When hip problems hit Catawba man, he reached out a helping hand

Rod Lamb got to the point where he couldn’t use his air conditioners any more. The two window units attached to his small Catawba home still worked, but as he got older, Lamb found them harder and harder to handle.

Lamb is 68, has an osteoarthritic hip and uses a cane to help him get around. He took the two units out of the windows on either side of his house for the winter, and put them in his storage room. When hotter temperatures moved in again, he found he couldn’t get the two 7,000-BTU air conditioners back in place.

“My hip got worse, and I just couldn’t use them anymore,” Lamb said. “I looked for ones that were smaller and lighter, and had a handyman put them in for me.”

He has no complaints about the new ones, but didn’t know what to do with the ones still sitting in his shed. Then he read about some needy Rock Hill residents who were making do without air conditioning.

Two homes on Blackmon Road, an unpaved street running south of Albright Road that falls outside the city limits and where most houses lack utility services, had just received new air conditioning units thanks to private donors. One small home where three generations had lived without cool air received three separate coolers, one for each room.

Seeing that those good Samaritans were still soliciting donations, Lamb had an idea.

“I read about these folks who could really use some air conditioners,” Lamb said, “and if I don’t need them, here’s some way to utilize them.”

So he got in touch with June Barnette, who donated one of the other air conditioners and has collected other items for needy people in the area.

When Barnette came to pick up the two lightly-used units, Lamb noticed Barnette’s car was marked with a sign for his side business, “June’s Car Wash,” and thought he might have found a solution to another problem his hip has left him less able to deal with; his Honda Accord.

“It was real dirty,” he said.

So after loading up the new air conditioners, Barnette left his vehicle behind and took Lamb’s car for a quick cleaning, buff-and-wax and added a tuneup.

“His car was starting to fade out, so we cleaned out the motor too,” Barnette said.

It was the least Barnette could do for his latest donor. “He won my heart as we talked about helping.”

Once he had the air conditioners, Barnette quickly found a home for one of them; a woman on Annafrel Street in Rock Hill who had been without air conditioning for three years. Recovering from a stroke, she had been making do with only an electric fan. She reached out to him after seeing the story about the Blackmon Road donations.

When he installed the unit, “She said, ‘Thank God for you’ and gave me a big hug,” Barnette said.

Back at home, Lamb is glad to know he’s helped someone else find a way to stay comfortable through the summer months.

“With inside temperatures what they are, I’ll feel good about it for months,” he said.

Barnette is still collecting donations and can be reached at 803-322-6866. Lake Wylie Lutheran Church, which has provided services to many homes on Blackmon Road through the church’s social concerns ministry, can be reached by calling 803-548-5489.

This story was originally published July 23, 2015 at 6:15 PM with the headline "When hip problems hit Catawba man, he reached out a helping hand."