 little baby now don't you cry you know if religion was a thing that money can 17 and a half million people one third of all rural families are left behind in an age of technology and industrial progress families some of them large families make less than three thousand dollars a year whites Negroes American Indians Spanish Americans farmers ex-farmers handyman former coal miners timber workers and road builders rural people struggling with poor housing limited education few employment opportunities and little hope throughout America regardless of race or heritage they are trapped in a life they did not choose a life they feel powerless to change well you can watch them walk along the street they're bent over with their arms crossed frequently looking down walking usually slowly you don't see any quickness or brightness in their step they just have a defeated look and a look of hopelessness I just do labor work and got no education just labor works all I have to hunt for well it could be a whole lot done in a way of improvement yes sir it could stand a whole lot more improving and furnishing this actually could stand some better now use gas of course I don't know where the man have to make out if he don't get no better that make out some way these six of them and I only grow ninety six dollars a month ninety six dollars a month for six told them send them school yet we now know their lives can be changed these people can join the rest of America in a life of fulfillment and plenty but improvement can only come when all segments of the population joined together in an effort dedicated to providing opportunities for these people not more welfare checks but opportunity so they can use their own willingness and ability to become self-sufficient citizens for example it is difficult for a small farmer like this one to get along in the fast moving world around him his gross income for the previous year was thirty five hundred dollars out of that three thousand dollars had to be put back into farming leaving five hundred dollars for his own use he and his wife struggle with no running water no plow of their own low lying wet land and fields full of rocks they have some cows but no money for the right kind of feed as a result the cows can up produces well as they should and the farmers income drops still lower his chosen way of life becomes more and more difficult to maintain he is ambitious proud of the farm buildings that he built himself sorry to have to owe money for necessities and distressed at the prospect of losing his farm I know if I'd get the right amount of help assistance on this farm I know I could make a go of it could make ends meet and if I can't stay here I would have to lose it why I was surely wouldn't know what else to do because I've never done all the work in farming I've been here all my life I sure would like to stay here when farmers leave it affects the entire area at one time there was large families living here they made their living over the farm by farming the small fields they raised their own vegetables in their own gardens but it seems like that that is all gone it slipped away from us if we could help them just a little to live in these small communities and make a home here we think it would be of great benefit to our cities and also our rural areas the loss of this type of farm the family farm has been a great disaster to our particular part of the world here it has taken the people away from us our little communities our towns have lost the trade and business the people have lost and the soil has lost it's a losing proposition and our whole philosophy of life out here the family farm is being destroyed some communities are seeking ways to help the farmers and keep them on the land we've had a demonstration farm program in connection with our work to help improve on livestock and on having better crops and in building up the soil and various forms of conservation but we have moved more to the project method in order to suggest ways in which our people can at least supplement their income one of the things that we are trying to do is to carry on work at our sorghum mill here people raise a cane and then bring it to the mill for processing this is a project in which we have been able to get the people to take much of the initiative we have provided some leadership however we have a full-time director of economic development in our program the purpose of this project the sorghum project is to help the people of this area to help themselves what we are really trying to do is to help really two classes of people those farmers who would bring cane in to the mill and also to help those who might be able to work here at the mill one of the firm convictions that we do have about our mountain people is that they do want to help themselves have given an opportunity doesn't necessarily have to be a sorghum project but we feel one of the most important things is that local communities organize themselves and attempt to work at helping themselves together rather than depending on someone else to come in from the outside and furnish all their resources in terms of leadership and finances it'll mean most when local communities can organize themselves and develop projects together but industry is only part of the answer sometimes a relatively small improvement can mean the difference between success and failure the most important thing is in this valley of ours here is the water without water we cannot do anything every year the people of this farming community put up a brush dam in an effort to get water for their crops but every year the dam washed away in the floods many people got discouraged left their farms and moved away those who remained refused to be defeated this time they worked with the state and federal governments and received technical help in some equipment the people worked without any pay to build the new dam and it has outlasted the floods the dam you see behind us now is the most important thing for the people in this community and most mostly because we made it with our own hands and the people are very proud because they've done the work themselves rural poverty involves more than the specific problems of farmers its effects so widespread children are especially hard hit by nature full of life exuberant eager to learn children are crushed by poverty hunger malnutrition and disease often stifle these young lives before they have a chance to develop they're undernourished malnourished they get worms it's a pitiful thing to say but 80 out of 100 children in some of these schools have parasitosis which means worms it's common knowledge that literally thousands of children go to school each day and go throughout the day with anything to eat because they do not have lunch or money well I would love to see them have a hot lunch for one time now up here at this school they don't have a hot lunch they they just open their stuff out of a can you know and pour it out and in bowls you know this and eat it like that the children entering this school cafeteria are like many others they had no