“You work for someone [in the military] who’s your boss, and you work with other people. Everyone needs something different,” said “Frank,” a veteran originally from Sistersville (WV) who worked in the Navy’s visual communications team on an aircraft carrier. “Sometimes [worry] can follow you your entire life; you wonder, Have I done something wrong?”
Public Health
Area Programs Focused on Feeding Local Food-Insecure Children
According to the USDA, more than 13 million children in the United States live in “food insecure” homes, which means those families don’t regularly have enough food to eat. Thankfully, there are two programs in Jefferson and Berkeley County that are making a difference to help end childhood hunger.
Partnership in Martinsburg Adds Strength to Opioid Fight
The Martinsburg Initiative (TMI) is an innovative, multi-dimensional partnership that has developed a model solution to the crisis of Opioid Use Disorder and the general problems of other substance use, misuse, and substance use disorders.
National Organization Arrives in Panhandle to Confront Opioid Epidemic
Established after the 2016 presidential election, The One America Movement’s (One America) mission is to build bridges and solve problems by bringing Americans together across racial, religious, political, and geographic divides in order to address pressing social problems like poverty, opioids, racial tension, and more.
Out of the Darkness, Into the Light
This will be the third year that Shepherdstown and its surrounding communities will come together to shed some light on an important issue. The Shepherdstown ‘Out of the Darkness’ walk has been an event rapidly growing over the last two years, and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) is expecting an even larger turnout this year.
Hunger in America: Hard to Deny and Closer Than You Think
Today, there are more than 48.8 million Americans (including 13 million children and 5 million seniors) struggling with food insecurity, according to Feeding America and the USDA. Poverty in America is the leading cause, with more than 40 million people currently living below the poverty line (over half end up being children—many of whom depend on schools for a daily meal).
WV’s One Remaining Abortion Clinic Mirrors National Trend
The recent closing of the Kanawha (WV) Surgicenter, which left Charleston’s Women’s Health Center (WHC) the state’s only abortion provider, is part of an unnerving national movement decreasing access to women’s reproductive health, experts say.
SNAP/WV FresHealthy Bucks Program Alive and Well
The Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps, has expanded its benefits, and will now be accepted at local farmers markets in the Eastern Panhandle.
I Lost My Brother to Mr. Brown
Mike Chalmers is a consulting editor and former editor-in-chief (2016-2020) for The Observer. — If we’re going to truly address the addiction epidemic, we’ve got to be brutally honest about it. I’ll go first. When we took over at the new Observer, we knew we wanted to place ourselves firmly within the emerging conversation surrounding […]
It’s Here
Katie Spriggs remembers the first time she sheltered a sex-trafficked victim at the Shenandoah Women’s Center in Martinsburg—or rather, the first time she knew that the woman seeking refuge had been trafficked.