Confession One: I’m not sure if this makes me an egomaniac or just a glutton for punishment, but I do read what online commenters say about my columns on The Daily Tar Heel’s website. Confession Two: I read a lot of Nancy Drew at a very young and impressionable age.
So naturally, when I read a comment on my first column this semester that said, “I challenge you to drive to Creswell, N.C. and solve the mystery of what happened there,” my interest was piqued.
This Spring Break, when my roommate and I were heading back to Chapel Hill from a trip to the Outer Banks, we passed signs for Creswell. I couldn’t resist.
Going through Creswell is a little like going back in time. The buildings that line Main Street were built in the late 1800s, and the wear and tear on them shows. Most of them are vacant and look like they’ve been that way for a while. Put simply, there’s not a whole lot going on there.
Creswell has a population of 276. That’s all. If the whole town came to spend night on our campus they would only fill up a few floors of HoJo.
The median per capita income in Creswell is $11,908. To put that in perspective, tuition, fees, room and board for an in-state student at UNC totals $16,478. No wonder only 8 percent of residents of Creswell have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Finally, 59 percent of Creswell’s children are living below the poverty line.
For whatever reason, that’s what sticks out to me most about Creswell and other towns like it. There are so many organizations on this campus that work with disadvantaged kids in Orange and Durham counties.
These counties have 15 percent and 23 percent child poverty rates respectively, two world-class universities, and thousands of idealistic young people looking to save the world.
