What’s next for West Virginia? That’s a question that will be posed to community members at meetings across the state in the coming months. The West Virginia Center for Civic Life promotes local dialogue to challenge us to talk about problems and find solutions to better the quality of life here. The center is holding its 18th annual Civic Life Institute at the University of Charleston on June 4 and 5. The institute will train citizens from across the state to hold and facilitate local meetings to find out what’s next for West Virginia. Center director Betty Knighton and Catherine Moore, an Appalachian Transition Fellow assigned to the project, stopped by our studios to talk with West Virginia Morning host Beth Vorhees about the initiative.
Tag: Arts & Culture
Five Counties Approve Sunday Hunting on Private Land
Voters in five West Virginia counties have restored the right to hunt on private land on Sundays.
Unofficial returns show the measure was approved Tuesday in Braxton, Calhoun, Nicholas, Webster and Wirt counties. Voters in Gilmer and Lewis counties rejected the proposal.
In 2001, lawmakers allowed counties to hold elections on whether to allow Sunday hunting on private lands. The following year, all 41 counties that put the question on their ballots voted to ban it.
Cory Boothe of Summersville started a petition drive last year. He says he wanted to give his children the opportunity that hunters in most other states have.
He worked feverishly on the grassroots campaign, distributing petitions at convenience stores, bars, diners and larger employers.
Boothe says he’s satisfied with how the vote turned out.
McDowell Residents Learn Healthy Cooking
Much attention has been paid over the years to child hunger, but hunger and poor nutrition are also problems among the country’s senior population. The National Foundation to End Senior Hunger is hoping to change that and has created a pilot program in West Virginia’s poorest county that the organization hopes will be replicated across Appalachia and the country.
NFESH commissioned a study starting in 2008 that shows the incidence of hunger among the nation’s senior population. That first study showed that one in nine seniors, or about 11 percent, faces the threat of hunger.
Peggy Ingraham, NFESH Executive vice president, said the numbers have continued to grow.
“And not simply because the senior population has been growing in this country, although of course it has with the explosion of baby boomers,” Ingraham said. But the percentage of seniors who are facing the threat of hunger has also grown significantly to nearly one in six, and in 2011 that represented 15.2 percent.”
Ingraham said the biggest risk factor is low income and seniors who live with children are twice as likely to face the threat of hunger. So NFESH used a grant from the Walmart Foundation to work with George Mason University, Reconnecting McDowell and a host of other organizations to create a program called Feeducation that teaches senior citizens in McDowell County how to make nutritious meals that appeal to young and old in a household.
Ingraham said statistics show McDowell County used to have a population of up to 150,000 and was one of the wealthier counties in the state. Today the U.S. Census estimates 20,876 people live in the 533 square mile county, making access to food a significant problem.
“It also means that when people go to shop at the grocery store and can get there they go a limited number of times and what they purchase is what they have to eat for a long period,” Ingraham said. “So to have them thinking about what they’re going to buy, making grocery lists, to be able to stretch their budget and to take that home and to take that home and to feed their family for a period of time is really a revolutionary thing.”
Teaming Up to Make a Difference
NFESH teamed up with George Mason University’s Nutrition and Food Studies Department to design a program where students work with senior headed households in McDowell to learn how to make more nutritious meals. Assistant Professor Constance Gewa said students in a class that meets in the fall called Nutrition Through the Life Spans began by designing the project. Then the spring Nutrition Education class implemented it by going to McDowell County and conducting three sessions where seniors and children could learn how to make healthy meals and snacks.
Gewa said the Feeducation program provided a valuable experience to her students.
“When you sit in class everything looks so black and white but when you go out in the field then you realize it is not, there are some grey areas, and you have to make decisions,” Gewa said. “ And those decisions you cannot make them alone all the time.”
One of Gewa’s students, Brian Head, visited McDowell County more than once. Head grew up in Fairfax, Virginia, just outside Washington D.C. and has an undergraduate degree in culinary arts. Since 2004 he’s worked as a chef in the D.C. area most recently serving as a sous chef for the U.S. House of Representatives at the Capitol.
Head said students in his group ran one of the cooking and nutrition session where they offered recipes for healthier pancakes, grilled cheese sandwiches, yogurt parfaits, banana caterpillars and chili. He said one goal was providing ideas for normal food that could be made easily, like the grilled cheese.
“We understand that’s something that needs to be because of speed and time,” Head said. “You can always put vegetables inside of that and get more.”
Credit Peggy Ingraham / National Foundation to End Senior Hunger
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National Foundation to End Senior Hunger
“And a lot of them had told us on our first trip that they eat a lot of bacon, they cook with butter and some still with lard, so we wanted to give them another option to cook with like olive oil so they don’t have to use butter and lard all the time,” he added.
Participants left each session with the ingredients for one of the recipes they saw demonstrated, and they each got a copy of a cookbook with recipes from all the sessions plus a few more.
“And one of the things we heard when we went back the second time is they had the recipe book at home and they were using it,” Head said. “We had one lady at the senior center who said she’d tried every single recipe and she had given the recipe book to another family member and they had used it.”
Getting More Than You Give
While the folks in McDowell County who participated came away from the cooking sessions with new recipes and nutrition advice like- buy more frozen and canned vegetables when fresh is not available- Head and Gewa said the students who traveled to McDowell also came away with something after the warm reception they received.
