She has been executive director at Sacramento Mountains Senior Services for 13 years and also founded the Sacramento Assistance Program, which helps house needy families in the mountain regions by assisting with housing, paying utilities and feeding families.  

"It is probably the most worthwhile job I've ever had," Swope said, "as far as making you feel good about who you are and what you do.  It's (Sacramento Assistance Program) to help people, not just seniors, but people that need help.  We've paid for propane, bought firewood and groceries,.  Now we're doing a mobile food bank, we're feeding more than 100 families per month for free with more than 50 pounds of food."

Swope had many sleepless nights while trying to put together the program - and not even a month into it, found someone in need of help.

"We just started this, literally, I was lying in bed, I thought of it and not a month later, this lady, one o my seniors, we found she had been living like a hoarder - worse than that. " Swope said, "In your wildest nightmares, you couldn't imagine how this lady was living - six years with no water, no anything."

Swope then set out an email to 10 people.  With that email, she received enough money to put the needy woman in an apartment, pay rent and get her some clothes - all in about 48 hours.

After that, Swope said the program grew from there.

"People were giving us money and we were trying to be good stewards of that money," Swope said, "We give it out as we can and now by partnering with the Roadrunner Food Bank, we're able to take care of families - all kinds of families - by giving them 50 pounds of food every month."

Swope said the program has helped about 200 families in the Sacramento Mountains region.

As executive director at Sacramento Senior Servi9ces, she oversees both sites in Cloudcroft and High Rolls.

She also worked for the Cloudcroft Chamber of Commerce for five and half years and chaired the Otero County Tourism Board while working for the Chamber.

Her husband, Jimmy, was a longtime coach at Cloudcroft Hight School before retiring a few years ago.  When Jimmy was coaching, Kathy would keep stats for the Bears athletic teams and also held pregame meals at the senior center for the Cloudcroft football, basketball and volleyball teams as part of the booster club.

contact Mark Rudi at mrudi@almogordonews.com

REPRINT FROM "A supplement of the Alamogordo Daily News", May 15, 2011