Blackmon Road: “A Place For Hope”

When people think of extreme poverty, with communities lacking running water, sturdy homes, and basic necessities, most would immediately picture somewhere like Haiti, not a community that basically sits at their backdoor step.  Sitting hardly 15 minutes down the road from my house, the “Blackmon Road” community lives in third-world conditions. After growing up in this area my entire life, I was shocked at how ignorant I was that this place even existed.

I first heard about Blackmon Road a little over a year ago when a youth event was planned through my church to throw a Christmas party for the children there. I, along with many others, tagged along to help out and we all had a great time.  Since then, our church has organized various other events for the community, sparking relationships with some of the people there.  Last week I tagged along with a friend of mine who is working on an “informal” documentary about the community and wanted me to take some still shots.  For the documentary, we focused on one 9 year old girl, following  her along her daily routine from the time the bus drops her off at the community center in the afternoon, until she heads down the dirt road that leads to her home…a house she shares with 15 other people.  I really wanted to post some pictures of our little friend but am having to refrain because of model release issues, so I’ve just decided to post some shots of the community itself.

If you would like to learn more about Blackmon Road or find out how you can help, please visit A Place for Hope.

Below is the house of the girl we featured for the documentary. Like I previously mentioned, she lives here with about 15 other people.  The porta-jon out front is their bathroom.

The front door…