Here is a whacky idea. Would Elkhart Ind be willing to host a camping rally, that anyone across this great country who owns an RV be willing to come in, to support the town that gave us this great pasttime? I would bet there isn't a campground big enough in the area to support the people who would show up. Imagine the revenue that could be generated.

The goverment should help Elkart like they did with the car companies! Also Elkhart should offer a promotion for any RV willing to trade in the old RV for a new one and offer with the help of the goverment tax insentives, deep discounts, and more!

I would be willing to purchase a new RV if the Price is right, no taxes, and free udgrades etc.

I don't see any of the bail out monies going to Ekhart or any help from the goverment to save the RV industry!

All I see is money going into improving roads and bridges, but without cars and RVs what good is fixing the roads and bridges if drivers will be using them less!

The goverment sould give us tax insentives and more if we purchase a new car or RV!

Here's an idea.. why don't you guys go to a thriving local restaurant... Michael's or Lucchese's or Jade Garden? At one point I read an article (I don't remember what national source) about some restaurant that was going to fold - I had never heard of it and I have lived here my whole life.

Please set you cameras on that underpass and do a sequence of photos, you won't see very many blank frames!

Gee, do you think it possible that a news organization is giving a biased, one sided view of a news story? I am sick and tired of every news organization flying off the handle causing the American Public to make the wrong choice. The war in Iraq is another example. Any potential storm approaching becomes the "Big Storm of 200X" covered wall to wall until it peters out with no results. Swine flu was blown all out of proportion. PLEASE! if you don't have much information just tell us what you have and move on. Don't beat the dead horse until its a pile of pulp. After 9/11 I was listening to NPR and a commercial radio station and just got such BUNK from the commercial station. Pundit after expert after view from the ground not giving ANY information and most of the "information" provided was crap opinion from people that didn't know any more than me.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE review your journalism books and get back to who, what, when, where, why. DON'T GIVE US UNVETTED INFORMATION. CHECK YOUR FACTS!

One must understand (as MSNBC DOES) that for Socialism to take roots, society has to either be in the tank or feel like they are at their lowest depths. It is MSNBS's mission to ensure all Obama's socialist goals are achieved. Therefore, you must believe you live in the worst Country and in the worst conditions of any Country. This is needed to ensure Obama's complete, unobstructed domination.

What do you expect from MSNBC? The Bush Administration isn't around anymore, so they have to find something else to bash and drag down...Target: Elkhart, Indiana.

Thank you for metioning my name! I am ready to report from the people's point of view anytime you are ready!

Jennifer Holderread

Jennifer,

Thank you for not sitting back and simply accepting what has been written about your community! All over this country, people are working hard to keep their families and communities together, and I congratulate you for being one of them. I am looking forward to reading YOUR observations about what's going on in Elkhart!

Hang in there, and know there are alot of us who are pulling for you!

I am sick and tired of hearing all the explanations of how to bring back the RV industry. The RV industry is GONE people . This is REALITY. It will NEVER flourish as it once did...NEVER. Elkhart and its surrounding towns NEED to find another avenue to establish . There are WAY too many people whining, and flapping their jaws about RVs and the RV businesses and NO ONE is working towards ANOTHER solution. Elkhart (and the midwest as a whole) needs to reinvent themselves with a new approach,industry,and train of thought. QUIT BEGGING FOR THE BAND AID TO TRY AND COVER THE DEAD BODY!!!!!!!!!!! Its time to move on, and up.

I've driven through Elkhart a couple of times on trips between Michigan and Indiana and I can honestly say the place struck me just as much as it's striking MSNBC. It didn't look like a propserous place at all, and the economy seemed to be stagnating for years before now.

There's nothing out there. Some farmland, some gas stations. Couple stores. Lots of vacant retail space by now.

