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Gallery: Hanging On

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  • Posted By: dolly1 @ 04/25/2008 10:26:11 AM

    Comment: It is such a shame that these pictures show the Village of Chauncey in such a poor light as the new Mayor is working very hard at cleaning up the community by enforcing the trash & litter codes. The Village & its citizens need our support & assistance, & not a negative slant such as this one in the gallery. While I appreciate the photographers artistic approach, I am also saddened by the negative view of Appalachian Ohio it highlights.
    To add to AppalachianProud's comments, Athens County is also home to an amazing assortment of festivals & musical venues. In Nelsonville, there is the Historic Stuart's Opera House, home to many musical venues each year. Nelsonville is also home to Hocking College, one of the finest 2-year institutions for natural resources, ecotourism & culinary arts, & will host the 4th Annual Nelsonville Arts & Music Fest this May. Just down the road from Athens County is the Fur Peace Ranch, where one can see such musical greats as Jorma Kaukenon, GE Smith, Roy Bookbinder, & Tommy Emmannuel, among others, or participate in a guitar camp led by some of these guitar heros. In late summer, the PawPaw Festival brings folks from near & far to learn more about Ohio's Native Fruit & sample foods made from the pawpaw.
    I would encourage your readers to visit www.athensohio.com to learn more about the positive & beautiful aspects of our community. To dwell on the negative will not help these people end the cycle of poverty. Visiting our wonderful & welcoming community & benefitting our economy will!

  • Posted By: AppalachianProud @ 04/24/2008 4:33:40 PM

    Comment: There is no doubt that poverty exists in Appalachian Ohio. I used to work for the Governor's Office of Appalachia and I have seen the level of poverty throughout the entire region of the state. I am an Appalachian and that???s why I want you to know that poverty isn't the only thing in Appalachia.

    Let me show you the ???rest of the story.??? A few miles down the road from Chauncey is Athens, home of Ohio University. OU employs approximately 5,000 people in a county of 60,000 residents. In addition to OU, a high tech bioscience company stemming from university research now employs 225 people who have educational levels ranging from PhDs to GEDs. This company is a manufacturing company of cell cultures. In addition, Athens County is home to the free-piston Stirling Engine with four companies using this technology collectively employing nearly 125 people. We have a publicly traded company, Rocky Brands, in Nelsonville who employee about 200 people.

    Despite having to ???Hang On,??? several well-known people from Appalachia have made significant contributions to the well-being of all including John Glenn (astronaut and political figure), Bob Evans (restaurateur whose chain has grown to 579 restaurants. We also claim such greats as Cy Young and Clark Gable. Governor Ted Strickland grew up in Appalachia as well.

    The best way to fix poverty is to build and create jobs. If we invest in the creation of well-paying jobs, then we can reduce our overall reliance on public assistance for those who want to work making it easier to serve those who really can???t work.

    The next time you think about Appalachia, think more positively. We are making progress and we are moving people into jobs. We have a ways to go, but don???t lose hope.

  • Posted By: Whitestone @ 04/22/2008 11:36:08 AM

    Comment: Poverty will always exist. Sometimes circumstances cannot be changed. However, there are other times when circumstances can certainly be changed. Someone living in poverty only increase their poverty by spending the children's food budget on cigarettes, beer, or dogfood. Cigarettes at two packs a day will certainly buy a lot of groceries, or pay the gas bill, or pay a great portion ofhe rent. Wisdom will go a long ways towards leaving poverty behind.

  • Posted By: DianeGalley @ 04/21/2008 6:20:52 PM

    Comment: I agree with Topcop53, we need to look after the people in our own communities, towns & cities before we go sending any more money or food overseas, where it mainly ends up in the hands of guerillas or plating the gold toilet seats of corrupt leaders. Right now in my city, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, we have the best economy, lots of good jobs paying good wages, but no affordable accommodation, so now we also have the largest homeless population in all of Canada....but they can't find people to work at Burger King for $10/hour.
    Something is definately wrong with how the situations are being handled.

  • Posted By: DianeGalley @ 04/21/2008 6:20:05 PM

    Comment: I agree with Topcop53, we need to look after the people in our own communities, towns & cities before we go sending any more money or food overseas, where it mainly ends up in the hands of guerillas or plating the gold toilet seats of corrupt leaders. Right now in my city, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, we have the best economy, lots of good jobs paying good wages, but no affordable accommodation, so now we also have the largest homeless population in all of Canada....but they can't find people to work at Burger King for $10/hour.
    Something is definately wrong with how the situations are being handled.

  • Posted By: DianeGalley @ 04/21/2008 6:19:19 PM

    Comment: I agree with Topcop53, we need to look after the people in our own communities, towns & cities before we go sending any more money or food overseas, where it mainly ends up in the hands of guerillas or plating the gold toilet seats of corrupt leaders. Right now in my city, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, we have the best economy, lots of good jobs paying good wages, but no affordable accommodation, so now we also have the largest homeless population in all of Canada....but they can't find people to work at Burger King for $10/hour.
    Something is definately wrong with how the situations are being handled.

