Children in tattered clothing run around on a lawn littered with bottles, trash and dirty diapers. The sky is thick with black smoke and the smell of smoldering rubber permeates the air as two men burn tires to recycle the metal trims for $5 per 100 pounds. A humble trailer sits in the middle of this chaos; windows missing, pink insulation exposed. This scene is the home of Shawn Grim, an 18-year-old high school football player, who sleeps in his truck every night to avoid the commotion that surrounds him in his Eastern Kentucky home.
Shawn was one of four children of Appalachia featured on 20/20's special A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains
which aired last Friday on ABC. Although Ohio was not featured on the program (the show only highlighted West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky), Athens is situated in the region known as Appalachia, which extends from New York to Mississippi.
Shawn Grim, like many children who grow up in the mountains in Appalachia, has a heart-wrenching story. His 36-year-old mother has three children and eight grandchildren. She, like the rest of Shawn's extended family, never graduated high school. She sells her pain medication, prescribed to her to ease nerves for $10 per pill. This money, as well as welfare, is the family's source of income. His step-father is an alcoholic and his brother was arrested for seducing his 15-year-old sister to sleep with him for marijuana and pain killers.
However, Shawn had a gift. He was an incredible football star and was able to get a full-tuition scholarship to Pikeville College. Despite this golden opportunity, Shawn dropped out after two weeks of school. Although his tuition was taken care of, he had no money for supplies, food or fun. He could not fit in with the other students, who could not relate to his tragic story.
This sad tale seemed to be repeated in one way or another in the stories of the other three children. Courtney, a 12-year-old, is trapped in a small house with twelve other family members. Her mother is addicted to pain killers, and her step-father refuses to work because they don't have a car. Even with the food stamps the family receives from the government, there is often not enough food to go around.
Eleven-year-old Erica lives in a region of Kentucky in which prescription pill abuse is twice the rate of New York or Miami. Her mother is constantly in and out of jail and is addicted to alcohol and pills. Finally, the program showed Jeremy. Jeremy is a 18-year-old who once had dreams to be an engineer. However, now that his girlfriend has become pregnant, he works 3-and-a-half miles into the heart of a mountain mining coal, facing deadly dangers every day.
Poverty is not a new issue in Appalachia, or many other regions of the United States. However, socioeconomic class seems to be an essential aspect of diversity that is often forgotten because it is less visible than, for example, race. Wearing a baseball cap, sweatshirt and jeans, Shawn Grim looked like many other students walking to class at Pikeville College; no one would have guessed that he was sleeping in his truck every night only weeks before.
If these stories do not inspire you to help the poverty-stricken children in Appalachia, I hope that it can at least serve as a reminder that things could always be worse. I am a senior about to graduate in a time of extreme economic uncertainty, and watching this special reminded me of all of the things that I do have, and that just because my dream job may not be waiting for me on a silver platter the minute I receive my diploma, it is not the end of the world.
Christina Stanek is a senior studying Spanish education. Send her an e-mail at cs348305@ohiou.edu.
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Opinion
Christina Stanek
