BARBS

I am back home after three days at the Elkhart County 4-H Fair, working with my MSNBC.com colleagues on their ongoing Elkhart Project, and one of the bumpiest airplane rides I can remember on my way into LaGuardia Airport this afternoon (and one of the chattiest flight attendants ever: by the time we landed, we’d all been forced to learn that she hopes to have grandchildren, is a cancer survivor, has to call her mother every time she lands, applied for but didn’t get a job at Continental, owns two of her own businesses, and gets a thrill each and every time she flies as if it’s the first time).

The Elkhart Project focuses on the economy and unemployment in one hard-hit community as a way of putting the national struggle in a more personal context. Thus, most of the work I did this week was with an eye towards that issue, although we did post a couple of cute pieces of video on the Elkhart Facebook site.

On our first day at the fair, we asked fairgoers whether and how the recession had affected their experience at the fair, a longtime beloved annual tradition for folks in Elkhart County and beyond. Here’s what some of them told us. See also this longer article on fairs in general as an economic indicator.

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Your intrepid reporter (seen here in some swell swag) is off to Indiana in the morning to spend a few days at the Elkhart County Fair with her colleagues from MSNBC.com. I’ll be joining them on The Elkhart Project, a year-long commitment to cover one of the earliest U.S. cities to fall into recession and one of the worst hit by job losses. Unemployment in Elkhart is pushing 20 percent right now, although the most recent jobs report did show a slight improvement.

This week, the Project is at the Elkhart County 4-H Fair, which runs through July 25th and is expecting three-quarters of a million visitors. MSNBC.com has set up two tents just outside the 4-H Exhibition Hall, nestled up against a scarecrow exhibit, and just a stone’s throw from Nedderman’s Tip Steak stand and Rosie’s taco stand. I’m told when I see a corn dog the size of a water heater at a concession stand just two doors down, I’ll know I have arrived at the right place.

MSNBC.com hopes the fair will be an opportunity to introduce The Elkhart Project to people who may not be familiar with this extraordinary project, and to hear more stories from locals about how they are getting by in these tough economic times.

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