Day 03

Today was basically the educational aspect of the week. The schedule for the day was to visit the Emory and Henry College and the Bland County government. We left the house at approximately 8:50am and arrived at the campus about 90 minutes later. The plan was to meet with the directors of the Civic innovation and Appalachian studies department to discuss socioeconomic equity in the rural areas of Virginia.

              During the discussions we talked about the different causes of rural poverty in the community and how those causes have impacted the community. It was really interesting to learn how the major regions in Virginia use to depend on the manufacturing and coal industries. These industries were the main sources of revenue during the 1940’s – 1990’s but time went on coal use became obsolete and the manufacturing companies relocated abroad to secure cheaper labor. These occurrences caused the region to lose their major source of revenue and the loss led to more predicaments like unemployment, increased poverty, loss on infrastructure and emigration. The director then went to discuss how they always have their students engage in community service, they stressed that this was one of their ways of encouraging their students to continue give back to their society after college.

              After the discussion we went on a tour led by some of the college’s students. The school was really small compared to Maryland, it was almost the size of north campus at UMD. After the tour we proceeded to have lunch in the school and visit duck ponds before leaving the campus. The visit to the college was very insightful as it provided a background knowledge to the main mission of our alternative break; socioeconomic equity and rural poverty.

-Hafeez and Erin