Appalachia Trip

“To understand service, sometimes it takes an immersion trip.” –Beth Dale

Eight tired Pres girls departed for West Virginia very early in the morning on April 16th for an Appalachian Immersion trip that took place over spring break. We had had a few meetings beforehand and were acquainted with one another. However, none of us expected the extremely close bond the eight of us developed while in West Virginia.

We all entered West Virginia with an interest in service and left with a passion. Most of us are so far away from the poverty and injustices in our own communities that it took this special trip to make us realize the struggles people go through in all areas of the world. Our guide for the week, Beth, told us “To understand service, sometimes it takes an immersion trip.” With help from her, the people we served, and each other, all eight of us left West Virginia with a much greater understanding of what it means to serve those in need.

Taking off from the San Jose airport we all had different goals and expectations for the week ahead. We have returned with one common goal: to spread awareness of all that we were able to learn during this life-changing trip.

“You can’t understand America until you understand Appalachia” –Jeff Biggers

West Virginia is one of thirteen states in the Appalachian Region. This marks the poorest region in the United States. For twelve out of these thirteen states, only part of the state is considered part of the Appalachian Region. West Virginia is the only state where the entire state is included in this region. This statistic only gave us a hint of the poverty the citizens of West Virginia struggle with.

Driving to our service placements each day, we saw countless trailers and shacks that seemed impossible to live in. Even on the last day of driving, I looked outside the window and thought I was watching a movie. It is almost incomprehensible that a person could live under the conditions we saw.

One of the reasons West Virginia is so poor is that there are virtually no jobs. The two biggest industries there are coal mining and Walmart. Compared to most other places in the US, especially the Silicon Valley, the job opportunities simply don’t exist. It is for this reason that there are only 1 million people in the entire state of West Virginia–the same amount of people in the city of San Jose.

Although it certainly does not seem like it on the outside, we learned that the people of have Appalachia riches. Certainly not money or possessions, but in many other aspects of their lives.

In California we have money. In West Virginia they have time. The people we met actually wanted to sit down and talk with us–complete strangers. We talked to a number of different people for an hour or so. They were so open and willing to share their stories and hear ours. Here, I’m lucky if I get a word in with my friends between classes.

We have education, they have family. They would rather not educate their children if it means splitting up their family. On the contrary, we overstress in an effort to get our children into Stanford or Harvard. Clearly they have extremely different values than we are used to. Can you imagine your parents telling you not to attend college?

“What in your life do you love so much that you would give anything to protect it?” –Larry Gibson

West Virginia is abundant in natural resources, especially coal. Unfortunately, to extract this coal from the mountains many coal companies are using mountain top removal. This is a cheap way to get the coal, compared to the traditional underground mining.

Essentially, companies will blow up a mountain, removing its top. They will then proceed to extract as little as six inches of coal. The rubble left from the procedure is pushed off the sides of the mountain into hollers, which are little towns in between two mountains. This means families who have lived in a holler for countless generations will be asked to leave and their houses will be destroyed.

While homes, health and mountains are being ruined, jobs are also being taken away. Underground coal mining required significantly more miners, providing more jobs to the residents of the state. However, now with gigantic machinery, actual people are no longer needed.

You can look at as many pictures as you want to try and understand the horrifying image of a majestic mountain ruined, but pictures will never do it justice. Standing outside in the wind and rain staring at a mountain with its top chopped off was horrifying. What we felt as we witnessed this scene is amplified even more for the people who experience mountain top removal in their own backyards.

Many people expressed to us that unless you have lived there your whole life, you will never understand the bond the people feel with nature. Chuck, a retired coal miner now fighting against mountain top removal, explained to us how they feel the mountains enclose and protect them, almost hugging them. Seeing such an awful sight in your backyard is devastating, especially considering there are actually alternatives to mountain top removal.

Chuck works with Larry Gibson, who is an advocate against mountain top removal. Even with harassment and death threats, Gibson refuses to sell his land, which is rich with coal, to the coal companies. When he spoke at Bellarmine, he asked us, “Is there anything in your life that you love so much you would do anything to protect it?” To him and countless others in the Appalachian region, the answer to that question are the mountains. However, protecting them is not an easy battle.

“A little means a lot” –Rose

It’s extremely easy to feel empowered to create change when you witness an injustice. The night after we saw the mountain top removal, we all swore we would make a change. The challenge, however, is what you do once those initial passionate feelings you experienced there fade away with time.

During the week we volunteered at Appalachian Outreach, which is an organization run by two amazing women named Rose and Diane. It provides furniture and basic necessities to the many flood victims in Appalachia. Their organization slogan is “A little means a lot.” This is something many of us often forget in our daily lives.

This proves a point that even though you probably have not seen or been affected by mountain top removal, you can make a difference. Turn off your lights when you leave a room, even if you are coming right back. Check out ilovemountains.org and educate yourself about where your energy comes from. If everyone who is reading this article decreased his or her energy use today by using a candle instead of a lamp, we would make a significant difference. Every little bit helps.

It certainly seems like this issue is so far away from home that it is hard to relate. Think about if the tops of the Santa Cruz Mountains were being blown off for energy resources used by everyone else in the United States except you. Would you consider flipping off the light switch then?

