Since January, activists, journalists, non-profit workers and others have traveled around North Carolina to meet the state’s impoverished families. The idea behind the “Truth and Hope Putting a Face on Poverty in North Carolina Tour” is to understand those who live below the poverty line as people, rather than as statistics, and to hear their stories. The tour traveled 2000 miles and visited 27 different communities. Host Frank Stasio talks about the journey with tour organizer Reverend William J Barber III, President of the North Carolina NAACP.
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
Shawn Wen joined the staff of The State of Things in March 2012 and served as associate producer until February 2014.