It’s your turn!

Now’s the time!!!

Hopefully you have gotten a good idea of the situation in Welch, through this blog, and through the Aid for the World website. The citizens of Welch, West Virginia really can use help, and it is our responsibility as American citizens to provide relief to our fellow citizens in need. If you are ready to help, there are a few things you can do.

1) Contact Aid for the World!- On the Aid for the World website you can find the contact information for Nathan Plowman, the director of operations in Welch. His email is nplowman@aidfortheworld.org. Please contact him and let him know that you would like to plan a trip to provide assistance to the area.

2) Donate to Aid for the World!- On the Aid for the World website Aid for the World. Any monetary donation can be of use, every little bit helps. The citizens need food, supplies for homes, and for rebuilding the community.

3) Join our Facebook group, and invite your friends!- The group is dedicated to advocating for the citizens of Welch. Through this group we will set up trips to Welch, so if you would like to join and would rather come with students, please join the group and contact one of the administrators. Advocates for Welch. There are already over 160 members in this group, and we would love to have you as well.

4) Contact me with any further questions!- Greg Hogan: hogangs@gmail.com

5) Finally, serve ANYWHERE at ANYTIME! Not everyone has the means to travel to West Virginia to help, or to donate money, but everyone can serve their fellow man! Hold the door open for others, pick up a piece of trash, lend a helping hand, and flash a smile to a random stranger! It’s all so easy!

You have the ability to help like no one else. I really believe that everyone is different, and in service everyone brings in their own personal skills and gifts. That is what I was trying to point out with my last post about Martin Luther King’s Drum Major Instinct. Anyone can serve, and there is no better time to start than now!!!

Here are a few things that may help you get a better feel for the work that has already been done in Welch! Enjoy!

Welch Video

You must have a facebook account to view the video

Welch Article from The Breeze

Drum Major Instinct

The Drum Major Instinct is a speech from the late great Martin Luther King Jr. It is about service to others, and it is one of the most moving speeches that I have ever heard. If you have never heard of the Drum Major Instinct, I really hope that you will take the time to read the entire thing.

I picked out my favorite excerpt to give you a little preview. Dr. King really understands service. This speech hits at exactly what people are trying to bring about in Welch.
The Drum Major Instinct
“And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, (Everybody) because everybody can serve. (Amen) You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. (All right) You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. (Amen) You only need a heart full of grace, (Yes, sir, Amen) a soul generated by love. (Yes) And you can be that servant.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Difference between Disaster Relief and Sustainable Relief

So, I realized that my blog to date has been largely a narrative about my experiences with Welch. I wanted to clarify a little about the efforts that I have been talking about. After this post, as I’ve been promising, I will tell you how you as an individual can help with the cause.

There is a big difference between the type of relief efforts that are taking place in Welch, and relief efforts in other parts of the country, or the world. Most areas of the country that have received large amounts of volunteer support in the recent past have been areas that have faced natural disasters. According to www.nationalservice.gov over 500,000 volunteers served in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The Red Cross alone mustered 220,000 volunteers to help out in the area. Last years tornado count was the highest it had been in several decades, creating many disaster relief opportunities throughout mid-western states. From wild-fires in California to mud-slides in Iowa, service rates have been huge all across the country, but mainly in disaster areas.

The difference I am trying to raise is the one between short, immediate disaster relief, and long-term sustainable relief efforts. For example, James Madison University is famous for the participation it has among its students every year for its ASB’s (Alternative Spring Breaks). JMU sends students all across the country and the globe. However, not too many of these trips emphasize the long-term relief that we do in Welch.

Aid for the World, and the JMU volunteers are committed to staying in the fight for prosperity in Welch, as long as it takes. We do not look at the area as a once or twice visit to simply pick up trash. We want to create relationships with the residents of Welch. The goal is to have a hand in the development of the town. We want to help gut houses, rebuild them, and get to know the people who live in them.

I am not saying that disaster relief is worse, or any lesser of a noble service, than sustainable relief, but they are different. The commitment level for sustainable efforts is and has to be much higher to have success in an area.

Welch is not an area that was devastated by a hurricane in three days. The area has suffered from bad industry, poverty, and homelessness for decades. It is an area that is in definite need of sustainable efforts.

I hope you will be interested in joining the sustainable relief efforts going on in Welch.

To check out others who are committed to sustainability, check out this website.

http://sustainablerelief.org/home/

Pictures

I wanted to display a few pic’s so you all could get a feel for the work that has been done so far in Welch!

Enjoy!

