The day has been gray and rainy and a glistening shield of blue aluminum siding bares its colossal teeth. The huge Wal-Mart letters shine valiantly on this blue facade as a monument to the feats of American entrepreneurship. The parking lot, a sprawling beast in its own right, extends from the store's front to Route 10 on West Lebanon's commercialized shopping strip. Topside's horizontal monopoly cannot hold a candle to this drearily decorated mecca of savings. Stepping out of the car upon arriving, a student used to Hanover's quiet streets immediately feels out of place.
It was a Monday afternoon, and across from the modest Planned Parenthood center in West Lebanon, two young men and a female companion were smoking cigarettes on their way down South Main Street. An abandoned house with most of its paint peeling sat overlooking the cold, churning Connecticut. With a smoldering cigarette and slow rolling walk, one of the young men shouts out to Theresa, our photographer, "Don't waste your photos on that piece of sh*t house." He later added, "That's actually the house I used to live in."
Zachary Hughes stands about six feet tall, wearing a logo-less black hat with thin white pinstripes. He is thin, not more than 170 pounds, and he looks younger than his 22 years of age. He does not go to school, and has already been working for years. We shake hands and he cracks a wide smile that offsets his dark hat and leather jacket. A dishwater blonde tuft of hair reveals itself discreetly from underneath his cap. The three companions hold their cigarettes down at their sides, a gesture that signals relief to an inquisitive but asthmatic journalist. They were on their way toward the shopping district, which they say offers little to people their age. The town's teenagers have all entered the working world, with slim hope for change. While Hanover offers a serene and culturally vibrant place in which to live, the wealth of its constituents is a geographical anomaly. "If you don't got money around here," Zach said, "you're pretty much set up to fail."
The drive down Route 10 offers a jarring contrast of scenic views and abandoned property. The river runs along the road, leading into a beautiful lake and roiling torrents that surface one hundred feet below after running through West Lebanon's hydroelectric dam. This dramatic scene highlights the dilapidated accommodations that line the street. Nature had dominated several homes here, leaving them strangled within sprawling networks of weeds and thorn bushes. An old doghouse sat hidden behind a tangle of growth in front of a dark and empty trailer. These vacant properties and several busted cars stood amongst those still used. Residents drove more modest cars, exited smaller houses and dressed more unassumingly than many from Hanover.
The differences in wealth are immediately noticeable by any observer coming from a town where some people consider the Gap a low-end shopping destination. Physically, culturally, and financially, it is a different world just outside of our quaint Hanover.
According to the New Hampshire Economic and Labor Market Information Bureau, Hanover's average weekly wage in 2004 was $1,003, and the 2000 U.S. census bureau found that only 0.6 percent of its families lived below the poverty line. Compare that to Lebanon's $828 weekly wage and 6.3 percent of families living below the poverty level. Enfield's weekly wage is a significantly lower $534, almost half that of Hanover's. According to the Students Fighting Hunger group at Dartmouth, 15 to 20 percent of Upper Valley residents live below the poverty line -- $20,000 a year for a family of four, according to U.S. Health and Human Services standards. One undergraduate's cost of education here is nearly two-and-a-half times this figure every year.
For many of the local community members outside of Hanover and Norwich, life in small rural towns is not a transitional period, as it is for many Dartmouth students. As undergraduates prepare to enter the lucrative worlds of white collar success, a few miles away job opportunities seem limited to the chain stores that offer competitive prices to local working families. Dartmouth, a rich institution that has attracted some of the brightest students from around the world, prides itself as a "voice crying out in the wilderness." This motto epitomizes the unfortunate financial state of many Upper Valley residents.
Large increases in real estate prices around Hanover have proven Dartmouth's attractiveness to increasingly wealthy homeowners. Surrounding areas have accommodated those who cannot afford expensive Hanover property, including many Dartmouth professors and other faculty. "We're a bedroom community for them [Dartmouth]" a Dartmouth alumna who requested to be identified only as Trish said of Enfield, N.H. "Workers and professors can't live there, they couldn't afford living there."
Outside of the community, Dartmouth is seen by many to be an isolated entity in an affluent pocket of the state. "If you look at Hanover versus Claremont, Claremont is a very poor town," said Dory Yakano, the West Lebanon Walmart Customer Services Manager. "There a lot of people on welfare there. Hanover's a lot cleaner. When you go through it, you expect it to be different."
If you ask, the average Dartmouth undergraduate would admit to having a lot on his or her mind. Athletics, work and on-campus extracurricular activities can fill up a schedule very quickly. The average Dartmouth student will also insist on saving some time for weekend festivities on fraternity row or just relaxing with friends. On any Friday night in Hanover, hundreds of undergraduates congregate along Webster Avenue anxious to find the best beer-drinking venue. Outside of the surrounding affluent entity of the College, many locals spend their nights with more sobering concerns. "We don't really hang out anymore," said Sally Potter, 19, one of the three young people who were walking along the run-down West Lebanon strip. "We're older, we all have jobs now."
Just as the surrounding community is alien to many students, Dartmouth reflects this attitude in its local public reputation. "I think Upper Valley poverty is an issue around here, especially in smaller towns," Michelle, a young mother from Enfield, said. "Not in Hanover, of course."
"It's insulated, it's its own entity," her husband Andy added.
By the numbers, Hanover is clearly considered well-to-do. In terms of local opinion, it is considered an exception to the rule.
Without becoming involved in an activity that offers students a chance to meet with surrounding community members, the campus remains a haven for the oblivious undergraduate. Philip Woram '10 agreed that it is easy for many students to remain unaware of the surrounding communities. "From just being a student alone, I don't think you necessarily would ever have to come into contact with the local community. I think that here at Dartmouth your extracurricular interests are going to be your only medium of exposure. I'm doing the SAT tutoring program, so I'm getting a little exposure there." For students, there is no visual reminder on campus of local financial struggles. "You walk fifteen minutes across campus, and you don't see any of it," Vanessa Szalapski '10 said.
As much as international community service and aid are important to so many students, local contributions can yield immediate and life-changing benefits to people in need just minutes away. Dartmouth is known for being the Ivy that sends the highest percentage of students into the Peace Corps. While many may have been ignorant to the problems plaguing the surrounding area, there are students who are doing incredible work to help improve their local communities.
This past Monday the Tucker Foundation held a community services open house where over thirty groups advertised their programs. According to Jan-Roberta Tarjan, a Tucker representative, about 60 percent of Dartmouth students are involved in annual service of some kind through the Tucker Foundation, while 30 percent of students are involved in ongoing, regular local service. Many of the programs help children and impoverished Upper Valley residents. In 1999 Dartmouth students established the non-profit mentoring program DREAM--Directing through Recreation Education Adventure and Mentoring-- to "pair college students and children living in subsidized housing developments in Vermont," according to its website dreamprogram.org. Mary Curtin '07, a participant in the program, explained how each participant is matched with a mentee. "You have a one-on-one relationship with that child...we're a stable presence in their lives and we try to provide support for them." Students Fighting Hunger works with student groups to cook meals for poor families every Friday night. Habitat for Humanity builds two houses for Upper Valley families each year, offering the families no-interest mortgages to help them get back on their feet. Groups like these have defined Dartmouth's influence to the surrounding communities as a positive one.
When Dartmouth becomes a student's whole world, any undergraduate can forget that with such privilege comes an implicit responsibility, as the College's Mission Statement demands: "A Dartmouth education should prepare students for life in a complex world, one in which the ability to understand and appreciate differences and similarities among all people and societies is essential."
Perhaps we should all start with the world just beyond the bubble, New Hampshire's Upper Valley.
