and CHRISTINE MILLER FORD

Editor's Note: The names of some of those quoted in this story have been changed.

The wrath of poverty does not discriminate.

Poverty does not care if you are a man, woman or child. It does not take into consideration if you live in a rural area or in a city. It is not concerned about your age, color or creed.

Many faces in West Virginia are lined with the worries associated with poverty—lack of food, uncertainty about the future, a lack of resources and a general sense of hopelessness.

Despite the prevalence of poverty in West Virginia, many still turn their own faces away from those in need. Some claim general apathy. Some believe people who live in poverty brought it on themselves. Others just think it does not exist and choose to ignore it, hoping it will go away.

But statistics show that one in five adults and one in four children live in poverty in West Virginia, and everyone likely knows someone in need. These accounts detail some of the personal struggles of several families living in the state.

Erica Greenwood

Erica Greenwood is a 28-year-old mother of four from Kermit, and she said her family is having difficulty making ends meet.

She is a caretaker for a home medical service company, and she brings home $100.05 a week after taxes. Her husband draws Social Security and does not work.

"We are not necessarily doing without, but we scrape every month to make ends meet," Greenwood said.

Her three oldest children live with their paternal grandparents—only her youngest child from her current marriage is residing with her. She said she does not love her other children any less. They are just better off with their grandparents.

"That was the only place they knew when their father and I were married, and I just do not want to drag them from the lifestyle they are used to," Greenwood said.

She said the family tries to save for a rainy day, but it does not seem to help—one month behind on bills usually takes them two months to catch up.

"We seem to have a lot of rainy days around here," she said.

Greenwood cites medical expenses as a main financial hurdle. Her son receives medical insurance through the state-funded Children's Health Insurance Program, but the family has difficulty making co-payments for medication and office visits. Greenwood and her husband earn $5 over the limit set by the Department of Health and Human Resources to receive a medical card.

"A cold might as well be pneumonia to me," Greenwood said, noting a simple ailment quickly can turn into a financial crisis if she misses work.

She said the family struggles to keep toiletries and basic essentials, such as trash bags, in the house. They receive $164 a month in food stamps.

"By the time we pay $500 in rent, insurance on our vehicle and utilities, we are already spending over what we bring in," she said.

She lists the standard reasons for her family's tight financial situation: a lack of jobs, lack of assistance and lack of community support. She offered a less traditional reason as well.

"As a society, we are driving ourselves into a hole," Greenwood said.

She claims the government focuses on welfare but is not doing enough to help solve the problems associated with poverty. She said people abuse the system at the expense of those really in need.

"The system is corrupt, and the only changes I see around here are changes for the worse," she said.

She said she will move her family if conditions do not change. She said she does not want to go to a city to find a job, but the options are becoming limited.

"We do not want to move because our roots are here, but I'm afraid we have no choice," she said.

When asked what she thinks has to happen for the economic situation to ease, her response was stern: "Someone or something has to come into these communities and get everyone together and show the rest of the world these communities are worth saving."

Kristy Chambers

Kristy Chambers is fighting to regain her life while her husband struggles to keep the family together.

Chambers, 22, of Stepptown, is in a 90-day drug rehabilitation program in Huntington. She has been there for several weeks.

The mother of four small children has been addicted to pain medication for several years. Chambers said she allowed her life to spiral out of control.

"The drug abuse has definitely had an effect on my family's financial situation," Chambers said. "It was already bad, but the drugs were making it worse."

After living in various homes for short periods and multiple moves, the family is living with Chambers' grandmother.

She said Christian Help in Kermit has provided food and gas for her husband so he can travel with the children for visits.

Chambers said if not for the gas vouchers, her oldest daughter would not make it to school because the school bus does not run up the family's road. The little girl's school attendance has slipped because the family can't afford gasoline.

Chambers lost her job as a gas station attendant after being pulled over for having the wrong registration for the vehicle she was driving.

"The tags were up, and I needed to go to work, but I got busted," Chambers said. "I lost my job anyway."

Her husband is able to work, but he cannot find a job. He went to Wayne High School until the 10th grade. His last steady job was almost two years ago.

In 2008, he worked for the Federal Emergency Management Administration doing flood cleanup. He was involved in a vehicle accident in which a fellow worker was killed. He was fired from the job and lost $900 a week in salary.

With the financial strain from Chambers' addiction and her husband's inability to maintain work, the family has never recovered.

Despite the continuing struggles her family faces, Chambers said she is used to living in poverty.

"Basically, what my kids are going through is the same thing I dealt with," Chambers said.

She said she grew up in a trailer park with her grandmother. They did not have much but had enough to get by. She said she was introduced to drugs at a young age.

"It is no excuse, but there has always been three to four drug dealers in that trailer park," Chambers said.

A neighbor gave Chambers a nerve pill when she was 14 years old. It would begin a long history of drug abuse.

"The rest is history," she said.

