Featured Blog Post #1: Hunger to make a change in NEPA

This semester, students will be voting on each other’s blog posts to see who will get the featured post!  Check out our very first featured post!

Hunger to make a change in NEPA

By: Joe Petro, sophomore communication arts major

The state of hunger in Northeastern Pennsylvania has become so apparent that it can no longer be ignored.

Many residents of Northeastern Pennsylvania identify that the reason for poverty and hunger is directly linked to the unemployment or economic crisis that our country is facing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor 7.9 percent of the labor force in Pennsylvania is currently unemployed.  As a result of this families of Northeastern Pennsylvania find it difficult to provide food or financial stability for their family.

The preconceived notion by many is that to be “hungry” you must be homeless or poverty stricken to the extent of needing a large amount of help. However, this is not simply the only form of hunger that plagues Northeastern Pennsylvania and our country. According to the Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center, 5.7 percent of all households in Pennsylvania is food insecure with hunger. This makes it apparent that you may still be hungry even though you are still making ends meet. Families make an effort to tighten their belts, applying for assistance, and eliminating luxuries they can live without.

Although a great deal of us is too proud to admit it we face these same exact hardships in our personal lives. What makes it more astounding is that as a community we band together to try to supply those in more impoverished situations with the services they need. However, how beneficial or realistic is this support system we have devised as a community? This may seem counterproductive because those who need the most support are gaining it from those who need it as well. Furthermore, our government stands by while we struggle and uses the resources they have to enhance other aspects of our economic crisis.

In this course I hope to develop my convergent journalism skills in the classroom and in the field. I want to explore the “one man band” form of journalism and newsroom journalism as a class. My main focus is to enhance and polish my professional journalistic style and learn new techniques that will further my career in the future.

Bringing the truth to light

Did you know …

That in 2011,  The Weinberg Northeast Regional Food Bank provided emergency food assistance to about 8,300 different people  in northeast Pennsylvania in any given week?

That nearly 14% of Pennsylvanians suffer from food insecurity, according to Feeding America?

And that nationally,  one in six kids lives in a household with food insecurity, which means they do not always know where or when they will find their next meal, also according to Feeding America?

You may have heard some of these statistics in the infrequent reports on the local and national news that spring up around the holidays, when most people have heightened awareness of those going without a traditional Thanksgiving feast.  But hunger is a 24/7, 365 days a year problem in the United States–and in northeast Pennsylvania.

The student journalists in COMM 224: Electronic Newgathering Seminar will study and report on hunger in northeast Pennsylvania to help bring the truth to light–that people in our own communities deal with hunger and food insecurity on a daily basis.

This blog will feature the fruits of their labors in mid-April, when they will post their final reports on not only the status but also the face of hunger in northeast Pennsylvania.

Until then, follow their blogs.  Students will reflect on their experiences in this course, on the challenges they face when reporting on this issue, and on what they, too, are learning about the realities of hunger in our communities.

Links to the students’ individual blogs can be found under the “Student Blogs” tab.  And, after each blog post deadline, we’ll feature one or two of the most intriguing blogs for you here on this site as we lead up to the launch of the students’ reporting in April.

So, stay tuned.  Watch for the first blog posts next week.  And, follow us on Facebook.  Use the “Like” tab on the right sidebar of your screen.

Dr. Wotanis