I was born and raised to the southeast of Elkhart. I have been gone from there for just a few years. Yet when I was up there just 2 weeks ago to visit family I did not notice that much had changed. We spent 7-8 days driving around Elkhart/Goshen/Nappanee/Syracuse/Shipshe/Mishawaka, etc. and I noticed we still had to wait in line at restaraunts, gas stations and retail stores. People are spending money and the streets aren't empty. The times we witnessed this was morning, afternoon and evening hours. I understand folks are spending less, but it sure did not seem to us that they were spending nothing. Times are tough all over, but I did not witness any "ghost towns" while we were there. Folks are alive and surviving and seem to be becoming accustomed to earning and spending less. Frankly, what's wrong with some temperence in what was becoming an increasingly gluttonness society? I understand if you really aren't surviving and are about to become evicted that it's a different story. However, it's not the same thing to say that you're barely surviving because you can't eat out 4 times a week, can't get that 5th TV or can't get financing to support your annual new truck trade-in. I do feel it's important to point out that Indiana's unemployment compensation maxes out at $390/week while many other states with much higher costs of living only receive maxes of $275/wk. That's at least an extra $460/month, which in a lot of cases the extra is enough to pay a person's entire mortgage. I'm not dissenting against Elkhart or any surrounding cities that I grew up in and around, but please just make sure you're looking at the whole picture.

the end of the RV industry is what Oboma is looking for. To much gas guzzling

and no enough green resources. Takes gas alot of gas to use and the big ones

use alot us fuel. I wouldn't doubt that Oboma wants it to fail so just like the car

companies, help them out then tear them apart, give comapny to union, who helped them get there and sell rest to forgien company and he gets away with it. Government cant run the government dont have them help you becuase cthem they will try to run the business which they have proved for year that they can not do. Spend, Spend , Spend, and never pay the piper. Taxes are going to be so high going forward. I hope things turn around for your city, but

Obama wants high gas prices to get his fuel efficent cars through, but that will

kill your industry and alot of others. High gas prices really help hurt this industry and the prices are going again it may be the nail in the coffin.

Here is a positive sign of the downturn in the Elkhart area economy. Has anyone noticed that the illegal hispanic population has almost disappeared. With no jobs, they are all going back to mexico or moving to other parts of the US. Thank God for that. There are still a few who have stayed, but now my teenage son can finally find work at the fast food restaurants that were not willing to employ him a year ago. And please don't cry to me how this is lack of spending power is hurting our economy. Obviously, you havent seen the lines at the mexican wire transfer companies also disappear. Before this recession, the lines were 30-40 people out the door every Friday with the illegals sending their paychecks home to Mexico. Now, there are no lines. So I guess the money being earned here is actually staying here.

I lived in Elkhart, Indiana for 15 years. I just moved away last summer. I returned last weekend to visit friends. From the news reports I expected to return to a town where half the business sat empty and children stood begging on the streets. However, Elkhart looks pretty much the same today as it did one year ago before I moved. I understand that many factories have closed outside the city limits and that many people are facing very difficult times, but I do think the picture that has been painted of Elkhart is far from accurate and is excessively gloomy. The people in Elkhart that I spoke with verified that things are challenging but they are viewing it as a positive. They feel that it is forcing people to run their business "lean and mean" in order to survive. They said you can't coast along and expect to survive. You have to be scrappy and creative. Those aren't necessarily bad things.

I do not live in Elkhart, nor have I ever visited the city.

But I think this focus on that city appears to have become an example of how journalism has fallen from a major source of information to a poor display of special-interest propaganda.

While I was earning my j-degree many years ago, we were continually taught our function was to REPORT the news, not MAKE the news. Instead of a continuing of that lofty principle, we have a present cadre of editorial writers who cleverly disguise their individual agenda in the cloak of sub-standard reportage.

In the old days we covered our biases with such phrases as "usually reliable sources said," or "an observer noted", but even those phrases have been wiped from the modern journalist's vocabulary in favor of the blatently implied "thus sayth I".

Returning to topic, however; like many of you, I have noticed the same business as usual attitude demonstrated by most folks in my metro area. The interstates are still full of cars, the malls are just as crowded, people are attending school, church and athletic events as always. Some people have lost jobs, but those were mostly in a few cyber-enterprises that had little chance of success except in boom times.

Folks here don't realize there's a recession... until the talking heads tell them so.

Elkhart isnt the only place they build a camper trailer..Maybe Elkhart needs to become more innovative.They town should be more deversified if you rely on one thing such as campers your gonna be in trouble sooner or later when the economy turns down ... thats a givin.. Are these union co that cant pay what the workers DEMAND and make a profit ? if so .. then tough luck. Shut the doors and someone non union will open one somewhere else.... Construction has been hit hard everywhere...