“People who are content will never create change” –Chuck

Whether I have empowered you to put an end to mountain top removal or not, this quote is still true. Find an injustice that strikes a chord with you. Then take action. Do not sit around and hope somebody else will or pretend “it’s not that bad.” Do something about it. That is the next step for the eight of us who participated in this trip. Although I would recommend an immersion trip one hundred percent, whether you participate in one or not is not important. What is important is that you find a passion within yourself about an issue close to you, and create change.

Appalachia Trip

 “Where are you going over break?”  For some, the answer to this perennial pre-winter break question was “Nowhere,” or maybe an exciting “Hawaii.” But for Presentation’s principal Ms. Miller, CI Chair Ms. Russo and eight Presentation students, the answer was “Appalachia.” 

For many of us, Appalachia conjures up ideas of a mountain range, but probably nothing more.  Embarrassing as it may be, that is all the majority of us know about a region within our own country that encompasses fragments of 13 states and actually has very little to do with a mountain range.

Appalachia is an eastern region that weaves through multiple states, including all of West Virginia and parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.  Although named for the mountain range, the counties from each state that are declared a part of the Appalachian region are done so by economic indicators rather than certain geographical features.  Among these “indicators” are an unusually high number of people living in poor health, high poverty and minimal education.

Although the government has identified this region for the purpose of relieving those suffering from the poverty which persists there, a huge percentage of the population in Appalachia continues to struggle, even since the Johnson’s Administration’s creation of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC).  The ARC has been devoted to increasing job opportunities, increasing Appalachia’s participation in the global economy and alleviating Appalachia’s isolated nature with an improved highway system. 

Still, despite the intentions of the ARC, a multitude of people in the Appalachian region continue to live in terrible poverty, with poverty rates in some areas as high as 24% as of 2009, according to the ARC.  With effort, it might be possible to improve the deteriorating conditions of Appalachia, but the problems at the root of the poverty have a cyclical nature, making them hard to escape.

In Appalachia, one economic idea is prominent. “Coal is king” said senior Cassie Brown and Ms. Miller.  However, it’s a double edged sword. Coal is responsible for the vast majority of poverty in Appalachians, yet it paradoxically also keeps them alive.

Approximately eight to ten years ago, coal industries began using a technique called “mountaintop removal” for coal mining.  With this practice, all of the forestation on mountaintops is swept off and obliterated so that the coal can be taken from the top.  In doing so, not only is the scenic beauty of the nature destroyed, but the environment is destroyed for the people living there.  Toxins and wastes flow down from these destroyed mountains, carrying pollutants such as arsenic into the water.  In addition, the lack of forestation on mountaintops results in flooding for those living in the valleys, ruining the already poor towns in which they live according to Ms. Miller.

At the same time, coal is the Appalachian people’s main livelihood; it is the industry that provides the majority of the jobs and opportunities in the poverty-stricken area.  What sustains the people of Appalachia kills them.  As the participants of the Appalachia trip explained, those living in Appalachia are stuck in a cycle which they cannot escape and which is ignored by the indifferent coal industries.

It is this desensitization and ignorance to a large division of our country that Presentation’s service trip was fighting.  According to Ms. Miller, “the purpose of the trip was essentially through service to be educated.”  The students were visiting “an area with third-world conditions that was located in our wealthy, industrialized nation,” said Brown.  In visiting this region, the hope was that the participants of the trip could apply the mission they became so adamant about during the trip to the area in which we live, where poverty is also present.

Silicon Valley residents cannot even begin to grasp experiences such as one described by senior Allison Tella in which they were serving at a food shelter but could no longer provide food for people one day.  Having to turn people away, even when their request was as simple as a loaf of bread, was not easy to do, especially for this group of girls so devoted to service that they were willing to dedicate their entire break to it.  Tella said, “It was just heartbreaking.”

Throughout the trip, the girls visited numerous organizations in which they were able to truly formulate a vivid picture of the conditions in Appalachia.  Among these many organizations were the Catholic Community Center, the Wheeling Soup Kitchen and the YMCA.  During each of their various experiences, the service trip participants were exposed to a multitude of people, each with their own stories and personalities to share.  There was Larry, a group favorite on the trip, present in anecdotes shared by many of the participants.  Although immersed in desperately poverty-stricken conditions, Larry still had his own personality accompanied by his positive attitude and a hat filled with cheerful trinkets collected in his poverty.  He, like any other person, had his own advice and views to share.  “He taught me to take my time in everything I do because so many people in today’s world rush through every day without thinking about what they are really doing,” said Brown. 

Then there was Rose, from Appalachian Outreach.  Although she herself had been struck by unfortunate circumstances that left her in an unhealthy state and with forced retirement from her job, she still devoted herself and her life to helping others.  “She’s got this spirit that is just so beautiful,” said Ms. Miller, who went on to compare her to a more locally known figure, Louise Benson, who founded Sacred Heart with a similar call for justice and respect of humanity and its needs.

It was this “spirit” that the participants of the trip seemed to find in many of the people they met on the trip.  Everyone they met seemed to have their own story and life.  Just like all of us at Presentation, they had friends, they had family, and they have a history.  The fact is simply that unfortunate circumstances befell them. 

Still, one thing Ms. Miller was so impressed with in the trip was the way that the Presentation students matched the vivid, hard-working spirit of the people.  “They went right through their fear!” she said.  In spending a week fighting injustice and essentially humanizing as well as personalizing the condition, this group of Presentation members has become moved in their cause, a fight against poverty and injustice.  Now that they have returned to Presentation, the fight returns to us within the community.