The newsmagazine reported Friday that a Kentucky college has given a football scholarship to a homeless eastern Kentucky teen featured in the report. A dentist donated dentures to a toothless woman. An unidentified donor gave Hannah Montana boots to two children who longed for a pair. And Pepsi promised a fully equipped mobile dental clinic to improve the oral health of mountain residents.
The philanthrophy resulted from the Feb. 13 report by Kentucky native Diane Sawyer who described ‘a place where children and families face unthinkable conditions, living without what most Americans take for granted.’
Sawyer said residents of isolated pockets in central Appalachia face abject poverty, an epidemic of prescription drug abuse, toothlessness, chronic depression and the shortest life spans in the nation.
For nearly two years, ABC News cameras followed Appalachian children for the program dubbed ‘A Hidden America: Children of the Mountains.’
The program drew powerful reactions. Some didn’t like what they saw. Others were moved to action by it.
Former journalist Judy Owens, who covered Appalachia for more than a decade for metro newspapers in Louisville and Lexington, said the program graphically captured issues that far too many people in the region grapple with on a daily basis.
‘The problem of lack of dental care and the problems affiliated with drug abuse, those problems are very real in Appalahcia,’ Owens told The Associated Press. ‘They’re persistent. They’re pervasive. I know that there are people who either aren’t aware of these problems or who feel that making presentations about them belittle or shame people in the region. But the reality is, you can ask anyone who works in the public schools, who work in health departments, who work in doctors’ offices, who work in social service agencies; nobody who works in a capacity like that would say anything other than that the problems are as shown. What they depicted is true.’
Barbourville dentist Eddie Smith, featured in the report, showed the nation a condition he called ‘Mountain Dew mouth,’ childhood tooth decay caused by drinking too much soda.
Smith travels the region in a mobile dental clinic, remaking the smiles of children whose teeth have been marred by decay. He was featured again Friday night, donating the free dentures to a toothless woman who also was on the program.
‘It’s hard for us to watch, but I think if we get those problems identified and recognize them, then we’re more apt to get some of help to make it better,’ Smith told the AP.
Pepsi reacted to the report by promising Smith a fully equipped mobile dental clinic to supplement the one he’s already using.
Union College, a Methodist school in Barbourville, reacted by offering the football scholarship to Shawn Grim, who was shown living in a pickup truck. ABC News reported in a followup story Friday night that Grim’s dorm room is ready and that he starts classes on Monday.
SSI used to be for old aged people who didn't any income because they once lived from their lands and produced their own foods. Many families have been through 3-4 generations of SSI checks. Many are young strong people who are healthy enough to work. Kentucky and surrounding states why do you pay women who have more than 2 children on medicaid and welfare that is breaking your economic system?
Contact your House of Representatives, Congressmen, and Senators from your state, VOICE your opinion. LET YOUR VOICE BE HEARD! You do vote so you have the power to change things. Only your state leaders can change your poverished areas and rid you of the drug pushers and doctors as well as pharmacies who constantly give your children the drugs. Its your land.
Governments give fuel orders to the poverished and many are honest and use it, while others take their orders straight to gas stations or drug dealers who buy the orders for one-third the face value or less.
People, if you are tired of documentaries that tell it like it is, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Don't sit on your fannies, then complain! Christians sit around and allowed the Bible be taken from your schools, any mention of GOD taken from pledges, money and historical buildings that once meant something to all and NOW they complain. People the drugs and abuse of SSI will cripple and poverish your areas so quick, you won't see it coming. You will be like the city that slept while evil overtook it. The immigrants work your jobs without any evidence of who they are, but HOW can they do this? It's because the young boys and girls who reside in your communities aren't wanting to work, SSI is easier to obtain.
FEDUPGRANNY
You've got poor, toothless, no insurance people in the whole united states. not just here. and I think the Governor should step up. And the people of this area should take offence to this. and let them know that we are tired of being pertrayed like this.
On the opposition side of this, who is teaching them any better? For many of us who are addicted to coffee or even Starbucks, I guess Mountain Dew serves as their Starbucks.
It's sad and it broke my heart. I grew up in that area. I can tell you that the people that received scholarships from my high school were ones who didn't have to scrap and save to make a living. But that is neither here nor there.
What is the here and now is that we keep on giving our money to the people overseas when we have situations like this going on right in our own front yards.
I know some people down there get around 600(SSI) plus a month they smoke cigarettes like there is no tomorrow by the second week of the monthe they crying about being broke and no food.
I am glad the young man gets is going to school but how could be driving such a truck looked pretty good. If he needs extra money why not get a part time job. Personally I think he was taken out of his environment and could not cope with the differnet way of life.
No matter what is done for the people if they don't want it better you can not help them.
That is my comment.