Reporter Céilí Doyle covers rural Ohio, Appalachia with empathy dispatch.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dispatch.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Dr. Shane Foster remembers growing up in Athens County and wearing glasses from an early age. The southeastern Ohio optometrist understands the unique challenges of being a kid in Appalachia and the gaping need for vision care.
And as president of the Ohio Optometric Foundation, a statewide vision advocacy organization, he s seen how that need limits educational success throughout the region. Ohio has a third-grade reading guarantee but not a third-grade vision guarantee, Foster said. We expect them to read at a certain level, but we’re not giving them the tools to do that.
But thanks to the Ohio Optometric Foundation s partnership with the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio, the region s philanthropic arm, and Vision To Learn, a national nonprofit group that provides eye care to students across the country, 7,500 kids across 20 school districts in Appalachian Ohio will receive an eye exam via mobile clinic over the next three years.
POMEROY – Nestled along the banks of the Ohio River across from the West Virginia border, the Meigs County seat glints in the winter sun. Antique shop owners offer warm smiles and the brand-new chamber of commerce building overlooks a picturesque view of the river as a coal barge floats by.
But driving through the outskirts of Pomeroy, a village 21 miles south of Athens, Laura Sheets sighs while passing a row of ramshackle buildings.
“So much here has changed since I was growing up,” she said.
It’s a familiar story. As the coal industry – the economic backbone of southeastern Ohio – collapsed over the last 40 years, the need for jobs, housing, health care, transportation and food became apparent.