November Group

Tyson Towers

One of the hundred trucks of debris

December Trip

Hard Working Small Groups

Steps to Recovery: Part 2

I left off of my last post, telling you that students from JMU were teaming up with workers from Aid for the World getting ready to begin our first relief efforts in Welch. I want to spend some time telling you how those efforts went. I hope with this quick recap of some of the work that has been undertaken in Welch, it will provide inspiration to you to begin service work of your own. Maybe it will get you thinking about joining our next trip to the area.

Thanksgiving break is such a coveted time for college students. For some students, it is the first time in a couple of months that they get to go home and see their families, enjoy huge meals, and get a break from the demanding life of a student. During the week of Thanksgiving break, 51 students and 1 professor from James Madison University visited Welch in hopes of providing a spark to the residents of a downtrodden area. Our first few days there we did a number of different things to aid the community. Split up into groups, we all got to help in different areas of the town. Tyson Towers was an apartment complex that suffered a fire in July 2008 and displaced 31 families and a number of small businesses. For 3 days, we had students removing debris from the damaged building. In total, we cleared out 5 stories of burnt sofas, refrigerators, and every thing else that a family would have in their house. With the work that we accomplished in Tyson Towers we saved the owner thousands and thousands of dollars in labor, and make progress in getting the towers livable again so the families could move back into their homes.

As well as working in the towers, we had a team assist a local women in renovating her home. When we got to the home of Ms. Gregory, she had holes in her roof, and was using shower curtains as walls. In three days of work, we put up a roof for Ms. Gregory, and began to place dry wall up in her home. The progress made on her house in only three days was nothing short of AMAZING!

Probably the highlight of the week, on the day before Thanksgiving we handed out 500 turkey dinners to families throughout the area. A local radio station announced that we would be giving away free turkey dinners early in the morning, and when we got to the loading site at 9 am there were already 50 families waiting in line. The poverty rate for the area is extremely high, and the simple act of handing a family a meal, allowed all of us to see the true nature of Thanksgiving.

That was our first trip to Welch, and it was a huge success.

The idea behind our work in Welch is that it is sustainable releif, not disaster relief. Sustainability is the prolonged efforts to a cause, and commitment to see the work through until the end. I will clarify this more soon.

In December, right after the Fall semester, one of my Fraternity brothers, Mike Maguire and myself set up another trip to Welch. Our Fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon, lead the trip of 56 students into the blistering cold mountains of West Virginia. During our week there we continued with the work we had begun in November. Again, we worked with Aid in getting Tyson Towers closer to housing residents. By the time we were done with this week in the Towers, we had preped some of the building for painting, and cleared out the center of the building that had collapsed from the intense fire. We also sent a team back to Ms. Gregory’s house, and this time built a staircase for her, so she could safely get to her second floor.

A unique part of this trip was when one of our teams gutted out an old building, preparing to turn it into an adult learning center. Gutting a building is ripping out all of the old carpeting, tiling, furniture, and anything else that needs to be removed for a renovation. In one day, the JMU students and the Aid worker completely gutted the building, and got it into a state that was ready for renovation.

In only two trips to the area, we have done an immeasurable amount of work. We have saved home owners and business owners thousands of dollars in work. We have sung the JMU fight song in the streets of Welch. We have impacted countless lives.

Imagine what we can do with two more weeks?

My next posts will help give you the chance to join this amazing cause. Tell your friends to check it out as well. Let’s continue to Be the Change!!!

Steps to Recovery: Part 1

Now that you have an understanding of the severity of the situation in Welch, I would like to tell you about some steps that have been taken to aid the residents of this community. Before I get into the actual progress that has been made, I think it is appropriate to discuss how relief efforts came to this area.

Aid for the World is a private international humanitarian organization dedicated to establishing meaningful local and international partnerships to address critical needs in unique new ways. (Aid for the World, 2009). Aid for the World is a Non-Profit Organization that has dedicated its work to providing sustainable relief to different areas of the world.
Aid (I will use this as an abbreviation for Aid for the World) provides relief efforts in Central America, South America, Europe, Africa, and in the United States their large project is Welch, West Virginia. Aid is the main organization that is dedicated to improving the quality of life for residents of this mostly forgotten town. Aid has been in Welch for about a year.

Look at the relief efforts that Aid is committed to at: http://aidfortheworld.org

I first found out about the efforts of Aid, from a dear friend of mine, Dr. Mary Slade. Mary is a professor in the Education Department at JMU. I met Mary when she took over 100 students to St. Bearnard’s Parish in New Orleans, to assist with recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina. I was one of the 100+ students that traveled with her to Louisiana. Since then I had been on another relief trip with Mary to Fairview, Tennessee to assist with tornado relief efforts. That is kind of our back story.

