BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN

INEZ — Martin County Tourism is partnering with East Kentucky ADA and the Kendyl and Friends Foundation in hopes of bringing an inclusive playground to Martin County.

East Kentucky ADA and SPD president Kelli Jo Blair attended last week’s tourism board meeting, while Kendyl and Friends Foundation founder Crimson Claycomb joined the meeting via Facetime.

Claycomb told the story of her daughter, Kendyl, who was born healthy and then contracted meningitis when she was three weeks old.

“For an infant to contract that, it’s 99 percent of the time, almost always deadly,” Claycomb said. “She had over 100,000 micro strokes just in the course of a couple of days. She was in a coma. They told us that she wouldn’t live to be two months old, and if she did live past two months, she would just be a vegetable.”

Claycomb’s daughter, who turned 11 in November, sat beside her during the meeting.