  • Posted By: DianeGalley @ 04/21/2008 6:18:04 PM

    Comment: I agree with Topcop53, we need to look after the people in our own communities, towns & cities before we go sending any more money or food overseas, where it mainly ends up in the hands of guerillas or plating the gold toilet seats of corrupt leaders. Right now in my city, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, we have the best economy, lots of good jobs paying good wages, but no affordable accommodation, so now we also have the largest homeless population in all of Canada....but they can't find people to work at Burger King for $10/hour.
    Something is definately wrong with how the situations are being handled.

  • Posted By: DianeGalley @ 04/21/2008 6:17:23 PM

    Comment: I agree with Topcop53, we need to look after the people in our own communities, towns & cities before we go sending any more money or food overseas, where it mainly ends up in the hands of guerillas or plating the gold toilet seats of corrupt leaders. Right now in my city, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, we have the best economy, lots of good jobs paying good wages, but no affordable accommodation, so now we also have the largest homeless population in all of Canada....but they can't find people to work at Burger King for $10/hour.
    Something is definately wrong with how the situations are being handled.

  • Posted By: DianeGalley @ 04/21/2008 6:17:14 PM

    Comment: I agree with Topcop53, we need to look after the people in our own communities, towns & cities before we go sending any more money or food overseas, where it mainly ends up in the hands of guerillas or plating the gold toilet seats of corrupt leaders. Right now in my city, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, we have the best economy, lots of good jobs paying good wages, but no affordable accommodation, so now we also have the largest homeless population in all of Canada....but they can't find people to work at Burger King for $10/hour.
    Something is definately wrong with how the situations are being handled.

  • Posted By: DianeGalley @ 04/21/2008 6:13:28 PM

    Comment: I agree with Topcop53. Here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, we can't even find enough homes for people that do have good jobs....and we have lots & lots of good jobs....but there's no affordable housing. We need to first fix what's wrong in our own backyards before pouring more money into other countries.....where most of the food & money we do send them ends up in the hands of guerillas or paving the gold seats of corrupt leaders. Remember when people used to care about their neighbors & their communities? All we have to do is look around and see what we can do to help our fellow country-men, we don't need people telling us to send our money off-shore.

  • Posted By: Topcop53 @ 04/21/2008 8:34:02 AM

    Comment: Why are we sending our money to places like these instead of places like africa. Why don't we send our money to these children instead of "feed the children" who feed other countries children!

  • Posted By: mbeeler @ 04/21/2008 8:29:15 AM

    Comment: I have spent over thirty years traveling the roads of southeastern Ohio and driven through Chauncey numerous times. My question is, as a country we have spent over ten trillion dollars in the last forty years attempting to eliminate poverty when are we going to admit to ourselves we have been wrong in our approach? We have failed as a country and the federal government has failed as administrator of all poverty programs.

  • Posted By: Mwalimu @ 04/21/2008 12:59:50 AM

    Comment: ARe the people in these pictures angry, bitter or frustrated? Or are they upbeat or resilient? I wish the people who are making the condescending comments would walk a quarter mile in their shoes. In One Day in the Life of Ivan Deniscovich by Alexandre Solzhenytsin, the mate charater Shukhov ( a political prisonrer in Siberia) muses that a man that's warm cannot understand a man that's cold. So people wealthy enough to live in gated communities cannot understand the plight of people in southeastern Ohio and make all sorts of snide. ignorant comments. No wonder I am bitter, angry and frustrated.

  • Posted By: Jones117 @ 04/20/2008 5:55:40 PM

    Comment: I have a question why don't you do a story about the poverty of the Appalachian mountain region which has been and still is in more poverty than most of the country. Most people in our area live on under $30,000 a year. By the way GreatDane poverty is not a matter of attitude. I know most families in this area of the Appalachian's have family who moved to place like Michigan to find work. However, the one's who stayed behind are not in poverty because they choose to be there. Most are in poverty because it is next to impossible for them to dig there way out of it.

  • Posted By: GreatDane @ 04/20/2008 5:08:01 PM

    Comment: Uhhh...I have an itsy bitsy question. Why. Don't. People.Who.Want.To.Work.Move.To.Areas.Where.Work.At. Better.Wages.Is.Available? Or am I missing something? Over 45 years of full time work for both my husband and myself we have made moves that involved anywhere from 2500 miles to 75 miles to get better jobs at better pay. Where on earth did this mentality start that the work has to COME TO YOU? Poverty is often a matter of attitude. It's certainly often a result of choices.

    • Posted By: l_white8389 @ 04/21/2008 12:20:52 AM

      Comment: GreatDane, pray tell, where is this family going to get the money to move to a completely different place? Sell their trailer? That might get them a grand total of $20,000. How is that supposed to buy them a house in an area with better wages? You are an idiot. Areas with better wages have high costs of living. It's all a matter of relativity.

 
 
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