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Coal miner shows up covered in soot so son wouldn't miss his first Kentucky basketball game

'We’re kind of proud of it. It’s just what you’ve got to do around here to make a living.'

coal miner, john calipari, kentucky wildcats
via Daniel Mennerich/Flickr

The Ramsbeck mine.

A photo of Kentucky coal miner Michael McGuire, 29, went viral because it was a moving example of a hardworking guy doing whatever it takes to be with his family. As The Athletic reports, on Saturday, October 22, McGuire worked a long shift that was supposed to end at 4 p.m. but he didn't get off until 5 p.m. He had tickets to see the annual University of Kentucky Blue-White scrimmage game at Appalachian Wireless Arena with his family so he went straight from work, covered in coal dust, to the arena.

McGuire couldn’t miss his 3-year-old son’s first basketball game. Plus, the Blue-White game is a Kentucky Wildcat tradition where the team splits in half and plays each other. This year, proceeds from the game went to benefit flood victims in eastern Kentucky.

“It’s normal for us,” his wife, Mollie, told The Athletic. “It’s nothing for us to go out to eat or him to come to our son’s tee-ball games or family events covered in coal dust … So we’ve just gotten used to it, coal dust everywhere. We’re kind of proud of it. It’s just what you’ve got to do around here to make a living.”

What wasn’t normal was the public’s reaction to his sooty appearance.

When Kentucky’s coach, Basketball Hall of Fame member John Calipari, saw a photo of the miner at the game it struck a deep emotional chord. “My family’s American dream started in a Clarksburg, WV coal mine, so this picture hits home,” he tweeted, adding that he wants to locate the family to give them “VIP” treatment at Kentucky's Rupp Arena when the regular season starts.

Word got to Mollie who responded to Calipari’s tweet.

Calipari called Molly and they talked for a half hour. "I was stunned," Mollie told ESPN. The coach shared that his grandfather was a coal miner and how their ethics taught Calipari a valuable lesson about teamwork. “We go in together, we come out together. No one left behind, because we’re one crew,” he told Mollie. “That’s what I teach my team—that we’re one team and we can only do it together.”

The funny thing was Michael had no idea that the photo had gone viral because when it happened, he was working deep in the mine where there is no cell reception. He found out what happened when he was approached by his co-workers at the end of his shift.

“Shew, it caught me off guard big-time,” McGuire told The Athletic. “Everybody was saying, ‘There comes the celebrity! There comes the famous guy!’ I had no clue what was going on.”

Calipari told the family to pick a Kentucky home game at Rupp Arena where they will get to have dinner with him, hang out at the pregame shootaround and enjoy the action from courtside seats.

All of the attention is a great reminder for Michael of how he's appreciated by his family and community.

"It's not just his immediate family that appreciate him. It's everyone," Mollie told USA Today. "It's all of eastern Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee. Everyone. He is appreciated. And I'm hoping that he feels that appreciation and that love once he realizes, you know, everything that's happened."

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Women working in Africa’s cocoa farms have received business education programs for 15 years. Here’s how that benefits the entire world.

All images provided by CARE & Cargill

The impact of the CARE and Cargill partnership goes beyond empowering cocoa farmers

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Cocoa, the key ingredient found in your favorite chocolate bar, has been a highly revered food product throughout human history. It’s been used for religious ceremonies in Peru, royal feasts in England and France, traded as currency for the ancient Mayans. And considering that many of us enjoy chocolate on a regular basis (mochas and candy bars, anyone?) it seems like that love is still going strong even today.

And if you are someone who looks forward to that sweet chocolate pick-me-up on a regular basis, you likely have the women of West Africa to thank.

Women like Barbara Sika Larweh, a mother of six who works as a cocoa farmer in Larwehkrom, a community located within the Sefwi Wiawso Municipality in the Western North Region of Ghana.

care, cargillMama Cash now empowers other women to gain independence

Nearly 60% of the world’s cocoa comes from both Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, where Barbara and other mothers make up over half of the labor force. These female cocoa farmers shoulder the same physical burden as their male counterparts—all while also running households and paying for their children to go to school. And yet, they typically don’t receive equal income. Nor do they have access to the resources that could help them achieve financial independence.

Thankfully, positive changes are taking place. Barbara’s story exemplifies the impact of programs offered by CARE and Cargill, such as Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA), which are small groups that offer low-interest loans to individuals living in poverty, helping them to build savings without going into devastating debt.

Through these initiatives, women, like Barbara, are equipped with vital knowledge like financial literacy to improve household incomes, sustainable agriculture practices that improve yields, and nutrition education to diversify their family’s diets.

“They came and trained me on the VSLA. I dedicated myself and volunteered so that I would be able to train my people, too,” Barbara explains.

Within the first year of using the programs, Barbara and the people she trained profited—earning her the nickname of “Mama Cash.”

This is no isolated event. In cocoa-growing communities supported by CARE and Cargill programming between 2019-2022, the number of households living below the national poverty line decreased by nearly 32% in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana - as a direct result of increasing and diversifying income through using these programs.

Like Barbara, who today is an executive member of the Community Development Committee, more than 2.4 million women have used their success as entrepreneurs to transform into leaders and decision-makers within their communities. Whether it’s giving most of their earnings back to their families, reducing child labor, or exponentially increasing overall farm yields, the rippling effect is profound.

The impact of the CARE and Cargill partnership goes beyond empowering cocoa farmers. The joint initiatives have fostered progress on complex global issues related to social justice, such as gender equality, climate change, and food security. By improving access to quality nutrition, water, and hygiene, the joint programs have positively influenced the cocoa communities’ well-being.

Suddenly there’s a lot more to think about the next time you eat a candy bar.

Find out more about the important partnership between CARE and Cargill here.
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