Hazard shop helps people in recovery rebuild lives, learn work skills

Karah Combs has turned a family business back into a place of work, but with a different mission this time. At Beacons Revival Company in Hazard, the former Sports City space is now meant to help people fresh out of treatment get a paycheck, learn retail and production skills, and build the kind of routine that can make recovery stick.

The shop carries a personal backstory. Combs’ family ran Sports City, a small trophy-and-T-shirt store, for decades before it closed after her brother died. Beacons Revival Company brings that local name back into Perry County, but it does more than preserve a memory. It connects a retail counter and production room to a recovery path for people who are trying to re-enter the workforce at a fragile moment.

The business grew out of Beacons of Hope and Primary Care Centers, according to local reporting, and was created specifically to give people in recovery job skills and a paycheck after treatment. That matters in eastern Kentucky, where recovery and employment barriers often overlap. In Kentucky, fentanyl is the leading cause of overdose deaths, and the five counties with the highest overdose death rates are all in Appalachia. In that setting, a second-chance job can carry as much weight as a clinical appointment because it gives structure, confidence and a reason to show up every day.

Beacons of Hope opened in Hazard in 2021 and was designated a recovery-ready community in Perry County in 2023. A 2024 report said the center can house up to 61 people and also has space for mothers with young children, underscoring how deeply recovery services have taken root in the county. Beacons Revival Company fits into that same local system by offering a place where someone leaving treatment can move from support services to paid work without leaving Hazard.

The store’s value is not only economic, but civic. Hazard has become one of the places in Appalachia where recovery, entrepreneurship and community rebuilding are increasingly tied together, and local reporting has shown people in recovery helping the town rebound from economic decline and addiction. In Perry County, that makes Beacons Revival Company more than a retail opening. It is a small but concrete sign that recovery can show up in everyday places, with a name on the door, work on the clock and a future that starts with a first shift.