Hi Mike,

I have seen community coming together to help others to degrees that I haven't seen in richer times. Perhaps it's due to people feeling the pinch themselves and really understanding those that are less fortunate... I don't know...

When my husband came home and announced he'd been laid-off (he's since received notice of permanent termination from his job at Utilimaster in Wakarusa), I did what I always do when we hit a rough patch.... I took stock of what we have and gave blessings for it, realizing there are people who have far less than us.

My neighbor also lost her job in the same time frame, however she was attending school, also. In talking to each other I realized she needed a caregiver for her children while she attended school. My washing machine had given up on me last year and I had been spending $35 a week at the laundromat. In an effort to help each other out, I began watching her children and she gives me use of her laundry facilities. It's win-win for us.

Due to past jobs I've had, I know where and what donations are needed in certain areas of Elkhart and the surrounding communities. I've been able to get items from those that have it, to those who need it, and people meeting and coming together in the process. For anyone interested, there is a yahoo group where people post things they wish to give away (free of charge), or post things they are needing/wanting. It is Just look for a group in your area.

So, I don't have an amazing tale to tell, nor anything that is going to change the state of Elkhart overnight. But I do believe that more people will choose to come together, to help each other, and to rally against the storm.

~Nancy Bader

Can't MSNBC find something else to focus on but one friggin town?? I see this sh* every day on msnbc, and frankly, Elkhart Indiana isn't the only damn town suffering, for christsakes, who the hell can afford to pull a RV with a gas hoggin duelly anyway in these times?? I'm sick of MSNBC'S continuing saga of this crap on the freaking home page.

Ken Cooper

Waycross, Georgia.

USMC RETIRED

Re: James-440477 -- Polluting national parks, get back to hiking/camping, etc. Hey, not everyone is physically capable of walking and camping. Are we to say to those folks that they can't visit the parks? And yes, I agree that MSNBC appears to be looking only for gloom-and-doom stories. But not just in Elkhart. That's about ALL they report. If the news organizations would report a more postive outlook, it wouldn't be long before people would start feeling better about things and start spending money. But, it's not just MSNBC, it's just about all the news outlets. All you see are talking heads telling how we're going to be losing our jobs, homes, etc. Tell it often enough and even a lie becomes the truth.

I agree that MSNBC has indeed spent too much time on just this town, I hope Annie can keep her way of life going just fine. While MSNBC report's nothing but disaster there and harder time's ahead, Just how many of you that are thriving are hiring people that were laid off in Elkhart? Where are these stories MSNBC? I also agree that there are many cities and town's across this country that are hurting and I mean bad! Get out there MSNBC!! Nancy: God bless you and all of the people in Elkhart! In Williamsburg, Va. many people are out of job's mostly due to builder's in the area 75 job's here 60 there and so on in Jan, it just came to a hault! Companie's who have never laid people off before had no choice!

Most of us do what we have to and thank goodness we live outside of the city and have land for garden's (most of which just doubled in size this year as we are all feeling the pinch.. Many are buying for the storm to come. Filling freezer's and getting thing's ready for the holiday's now for fear of job's not coming back! Many have been sharing and helping the elderly, we hope as the weather improve's so will the job market! Price's for food are sky high alone, but $6.00 dollar's for a 4 pack of toilet paper is insane! We can't take thing's for granted anymore. For all of you who don't feel the pinch good for you, but for those who have, good luck!

Elkhart has been taken for granted. And it really is time we stand up for ourselves! Nobody else is going to do it for us!!!!!

Did anyone expect anything else from MSNBC? Good news doesn't sell ads, it doesn't bolster their prime customer, Obama, and it doesn't plug the holes in their shrinking boat of viewers.

If you strip away the massive amount of unwarranted government regulations on the RV industry you would have either a vibrant industry, or one that would quickly adjust to the new economic realities. Elkhart is chocked full of an experienced and skilled labor force, and talented design engineers that will come up with new products that will eventually revive their community. Regretably, that will take some time to accomplish. Good luck Elkhart.

Just wait until the extended unemployment benefits start running out! Forclosures will double and Elkhart will become a ghost town. I have lived here most of my life and cannot find a job that pays a living wage around here anymore.

I'm not sure why my link didn't post previously, but here is the info: 

You simply go to yahoo groups, look up Freecycle, and search for your area.  There are groups in Elkhart and Goshen.

Nancy Bader