This past weekend we watched this recent 20/20 report on children in Appalachia. If you haven't seen it yet, you should. ABC writes:
"In the hills of central Appalachia, up winding, mountain roads, is a place where children and families face unthinkable conditions, living without what most Americans take for granted. Isolated pockets in central Appalachia have three times the national poverty rate, an epidemic of prescription drug abuse, the shortest life spans in the nation, toothlessness, cancer and chronic depression. "
It is sobering to see American children living in such impoverished circumstances. Especially when there's so much affluence and opportunity close by.
There are ways to help. A friend of mine is traveling to Inez, Kentucky this weekend to bring clothes and money for a church food pantry featured on the program, and I'm sending a check with her. ABC News has a list of other ways to help. Workforce and business development particularly interests me and is a better long-term solution than donating food and clothes. So I'm going to learn more about this organization, which supports those efforts.
Maybe you're interested in this problem, too.
I hope so; these children deserve more.
1 comment:
Great post. FYI--I've required some of this for my AdolDev class. The Settle book I've mentioned had a moving section about this area set in Harlen--not much changed, other than electricity, in some cases.
We're with the Family Promise families at church this week, with some similarities in two of the families. Hard to watch, and hard to work with up close. Harder to live it, I'm sure...
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