Rock Hill residents are working to ensure Thanksgiving doesn't pass by the people who live on Blackmon Road next week.

A number of area churches and businesses have pulled together provisions to help out the impoverished community that lies a mile and a half from downtown Rock Hill.

"It troubles us that people in our community are living this way less than three miles from our distribution center," Nash said.

In the three weeks since the reports highlighting the problems affecting the roughly 30 families that call Blackmon Road home, the newspaper has received dozens of calls from people wanting to help. Some have offered clothing, food, money and a wheelchair. One woman even offered to donate a mobile home.

"Anybody can provide a meal," he said. "It's the long term that is needed."

Spatola said he has been talking with others in the community about trying to clean up the area and install portable toilets so residents don't have to use old buckets in the woods that surround the roughly 150-acre area.

Still, the immediate response has helped greatly, said the Rev. Danny Walker, who has spent the last six years working with Blackmon Road residents.

"We are excited about what God is doing in the hearts of his people and people who are residents of Rock Hill," Walker said. "I am excited about what things God is getting ready to do for this community. It is going to be beneficial to everyone that is here."

A Winthrop University photojournalism class spent Sunday afternoon talking to and photographing the residents of the neighborhood. It was an experience that many of them said they will not soon forget.

"I got to see first hand what it is like to live in poverty," said Winthrop student Jessi Elswick, who described her experience spending an afternoon with a 12-year-old child on Blackmon Road. "She was in the seventh grade and liked school. When she talked about school, all I could think of was she has to leave her rundown home and go to a school where other kids her age have expensive shoes and clothes and her family barely has money to buy food."

Contact James Scott at 329-4068 or jscott@heraldonline.com.

"I got to see first hand what it is like to live in poverty," said Winthrop student Jessi Elswick, who described her experience spending an afternoon with a 12-year-old child on Blackmon Road. "She was in the seventh grade and liked school. When she talked about school, all I could think of was she has to leave her rundown home and go to a school where other kids her age have expensive shoes and clothes and her family barely has money to buy food."