Appalachia

The farm house in which we stayed during my week-long mission trip to Appalachia

Two summers ago, I went on a mission trip with a group of kids from my church.  One hot August morning,all 30 of us piled into three vans and drove 6 hours from our church in Barrington to Vanceburg, Kentucky.  The air conditioning in our red van (nicknamed "the Radish") was broken, so the drive felt like an eternity.

The mission trip is commonly known throughout our parish as "Appalachia", a week-long trip during which we would be doing service for the people living in impoverished Northeastern Kentucky. We had expected to do different construction projects, volunteer at food and clothing pantries, maybe mow a lawn or two, but what we witnessed in the course of the following week was nothing like we had expected. Growing up in Barrington is pretty much everyone's dream. The average household income of Barrington residents is huge compared to what most people in America make. Almost all the kids graduate from a fantastic high school and eventually go on to complete four or more years in a good college. Many a famous person has emerged from Barrington (ever heard of the band The Academy Is? How about rapper Kid Slim?) However, the sad part is that most everyone living in Barrington takes it all for granted. We expect the new iPhone for Christmas because, well, we want it. Budgets are practically nonexistent. For the most part, Barrington teenagers are spoiled beyond belief.

So when we went to Vanceburg, we were shocked to say the least. We had known these people were poor, but we didn't expect them to be this poor! To make matters worse, Lewis County had been hit with a devastating flood just weeks earlier, and a big part of the town was in ruins.  When we were told that Lewis County was one of the more relatively lucrative counties in the Appalachian region, we were in disbelief.

Coincidentally, today in class we watched an ABC film about Appalachia (except they pronounced it Appalatcha instead of Appalaysha, which did confuse me for a bit).  They showed people living in trailers, boarded up shacks, even pickup trucks.  To see the level of poverty in which these people were living brought tears to my eyes.  How could so many people in Barrington be living like they are, when there are people only 6 hours away living like this?  I felt like a terrible person.

However, after the film started looking into the lives of some of the residents of Appalachia, my sympathy level dropped a little bit.  So many people in that town were alcoholics, prescription drug addicts, and yes even incestuals.  The majority hadn't even graduated from high school.  Parents would spend their money on Oxycontin and Mountain Dew rather than a dinner for their children.  When it became hard for a family of 6 to put food on the table, one of the 17-year old girls would go and accidentally get pregnant and thus conceive another mouth to feed.  Instead of leaving their houses in Appalachia and seeking employment in the city, they would stay because Appalachia is "their home".  You'd think that by now people would know better, right?

Although I knew these stories were real, I still couldn't help but feel a twinge of upset in my heart when hearing how these people were throwing their lives away.  Yes, many people live in poverty simply because of horrible life choices.  Yes, many parents are young and irresponsible.  However, these statistics could not compete with the personal experiences I had during August of 2010.  The people I met were not drug dealers, the couples I met were not half-siblings, and many people had earned their high school diplomas.  Granted, these people were in a wealthier region than that shown in the ABC film, but I knew from talking to these people and hearing their stories that they were working hard to try and provide a good life for themselves and their families.

What I took away from all of this is that some people are born into poverty so extreme that it is nearly impossible to bring themselves out of it.  No matter how hard they try in school, no matter how naturally gifted they are, sometimes maximum effort just won't cut it.  As sad as this is to accept, it's the truth.  Life has always been this way:  we've heard the old saying the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.  If you have money you want to donate, then by all means donate it!  However, most 99th-percentile people don't donate and won't ever donate, so I don't expect our nation's economic stance to change anytime soon.  The majority of the money going around will always belong to the top few percent, and the poor will be pretty much left for the way they are.

It's sad to think that this could happen in the United States, where all men are created equal and everyone deserves the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  It is in my personal opinion when I say the President who can come along and justly change our massive wealth gap will be the best one we'll ever see.