Thanks to @buzzfeed​ for including our latest story in the “Growing Up Through the Cracks” series on child poverty as part of their “8 Photo Stories That Will Challenge Your View Of The World” list.

The Brown family lives in rural Saltlick, Pa., where 2/3 of children are living in poverty. As milk prices continue to dip and Mary Beth Brown struggles with the physical, emotional, and financial pain of Stage 4 breast cancer, the Browns fear they will be the first generation in their family in 200 years to lose the dairy farm they feel call home.

In the rural area, government services are hard to access. The local officials don’t see social services as their job, while federal and state benefits are funneled through the county seat in Uniontown, a 40-minute drive with no transit options, writes reporter Chris Huffaker.

For the Brown children, a strong social network, centered on their family and their church, has shielded them.
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“They go fishing, they shoot bows and arrows,“ Ms. Brown said. "They don’t know they’re poor.” Read more and see more photos at the Post-Gazette here.

Thanks to the PA NewsMedia Association for recognizing Keeley and the Vial and our ongoing series about raising children in the modern overdose crisis in their photo story and series categories. I know I’m lucky to work for a paper that believes in investing the time it takes to do these deep dives (and that allows me to work with investigative reporter Rich Lord), and I hold dear the trust given to us by the Ashbaughs and others who let me in to try to show a bit of their lives.

Since this published, TJ and Kate’s four little girls welcomed a baby brother named in honor of their late Uncle Ricky, whose fatal overdose shook the branches of their family tree. TJ lives knowing that could have been his fate, as well. As he raises his children in recovery, he makes no secret of the disease that killed his brother and turned his ex into a missing person, and has taught his youngest daughter to give a goodnight kiss to the vial of his brother’s ashes he keeps around his neck. Head to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette interactive here to see more photos and videos, read the story, and learn more about how T.J. and Kate are working together to acknowledge the generational cycles of addiction in their family and how to best raise their children to be aware of it.