Being resourceful in Dayton

Coming to you live from Kettering, Ohio (a.k.a. Dayton), I'm at another resource fair geared towards job-seekers. The fair is supposed to last from 3-7 P.M. in conjunction with a blood drive held at a church here in town. Being the early-bird over achiever that I am, I arrived at 2:30 to set up my booth. Slowly the other 15 vendors or so trickled in, and I discovered my neighboring booth would be the Dayton Public Library. I have spent the past several hours chatting with the woman staffing this booth, who has lived in Fairfield, Richmond, and Cincinnati before settling in Dayton. We have a lot in common and we've enjoyed each other's company.

I have also received a 10-minute chair massage from a licensed massage therapist here doing free massages. I am considering moving to Dayton solely to be in close proximity to this massage magician. Ah, so relaxing.

I have eaten a great free meal provided by the church, including a handful of fresh strawberries!

I have talked with a few representatives from local agencies about becoming a Benefit Bank site or at least how to refer people to a local site.

But I haven't seen many clients. In fact, I haven't seen ANY clients. No one has come through the doors today looking for help--everyone here is a service provider or a blood donor. So I've done my best, but I can't help but feel a little disappointed. Dayton has been hard-hit with this economic recession and I was sure that I could do quite a few quick checks and site finders to connect people with the help they need. But that wasn't the case. My neighbor from the library told me that a resource fair like this would have been better suited in a "worse" part of town. I'm not so sure--people are out of jobs and resources everywhere, not just in the bad neighborhoods, but for whatever reason, the turn out today was pretty low.

Now it's time to pack up and make the drive back home. Woo hoo, 13 hour days!