Chambers dropped out of Tolsia High School in the ninth grade. Without a formal education, Chambers said she needs to get her life straightened out to provide a better life for her family. She admitted that she has little hope for the future after completing rehab.

"The prices of everything needs to change, you know, just be reasonable for people so we can afford food and housing and gas, but that won't happen," Chambers said. "I'm scared about what we are going to do when I get out."

Eric Maynard

Eric Maynard leans against a pickup truck while taking a draw from his cigarette. He and another man are standing in the parking lot of a local food pantry waiting for their food box.

The 34-year-old Merrimac resident's main income is a disability check. He was injured in a car accident and hasn't been able to work since. He and the other man, Randall Spencer, 50, of Red Jacket, are discussing what needs to be done to change the economic system in southern West Virginia.

"The government needs to start thinking about people and not themselves," Maynard complained.

"If I was rich, I could not drive by a place like this (the food pantry) without stopping and giving some money," Spencer added.

The two men offer a laundry list of complaints about the economic situation in the area and the causes -- each man providing a different wrinkle to the discussion.

Maynard said the people of West Virginia are resilient but not all are able to provide for themselves.

"Not everyone is able to grow their own garden, get into the woods to hunt or on the river bank to fish," Maynard said.

He said the water is too polluted from mine runoff to fish anyway.

Maynard, whose father was a union organizer, said he has a distinct hatred for the mines. He said the mining companies should take some of the responsibility for poverty in southern West Virginia.

"They built the industry on the back of hard-working people, took the money made out of the state, then took away the jobs, and a lot of people have been left to live without hope," Maynard said.

Those still lucky to work in the mines are taking advantage of the situation the best they can. According to both men, some workers are getting desperate as the economic situation tightens.

"They are getting hurt on the job after five months so the mine company has to pay a pension or they can get some kind of fixed disability," Spencer said. "It is getting pretty bad around here when men will risk their lives just to get assistance."

Maynard asked, "So what are they gonna do to bring in jobs and give people hope?"

Spencer said he believes efforts to bring money into the county is not directly benefiting the citizens but rather lining the pockets of a select few.

He said the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System is good for local businesses, but the money is not helping Mingo County residents.

"They are bringing in money, but I can't tell you where its going," Spencer said.

Maynard agreed, saying he loves four-wheeler riding, but he sees other uses for profits from the trails.

"They pay $20,000 to clear a trail, but that money could go to helping this food pantry," Maynard said. "They are not helping me."

Spencer said he and his wife make it on $800 per month. He appreciates what the food pantry provides, but he said he is worried every month about how his family is going to eat.

Spencer said he and his wife have $50 a month left to go to food after rent, utilities and medicine.

"You know how they tell you to eat three meals a day. I am lucky to eat one a day, and it has been like that my whole life," Spencer said

"At least in jail they feed you three meals," Maynard said. "This is not a recession; it is depression."

Margaret McDonald

Margaret McDonald said she sometimes daydreams about the days when a gallon of gasoline cost less than $1.

"We were able to get by then," she said on a recent afternoon as she carried a box of shelf-stable milk, Tuna Helper and other pantry staples to her car following a visit to the Loaves and Fishes food pantry in downtown Martinsburg.

Now gasoline costs $2.79 a gallon, and higher fuel prices continue to push up the cost of everything from groceries to admission to the local theater.

"It's all gotten more expensive," the 40-year-old Kentucky native said. "We can't even think about going out to see a movie when you look at what you have to pay to get in and just the cost of gas to get there. Going anywhere just for fun is something we can't do anymore. Everything's gotten a lot harder."

She and Charles McDonald, her 44-year-old husband, get by on $654 a month in disability payments.

"He got injured on the job in 1997 and has a degenerative spinal condition that means he's in pain all the time," she said. "What I do now is stay home and take care of him."

The couple's only child, a 20-year-old son, is on his own, serving in the U.S. Army. Without groceries and other help from Loaves and Fishes and the assistance offered through other social safety nets, Margaret said she doesn't know how the couple would get by.

"We're living with a friend right now," she said. "And one of the things I got help with today was a gas voucher so that I can get back and forth to my doctor's appointments and take my husband to his."

Margaret moved to Martinsburg with her mother in 1976, when her parents split up. Her dad stayed behind in her hometown of Ashland, Ky., and she said she hasn't been able to afford the trek south to visit him in many years. She was attending Martinsburg High School and taking a computer class at James Rumsey Vocational-Technical School in Hedgesville when she met Charles, who was pursuing his GED.

In their 22 years of marriage, both have dealt with a long list of health problems. "Loaves and Fishes offers help now with dental care, which is great," she said. "But I don't have any teeth, and they don't help with dentures. I lost my teeth after I had a hysterectomy, and that led me to go into early menopause which left me with bone deterioration."

She's looked into getting dentures, but the least expensive option she's found costs $500.

"That's a lot more than we can afford, for sure," she said. "Charles lost all his teeth, too, but he has dentures. When he got his, they were only $250 and he was working, so we could afford that then."