Back to how this all ties in… Mary was contacted by Nathan Plowman, the Director of Ground Operations for Welch. Nathan works for Aid for the World, and he and Mary met while they both were in the Gulf Coast region doing Hurricane Katrina Relief work. Nathan knew that James Madison University was close by, only a mediocre 4 hour drive. Nathan was very clear with Mary, when he said that out of the hundreds of groups that came to his camp in Louisiana, JMU stood out! He remembered the passion and drive that JMU students had when they were down in Louisiana, and he told Mary, JMU students were exactly the type of people he wanted to begin the process of rebuilding Welch. Mary agreed to help!

Myself along with a number of other students were then contacted by Mary. She called a meeting and asked us if beginning sustainable relief efforts in Welch was an undertaking that JMU students would want to begin? We agreed that it was, and after that meeting Aid for the World had it’s first big, committed partner, James Madison University. The planning to help Welch began.!

Ooops!

I am new to blogging, and I realize my tag in Welch, West Virginia brings you to a meaningless page. I am still working on figuring out tags, but the website is supposed to bring you to a picture of Welch in the 1940′s. So for now, just copy and paste the website, and you will get to see what I am talking about. Thanks!!!

Again here is the website:

images.classmates.com/imgsvc/d?p=135596873

And just so you can see the extreme difference in then and now here is a picture of what the same area looks like today:

www.canaanvi.org/…/Welch_Elkhorn_Creek.jpg

About the blog

So I realized that I never told you all about me. Let me do that know, so you we can get a little more personal. I am on the verge of calling myself a graduate of James Madison University. I am 22 years old, and I am from Virginia Beach, Virginia. I am finishing up a few more classes at JMU, and then in a couple of weeks I will hit the real world by moving to Richmond, VA. In Richmond I have a job with my national fraternity, Sigma Phi Epsilon. My title will be that of regional director. I will be advising and consulting young college men around the country and take part in teaching leadership skills to men in our fraternity. This will be a great position to influence college men, and show them what kind of a difference they can make in their communities.

I am very passionate about service work. It is why I have created this blog. I want to expose others to the satisfaction that comes from participating in service work. An area that is close to my heart is Welch, West Virginia. This area is the eight most impoverished town in America. My issue with the area is that it is in need of sustainable volunteer efforts, and so many people have the means to help, I just want to show everyone that they can help in many fashions.

This issue is important to me because I feel that service work is one of the most satisfying of all human activities. Welch is important to me, because for me it is hard to believe in a time of such technological advancements throughout the world there are still towns in our country that don’t have proper waste water treatment. Over half of the homes in Welch allow their waste to run straight into streams behind their homes. I think as a nation we have a responsibility to help our fellow citizens, and create a true sense of national unity.

I think this is an issue that everyone should be aware of because we all have a moral obligation to help the needy. Some would argue with me, but I truly feel the fortunate have a responsibility to help those who are not in such a good position. And as Martin Luther King Jr. said in his Drum Major Instinct speech, “Anyone can serve.” You don’t need a college degree, or a ton of money to serve. Some people can contribute money, while others contribute carpentry and roofing skills, and some contribute a kind conversation to a person in need. We all can serve, and this is a place close to my university where I can advocate for many students to begin serving in Welch. We can truly BE THE CHANGE in Welch, West Virginia!

Welch, West Virginia

Did you know that only 8 hours away from our nation’s capital lies one of the most impoverished counties in the United States? Welch, West Virginia is the eight poorest town in America. This once proud town, known as Little Manhattan in the 1940′s, is now overrun by drugs, unemployment, and mountaintop removal. I guess it is only proper to begin with an explanation of how the town has transformed over the years. Throughout the early 20th century, Welch was one of the most promising coal-mining towns in America. The coal rich mountains in the area were provided some of the best coal mines in the nation. Many of the residents of Welch found work in the mines, and made a very good living. (If you google images of Welch, West Virginia and you can see exactly what I mean. It really was little Manhattan!) Throughout the 1950′s and 1960′s Welch began to go through a huge transformation. The industrialization of the coal mining industry caused many coal miners to lose their jobs in the area. The change to mechanized coal gathering prompted a huge increase in unemployment for the area. The downward spiral had begun. Suicide rates for the area increased with unemployment. Alcohol and drug abuse escalated into huge problems for residents of Welch. The problems continued for a couple of decades, and there has been no rescue in sight. To add to the dilemma, in 2001 and 2002 major floods hit Welch and decimated many of the local businesses that were still functioning. So…..only eight hours away from our nation’s capital, and only less than four hours away from our beloved JMU lies one of the most impoverished towns in the entirety of the US! How many of you knew this was so? What is being done about this problem, and what can each of you do to make a difference? I’ll tell you exactly how people are helping, and what you can do! Stay tuned!!!

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