{"id":1647,"date":"2017-08-08T15:14:04","date_gmt":"2017-08-08T15:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=1647"},"modified":"2017-08-08T15:14:04","modified_gmt":"2017-08-08T15:14:04","slug":"appalachian-poverty-a-special-thrift-store-and-a-corny-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/?p=1647","title":{"rendered":"Appalachian poverty; a special thrift store; and a corny joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continuing to catch up on July…\u00a0 I did a newspaper article about St. Mary’s Church here and their “Appalachian connection.”\u00a0 Each year an outreach team from St. Mary’s goes to Kentucky’s Owsley County, one of the poorest in the country.\u00a0 It used to be coal, tobacco and timber country.\u00a0 But no more.\u00a0 What’s more, the opioid problem there is off the charts. The St. Mary’s people paint, fix walls, floors… and as with Habitat for Humanity<\/em>, the homeowners work side by side.\u00a0 St. Mary’s Pastoral Leader said to me the help is motivated by “justice issues.”\u00a0 And as St. Mary’s parishioners are exposed to such dire poverty, they not only realize how blessed they are, but they also realize\u00a0 that “…it would be wrong not to give,” she said.\u00a0 Our position on poverty<\/a> points this out in spades.\u00a0 And as president, I’d try to mobilize way<\/em> more help into our poverty stricken rural pockets, inner cities and into the Third World as well…\u00a0 Speaking of poverty, I did another newspaper piece in July on a downtown Bluffton thrift store that has this phenomenal outreach into El Salvador, Nicaragua, Ethiopia…\u00a0 It’s called the Et Cetera Shop and all the profits go the Mennonite Central Committee for it’s outreach help into the Third World.\u00a0 The Et Cetera Shop director said that, not only is all this a help to those around the world, but it also serves as a “recycling” hub in the midst of an ever evolving otherwise “throw-away” society.\u00a0 This is the kind of ethos that is reflected on our position on the environment<\/a>.\u00a0 Note:\u00a0 On the lighter side…\u00a0 Every summer Bluffton University here hosts high school marching band camps.\u00a0 Those of us who live within a half mile radius of the campus often feel like we’re at a perpetual high school football game halftime show.\u00a0 (“When the players tried to take the field, the marching band refused to yield…”)\u00a0 Anyway, I was taking some photos of the Edison High School Marching Band for the paper.\u00a0 While the band is in Milan, Ohio, they call it “Edison” because none other than Thomas Edison (think: light bulb) is from Milan, Ohio.\u00a0 Milan is also the home of the annual Milan Melon Festival.\u00a0 So after taking the photos, I told the band my Milan Melon Festival joke:\u00a0 Question:\u00a0 Why does the Milan Melon Festival Queen need a chaperone?\u00a0 Answer:\u00a0 So she can’t elope.\u00a0 (Cantaloupe.\u00a0 Get it?\u00a0 I’ve got a million of ’em.)\u00a0 But you could tell that the band members were happy I didn’t tell them any more of ’em.\u00a0 LOL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continuing to catch up on July…\u00a0 I did a newspaper article about St. Mary’s Church here and their “Appalachian connection.”\u00a0 Each year an outreach team from St. Mary’s goes to Kentucky’s Owsley County, one of the poorest in the country.\u00a0 …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1648,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1647\/revisions\/1648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voteforjoeblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}