Without dentures, Margaret rarely eats meat and has been told by doctors that she has an iron deficiency.

With the couple forced to spend more of their income on gasoline, food and other basics, Margaret said her family and many others find themselves seeking help from Loaves and Fishes, eating meals at church-sponsored soup kitchens and staying at shelters.

"I feel stressed all the time, all the time," Margaret said. "Right now, things are hard on everybody I know. I think to myself: 'It's got to get better soon. It just got to.'"

Christine Alexander

In the past year and a half, 24-year-old Christine Alexander has come to Loaves and Fishes in downtown Martinsburg for groceries and to get help paying for medicine, rent and her water bill.

On this day, she is here not for her family but to lend moral support to a friend who is struggling.

"He's a single dad, and he's about to get evicted," said Alexander, who grew up in Alexandria, Va., and moved with her parents to Martinsburg as a child.

"He didn't want to come. He's too proud and didn't want to ask for help. I told him he didn't have any other option. He couldn't let himself and the baby get put out on the street. He needed help."

While her friend is inside Loaves and Fishes—a nonprofit agency largely supported by area churches operating from the basement of an old Catholic school on Raleigh Street—Christine stands just outside the door with her 10-month-old daughter.

She also has a 4-year-old daughter and is expecting again in June.

"This was definitely not something we planned," Christine said. "We were using two kinds of birth control."

Life got more difficult for the family last year after their second child arrived.

"I went back to work after the baby was born, but we couldn't do it," she said. "My boyfriend works nights, and I was working days. When I would be at work, I kept getting calls (from neighbors) saying the baby was crying and he wasn't getting her—which I understand because he was tired, he'd worked all night. But then I would leave work to check on the baby, and eventually I lost my job."

Now the family relies on what Christine's boyfriend earns from his job at McDonald's. The couple has no car.

"It's hard," Christine said. "I walk everywhere. I push this stroller everywhere I need to go. I can't get to the grocery store unless my mom or a friend takes me. Sometimes it'll be two or three weeks before I can get there, and then I end up just having to buy food at 7-Eleven, whatever they have there."

Christine would like to attend Blue Ridge Community College, a growing school not far from Loaves and Fishes.

"It would be great to get a certificate and be able to get some kind of job in health care, something where the pay is good," she said. "The only thing is I can't figure out exactly how to do it. I would need to find child care for the baby, and that's hard if you don't have transportation."

The upcoming Christmas holidays also have Christine feeling anxious.

"My parents will take care of my 4-year-old and make sure she has a Christmas, and I signed up the baby at the Salvation Army to make sure she gets something," she said. "It's hard because you want to be able to have something for your children. You want to be the one who takes care of them. But sometimes there's just no way to do it. You've got to have help."

Carolyn Simmons

Carolyn Simmons' pink plastic wristband bears the message, "Celebrate Life!" but the 56-year-old Pendleton County native admitted she often finds it hard to feel happy or hopeful.

Her troubles started early, with parents who drank too much and often failed to provide their children with food and other basics.

"I can remember smearing lard on bread just to have something in my stomach," said Carolyn, who this morning is sitting in downtown Fairmont's Soup Opera, where volunteers feed about 100 people a hot lunch seven days a week.

When Carolyn was 10 years old, her father died during an operation on the same day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Six months later, her mother died, and Carolyn and her two sisters found themselves in a foster home.

"We had to work at a restaurant and catching night crawlers, but we didn't get to keep any of the money we made," said Carolyn, who stayed in the foster home until her first marriage at 17.

Now three times divorced, Carolyn says her husbands inflicted on her a variety of strife—from physical abuse to alcoholic rages. Still, she managed to raise five children and work at a nursing home in Elkins for many years before becoming disabled.

For awhile, she drifted around the state, living in shelters or apartments in Keyser, Weston, Harmon, Clarksburg and elsewhere. She doesn't have a car.

She said "God opened a door" last year by bringing her to Fairmont, where she has an apartment and makes her way to the Soup Opera nearly every day, often acting not only as a patron but also as a volunteer, wiping down counters, busing trays and handling other tasks.

"I like it here, don't get me wrong," she said. "But I'm far away from my children and my friends. They're still in Pendleton County, and I don't have any way to get down there so that makes it hard on me. My sisters don't live close either."

Carolyn said she's made friends at the Soup Opera, where lunch is served at 11:30 a.m. She and other men and women gather hours before the meal to chat and drink coffee out of Styrofoam cups and munch on pastries set out each morning.

"I'm not ashamed of what I've been through," said Carolyn, patiently sitting at a long table as she waits for her tray of potato soup and a ham salad sandwich.

"It's my life, and it's been hard. I'd like things to get easier, but I don't think they will."

The State Journal staff reporter Michael Hupp can be reached by email at mhupp@statejournal.com or by calling 304-720-6562. The State Journal staff reporter Christine Miller Ford can be reached by email at cford@statejournal.com or by calling 304-820-4611.