Sunday, January 24, 2016

Identifying Local Opportunities - Hampton Roads VA

1.     In Virginia Beach, hogs were found in dilapidated enclosures and sewage type conditions on city owned land. It had gone unnoticed as this land was not supposed to be used. The problem lies with the lack of concern over farms and vacant land. As noted, there were no signs that the property was city owned and the farm next to it had been taken care of fine. Regulations of these farms are not taken seriously/don’t exist and the owner had no well being checks. The city and these animals have the problem.
More on the Virginia Beach farm where hogs were in "deplorable conditions"

2.     In Surry, a very well known and loved smokehouse exploded and will be closed indefinitely. The problem is now that many employees will be out of business as well as a town that will suffer due to this loss. Not only that, but this personally affects my business as we did slicing jobs for them. It is a huge revenue loss. The problem is the city, the business and surrounding small businesses who sell and help put together their products. Rebuilding needs to have community involvement.

Massive fire shuts down famed Edward Virginia Smokehouse

3.     The City of Portsmouth is hemorrhaging money trying to fill executive positions. They have planned out near $44,000 to a employment agency that will try and fill these positions. The city has place requirements in contract for local hiring, however they are searching for the best candidates. The problem is the city having vacancies and also the local candidates. Although, the agency says they’ll look at local, it is based in Atlanta. They will most likely go outside of the area. Placement agencies also don’t review the person as much as they review paper. Good candidates can be overlooked.

           Portsmouth spends $44,000 to find executives


4.     The state of Virginia’s adoption system is horrendous. Statistics are near the bottom in foster placement and families are disappointed waiting for a child to be in their family as the story’s anecdote states. The children stuck in foster care are the ones who suffer the most as well as the waiting families.

            Adoption system keeps family dreams on hold


5.     A Navy veteran faces homelessness and the state and organizations are not helping like they should be. The only help that is being had is those that are already homeless, therefore people like Nanez in the article are being overlooked even though facing eviction. The veterans are suffering as well as their families.

            Navy Veteran, at risk of homelessness, battles red tape to find help


3 comments:

  1. Hi Deanna,
    I believe your post is amazing! You give a complete variety of local opportunities within your area (Virginia). The opportunity that really caught my attention was the second opportunity. I believe that nobody is expecting such a tremendous event that could damage not only the people working at that place, but also the entire town. I think that this is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs to develop new business and/or strategies that as you say, could give the community the required resources in order to finally rebuild all the damage caused by this event. In fact, I believe that innovators could work on systems or strategies that would help the business stay-in business after such a tremendous incident. As I said before, I was amazed by all the different local opportunities you see in your area and I will like to encourage you to see what’s going on in my surroundings.
    Here’s the link to my post:

    http://alejandroentrepreneurship.blogspot.com/2016/01/open-your-eyes-identifying-local.html

    Great post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Deanna, great post! I enjoyed reading stories from a part of the country I was not very familiar with! I particularly enjoyed the story involving the executives. It was very interesting to learn that a town had to spend so much money to fill those much needed positions. Overall, great summaries of the issues these articles address! The article regarding the adoption story was particularly heart-wrenching. It was very sad to learn of the situation the family was having to go through. I truly hope the state can fix the system as soon as possible to avoid issues like that.

    If you ever want to check out my post you can! http://ahamuf.blogspot.com/2016/01/identifying-local-opportunities.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. The most endearing aspect of your blog post is how you always managed to tie the effects back to the people are being affected. Whether you're a businessperson or a politician or a teacher, being able to relate to another person will always be contingent on how well you manage to tie it back to people. With my opportunities, I tried the same approach.

    Here is my blog: http://olivertelusmaiteblog3003.blogspot.com/2016/01/identifying-local-opportunities.html

    ReplyDelete