportunities for its citizens, yet children from low income, rural families face barriers that block them from enjoying those opportunities. Appalachian children face an especially acute set of problems. They are growing up in communities where entrenched poverty and unemployment have long been a fact of life and where economic forecasts remain quite bleak. Poverty is the norm. Yet even in these hard pressed communities families struggle to provide not only food and shelter, but health care, learning experiences, love and hope for their children. This article describes one example of a growing grassroots movement that relies on the energy and talents of rural women to support families coping with the damaging effects that poverty has on family life.