Poverty

katec@herald-mail.com There's a framed poster on the wall in Community Action Council Executive Director David G. Jordan's office: "Stand up for what is right, even if you're standing alone. " Jordan, in the position since April 1, inherited that poster. But it remains prominent. Community Action Council was founded in 1965, part of President Lyndon B. Johnson's "War of Poverty. " "The war is still raging," Jordan says. The agency's goal has been to work itself out of a job, Jordan says.

"Senior citizens and teens have collided twice this past year with the railroad underpass at Pangborn. The latest one on Thanksgiving Day at 9:30 p.m. Do we need a fatality before we focus attention to this dark bent road? The road is built with one 90 degree turn and then a sweeping 60 degree turn to enter the underpass. Speed and poor visibility have been a factor in both collisions to the bridge. Pole lights have been burnt out at the 60 degree curve, with no reflection devices or white lines denoting curvature of roadway.

Sidney Poitier recounts roots in poverty, soothsayer's prophecy By DON AINES / Staff Writer SHIPPENSBURG, Pa. - The Bahamian ambassador to Japan regaled students, faculty and guests at Shippensburg University Thursday night, but had relatively little to say about his other career as an Oscar-winning actor. continued "The man that I am was being built from inside the boy that I was," Sidney Poitier said of his life growing up on Cat Island, the youngest of seven children born to tomato farmer Reginald Poitier and his wife Evelyn.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - Despite a robust, fast-growing economy, the child poverty rate in Berkeley County, W.Va., has increased 25 percent since 1990, according to a state report issued Tuesday. cont. from front page One of the reasons may be that low-paying jobs are outpacing higher paying ones almost 3 to 1 as the county's population continues to increase. The numbers are contained in the 1999 West Virginia Kids Count report, an ongoing effort to collect data about the health, economic, educational and social well-being of children in the state.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - West Virginia is giving an extra $50 to students who might be unable to afford clothing for school. The state has increased the school clothing allowance to $150 for students born between Sept. 1, 1980, and Aug. 31, 1994, and whose family income is at or below the federal poverty level, according to the state Department of Health and Human Resources. One of only two state-funded school clothing voucher programs in the country, the West Virginia program gives students money to buy items like pants, shirts, dresses and sewing materials.

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. - A new study shows that despite rising child poverty rates in Berkeley County, the Eastern Panhandle is still below the state average for West Virginia. West Virginia KIDS COUNT, a nonprofit group based in Charleston, W.Va., found the child poverty rate in Berkeley County increased 8.6 percent between 1980 and 1996, with 20.2 percent of the county's children growing up in poverty compared to a 30 percent average statewide and 20.8 percent nationally. Jefferson and Morgan counties, however, showed decreases in the child poverty rates since 1980.

A Baltimore-based foundation on Tuesday released a study showing that West Virginia has more children living in poverty than every state but Louisiana and Mississippi, and that the percentage of youngsters below the poverty line has grown by 15 percent in the past five years. The study concludes that the state still needs new industry to offset job losses in coal-mining areas, but suggests that the group most in need may be the working poor who've recently moved off the welfare rolls.

The number of people living in poverty throughout the Tri-State area decreased between 1993 and 1995, even though population increased in each of the seven counties. [cont. from front page ] There were 49,306 Tri-State residents below the poverty line in 1995, compared to 52,515 in 1993, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimates. The overall percentage of people in poverty dropped from 9.6 to 8.8 during that same period. Beyond the statistics is a changing picture of poverty.

Grant to fund after-school program By RICHARD F. BELISLE Staff Writer, Waynesboro CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - Youths from some of Chambersburg's south end neighborhoods, where school officials say drug activity, vandalism and poverty prevail, are being targeted for a special after-school program. The borough is receiving a grant of nearly $90,000 through the state Department of Community and Economic Development's community crime prevention program. The grant was announced by state Rep. Jeffrey Coy, D-Franklin, according to Kristen Rawlings, an aide in Coy's Harrisburg office.