Joe Snowden admits that all the attention he’s been getting lately is sometimes a little much.
He calls the love and financial support he’s been receiving from the community and beyond “extremely overwhelming.”
“I’m used to working for everything I’ve got,” the 18-year old Estill County High School senior said on Friday.
Joe says he’s amazed that so many people he’s never seen or spoken to before are helping him.
“You hear about the bad things people do,” he said. “But there are a lot of good people.”
Joe lost his father, Gary Snowden, to cancer at the end of March.
Two weeks later, Marinda Lewis, his mother, was killed in a car accident on Furnace Junction Road. Suddenly he found himself dealing with a fresh round of grief—and a new load of responsibility and expenses.
When Melissa Neal, one of the guidance counselors at the high school, heard about the accident, she sent out an email that night asking her co-workers to donate toward burial expenses.
The next day, FFA students promptly took up a donation, so Joe would have some spending money. Other booster clubs at the school also took up money.
As Joe’s story was broadcast and rebroadcast on television and social media, money came pouring in, and by lunchtime on Monday, enough money had been raised to pay for both his parents’ funerals.
But Joe is still a high school student, working a part-time job. The car his mother was driving when she wrecked was the car he drove back and forth to school and work.
The fundraising continues, now with a different goal.
Sympathetic groups and individuals from all over the county and state and beyond continue to send money, this time to help Joe get another car, and to help with living expenses like rent and car insurance.
Enough money was raised to pay for Joe’s senior trip also.
Early Monday morning, he and his senior classmates pulled out from the high school to begin their senior trip.
“I need a break from everything,” he said. “I know it’s what my mom–and my dad–would want me to do.”
Neal said she’s been informed of some other fundraising plans.
A benefit concert is being planned by local musicians Jeremiah Floyd and David Adams for the Friday night before the Mountain Mushroom Festival. They’ve signed up several other bands to play at the event. Donations will be taken and all proceeds will go to help Joe. The concert begins on Friday, April 25, at 5 p.m. beside the courthouse.
A Lexington musician, Jason Hale, is planning a concert fundraiser at the Austin City Saloon on May 4. Again, all funds will go to help Joe.
Neal has heard from people in at least five states who want to help, including Florida, Louisiana, Colorado, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Schools from most surrounding counties have taken up collections, as well as most of the schools in the Estill County system.
Joe’s mother’s graduating class also collected a donation.
Neal said a woman named Marianna Smith drove from Clay County to offer to do a fundraiser through her Origami Owl jewelry business. She saw the story on the news. All her profits will go to the fund for Joe.
Anyone who would like to order the jewelry may go online at www.mariannasmith.origamiowl.com/parties/joesnowden303810/collections.ash.
Neal says churches have been “utterly amazing” in what they have given, some of them out of county.
A former ECHS teacher sang at a church in Mount Sterling a couple of weekends ago and asked for the church to pray for Joe. They didn’t have to be asked to donate more than $500.
The senior class organized a car wash on Saturday afternoon, and they raked in almost $900 in a few hours to give to Joe.
The American Legion and the VFW along with the ladies’ auxillaries, raised about $600 for Joe.
Joe says he’s very grateful and very thankful for all the help.
“This is so bittersweet,” he said. “There have been so many good things coming out of this tragedy.”
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Outpouring of support for local student continues
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