Our valley is one of the most bountiful in the world. When it
comes to growing things, we are the Valley of Plenty.
Unfortunately, that's not what we are more commonly called. In
1992, Marsena Buck, then the county's social services director,
coined the term "valley of the poor." The Bee picked up the
phrase and produced an award-winning series of articles over 10
days that detailed the depth of poverty in Stanislaus, San
Joaquin and Merced counties. Twenty years later, it's gotten
worse. Much, much worse. Reporter J.N. Sbranti detailed many of
the numbers in a story and on a graphic on Thursday. Census
Bureau numbers show that nearly 1 in 4 Stanislaus County
residents live below the official U.S. poverty line. In Merced
County, it's a little higher and in San Joaquin the ratio is
roughly 1-in-5. Such numbers are jaw dropping. What they
represent is gut wrenching. In 1992, we were coming out of what
we then considered a deep recession. In the "Valley of the Poor"
series, The Bee's writers described children g