“So definitely after the first time I was so excited to go back and to see some of the familiar faces and to talk to them about their lives and how things have been,” Head said. “It’s more like we gained some friendships out of it instead of just we came down as teaching, we actually went down and talked to friends and it was a great experience.”
“It is an amazing community, I wouldn’t say anything else,” Gewa said. “It’s a wonderful community. They’re really keen to learn something new and open to that opportunity. And honestly, I was impressed.”
Hoping to Expand the Program
NFESH Executive Vice President Peggy Ingraham said the organization hopes to find the resources to bring the Feeducation program to other counties throughout the state and the region.
“We talk about seniors as being the forgotten hungry because they don’t yell quite so loudly but we think rural people and Appalachian people are also forgotten in a similar way,” Ingraham said. “Folks in cities make a lot of noise and have other opportunities but we have now put together we think a model that can transform and improve lives in McDowell and throughout West Virginia and throughout the whole Appalachian region.”
The Feeducation program is hosting a community event Saturday May 17, 2014 called Healthy Food, Healthy Fun, Healthy Future to celebrate the program’s success. The event will take place from noon to 3 p.m. in the Walmart parking lot in Kimball and at the Five Loaves and Two Fishes Food Bank. It will include cooking demonstrations, a farmers market and an appearance by the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.
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Is Shepherdstown America's Best Place to Live?
Shepherdstown is among the 64 towns vying for the title of Best Place to Live in America in Outside Magazine. The competition is broken down into four…
Shepherdstown is among the 64 towns vying for the title of Best Place to Live in America in Outside Magazine.
The competition is broken down into four geographic regions of the US; West, East, Midwest, and South. Shepherdstown is one of 16 towns from the south.
In this first round of voting it’s up against Little Rock Arkansas. An Outside Living news release says there will be six rounds of voting on the magazine’s web site with each round lasting five days. When only two towns are left, there will be a seven day showdown to determine the winner, which will be featured in the September issue of the magazine.
This is the fourth year Outside Magazine has sponsored the contest, which attempts to find the town that is the best ‘jumping off point’ for adventure.
He's a One Man Wrecking Crew of Geography Knowledge
There’s a very important competition taking place in Washington D.C. next week. It’s the National Geographic Bee and West Virginia has a competitor who thinks he has the right stuff.
Andrew Christy is an 8th Grader at St. Francis de Sales Central Catholic School, in Morgantown. He’s going to represent West Virginia, for THE THIRD YEAR IN A ROW, at the National Geographic Bee. He came up short on his first two tries, but now, it’s his final chance to bring home 50 thousand dollars in college scholarships and bragging rights to the Mountain State.
“It feels really good; in sixth grade I was very nervous, in seventh grade, I was pretty nervous, but this year I think I know what’s going on,” said Christy.
“I know the drill. I’m still a little nervous, but not as nervous as I have been before.”
Like Spelling Bees, at a Geography Bee contestants must answer questions correctly to advance. But it’s a bit different in that every contestant will have to answer nine questions, and the best ten competitors get to make it to the finals. That usually means if you miss one of the nine, you’re probably out of the game.
And they aren’t easy questions, either. Listeners, let’s try one together. Here’s the question.
Caribbean Hindustani, a dialect of Hindi, is commonly spoken in an island country off the coast of Venezuela. Can you name the country?
The Answer is Trinidad and Tobago. That’ s a sample question of what might be asked in the bee. Andrew says the questions are tough: few are multiple choice, and while clues may be given, a contestant really has to know where to find them.
“Last year at nationals, there was a question about the Gulf of Fonseca, it’s between El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and I got it wrong,” Christy said.
“They won’t straight ask you what’s the capital of this country, or what river runs through this capital, they will word it differently and give you clues in the question. You can ask for them to repeat the question, or for them to spell a word.”
He may not have traveled to the Gulf of Fonseca, but he’s traveled a lot for a 13 year old young man, and he says traveling has helped him stay enthused about geography.
“I like western South America, because that’s where llamas live and I really like llamas. They are my favorite animal,” said Christy.
“We went on a cruise in Europe; we went to Italy, Greece, Croatia, and Turkey. I’ve been to the Bahamas, and I have been to Niagara Falls.”
To prepare for the challenge, Christy studies atlases and maps, and takes online quizzes. He says the most difficult part of the competition every year are the other competitors.
“Everyone is good because they had to win their state, and region. Everyone is good, they are all on the same level, or better than you,” he said.
But he loves the competition. Andrew will be attending Morgantown High School next year. He isn’t sure about his future plans, other than to attend college where he’s interested in studying science, or possibly architecture.
Andrew will be in Washington this weekend to compete in the National Geographic Bee. The top 10 finalists will compete in the final round, next Wednesday, moderated by journalist Soledad O’ Brien. It will air on television on the National Geographic Channel.
Recreational Boating Deaths Decline in W.Va.
Statistics released Wednesday by the U.S. Coast Guard show three people were killed in boating accidents in 2013. That’s down from four in 2012, eight in 2011 and 2010, and 15 in 2009.
All three fatal accidents in 2013 were drownings.
Twenty people suffered nonfatal injuries in eight accidents in 2013.
There was only property damage in another five accidents.
The total number of boating accidents declined from 19 in 2012 to 16 last year.
Seven accidents were collisions. Other causes included flooding or swamping, skier mishap, capsizing and carbon monoxide.
Nationwide, 560 people were killed in recreational boating accidents in 2013.