breakfast before leaving home but this school found a way to give them a hot meal early in the morning the cafeteria staff is paid by the regular school lunch program and the extra food is provided by the federal government as a result the children no longer have fainting spells nor do they sit through a long day of classes on an empty stomach what about the child who comes from an inadequate home where he gets no encouragement from his parents where he has it doesn't have enough to wear he doesn't have enough to eat he comes to school hungry he comes to school without having any experience in the past with books and he wanted home to help him and he wanted home to give him some motivation for the whole attitude of the family is that of frustration and despair we are hoping that in the daycare center a demonstration research project to give these children an opportunity to have the experiences social and educational to better prepare them for the first grade and later education these children of this particular area without this experience would be spending most of their time in the homes which are not equipped to give them the type of advantages which we are at the daycare center it is our hope that by giving these children free-school experience they will be ready for learning when they do enter the first grade the meta-brook daycare center has been in operation now a little over a year we recognize the fact that a lot of our young boys and girls in the grammar grades are staying home to take care of children so therefore we were interested in providing some type of supervised care for these children then another thing that we thought in terms of if we could get the daycare center started it would mean for some people a gainful employment another thing that we were very concerned with the fact that these children's parents would be able to work and they wouldn't have to worry about what what are their children doing at home another thing the fact that other communities in their county are interested in trying to provide some type of supervised care for the children think the problem of basic education for our children is a critical one and one that we don't really see the total picture on the schools can't do the whole job when the kids in school it gets pretty hard when they run out of clothes we have nine and one is my oldest boy quit school last year the last year he didn't go to school we did all we could we talked to him and my brother used to write to him and talk to him tell him but I guess he just didn't want to go to school anymore he said that he never did have what the other what he needed most of the time and that when it got to where he had to pay for those current events and things like that that all the other kids that would pay for him he was the only one that would be without pain and it used to embarrass him and things like that well maybe that's what actually got him to where he didn't even want to study anymore I really don't know we do occasionally have a few who cannot make make out in the public school they are so far behind from not having attended school regularly in their own homes that they are too frustrated to learn in the public school they they feel they can't do it and they as a result their behavior is difficult and the teachers find it very difficult to teach them for these children we have a special class here on our campus where they can hopefully receive the kind of individual attention they can use to get a new attitude toward learning and an interest in learning which they haven't had before these children at the present time are all teenagers working about on a third or fourth grade level in the three weeks that I have worked with them I've gotten to know of course more about them and can see what difference there is between a child here in the hills who has had a rough home environment to one who would be in another state or another area I feel that just from work standards themselves work habits and their attitude about them their own self that they would be much different if they had had a good normal home upbringing and I feel this very definitely in all three children not really perhaps so much as Minnie and Jimmy but Jimmy has possibilities and I feel is a normal intelligent if not above and I feel that he has a good mind when he wants to use it but he's been defeated so many times in living in expressing himself and in being in school that he just no longer has a desire to learn suppose that he does make the effort to learn and succeeds what then will there be a job for him and for many others like him we need help work that's all we ask just a job yeah and I'd like to work I'd like my husband to have a steady job and that way to get along better when industry and government work together these people can be trained to work well in new jobs Sequoia carpet mills became a dream in the minds of several of us a dream that had a purpose and that purpose was to provide the opportunity for employment for people such as these here in this room who without this or other industrial opportunity would not have a job there were many obstacles to overcome in the establishing of a new industry in an area that had never had any experience in textiles all of the local people had to be trained trained and jobs that are skilled for we have no unskilled labor in our plant this was accomplished through cooperation of the state and federal government in their various training programs and we found that these people not only were anxious and willing but in some instances learned faster than people who had grown up around textiles we've had a lot of thrills in seeing these things come about our job isn't finished and we've got a long long ways to go and i seriously doubt that our one little humble effort here could alleviate the poverty in the area because there's still a lot of people that need an opportunity we have many many applications on file right now but such things as one indian man who had several children first week he was here his wife had to come down and get the car from him so she could put the commodities that she received in the back of the car the free gift from the rest of the working society to help them not starve to death this is a program that i'm sure is very beneficial and we're not criticizing it at all but a person receiving something without giving something in return does not have the self-respect that they need to really be a good american citizen at our grand opening we saw a little boy dash under the rope that we'd set out and this boy's father had been the man that had given the keys to his car to get the commodities the first week he had been there this little boy about four or five years old ran into the rope and pointed at his father and said in a great big loud voice that's my daddy and all of us that knew the story of this particular man got tears in her eyes because that boy couldn't point with pride that that's my daddy they're doing a good day's work and getting an honest day's pay for it even with a job a man may have to return at night to a dilapidated crowded shack where his incentive and determination can slowly ever weigh i think the most immediate and the most drastic need in this territory especially in this county is housing the houses in this county 99 percent of the residences are framed and they're from 20 to 35 to 40 years old they have been patched and cobbled up until they're they don't look too bad from the outside as you pass but they actually fall into pieces 95 percent of the homes have outside toilets no water facilities a few have water run into the house and they simply pipe it out on the ground well i've heard a lot of tales like uh shone so lives up in the hall and then having running water and no lights and likes it that's a bunch of tommy rot he doesn't like it would you like it these people found a way to do something about it with a government loan only sufficient to buy materials this family set about repairing their house themselves it is not an easy job after working a long day on their farm but they're succeeding because of their powerful desire for something better the husband and I were so worried about getting our house fixed for this winter and then we started worrying how we would be able to to go on with the house we didn't have any material to to work on it and my husband couldn't do anything about it he had to work to support the family and while he was working he couldn't do anything here well anyway we found out from somebody that we could have a loan so i talked with my husband and we finally decided to go and and see about it and i don't know what we have we had done with our home we it hadn't been for help for us and we hadn't had that loan i put all this paneling and ceilings and plastering inside outside i guess by december i'm going to be ready with it i hope so so i do all my best in my house for my family to live better this is only one family among millions these people were fortunate enough to be able to get help but such assistance should be available to all who need it massive programs must be launched programs that consider the fact that impoverished communities can contribute only a small part of the necessary funds the people of each community must get to know each other understand each other and finally act together it seems to me that this is what we've got to do any county that is really interested has got to bring together a good strong basis of public support not only a few interested persons there's got to be representation from the boards of county commissioners from city governing boards from all of the agencies that are concerned schools community colleges industrial education centers welfare and health agencies employment service and there's also got to be representation involvement participation by leaders in the communities where the people live that most need help we've got to understand how these people look on life what they're what they see as the barriers to their finding jobs finding opportunities for themselves and their children haters gap a mountain community in washington county virginia a community like many others where a few men became concerned and anxious to do something for their town the important thing was to unify the people who were scattered throughout the area seizing upon the idea of a community club they held their first meeting a meeting that included about 70 members of the community itself and people from all the government branches in the county one thing was stressed everyone had to be involved to do this they launched a number of programs particularly in the field of recreation baseball games in the afternoon and picnics in the evening but money was needed for these projects to raise it they set up a lunch stand in a donated garage and rotating groups of volunteers from the community operated it on weekends now the community wanted to broaden the scope of its projects involved the whole county do more to help the people to accomplish this the director of the program wrote a letter asking for help the letter arrived at the united states department of agriculture in washington and almost immediately the town's people had some help they learned of the office of economic opportunity and were able to present their plans as a result they received a grant of approximately 67 thousand dollars to develop programs to combat poverty in the county one of the most successful of these is the home visitation program one young man only 19 years old works with high school dropouts and others i meet them in the homes on the streets and many particular places and peculiar places too as i meet the dropouts and talk with them gain their confidence i try to persuade them to go to either technical school or back to high school maybe and doing this i take them to technical school let them talk to authority there and explain things such as the classes the courses how long the last and the cost and so on and so forth and with this this they become interested in this and so eventually they will enroll in the technical school and take a trade and become specialized in this another thing that i'm particularly interested in is the illiterate people especially the young illiterate people in this rural area of errors there are many that can't read or write and without this they are just lost therefore i spend a great deal of time and put forth a little more effort each day to help these people to learn this reading and writing so as they can go to school and take their place in this everyday world another worker in the home visitation program is a woman who is moving around the community with an intelligent attitude presenting the programs in a new way to the people she meets as i have gone into the homes of these underprivileged people and talked with them about their problems and explained our program to them it is amazing to see the expression on their expressions on their faces some believe some say this is too good to be true while others say when did this happen where can i go to apply for this program and explaining this program to the people i always emphasize the fact that one must get himself qualified in order to get and hold a job we are having group meetings in order to open doors and decide where our future is going to be i am hoping that our county can be surveyed in terms of better job opportunities and employment needs for qualified people washington county is one example of a community in action the federal government stands ready to help all rural communities in their fight against poverty but the communities themselves must take the initiative organize and prepare programs to eradicate poverty the framework and the means exist for a creative partnership between government and local leadership they exist in the economic opportunity act in programs of the united states department of agriculture and in the services of other federal and state agencies now it is up to local leaders to act a start has been made much more remains to be done it is said that the poor will always be with us but who knows what man may accomplish when his goals are high and his determination unfailing