HANGING ROCK, Ohio — Southeastern Ohio has found itself at centerstage in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination this week.

Democratic Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton was in the area on Thursday – her husband, former President Bill Clinton made a stop in Portsmouth on Monday - using the Ohio University Southern Child Development Center to launch a package of proposals aimed at reducing child poverty. Clinton’s plan calls for ending child hunger by 2012 and cutting the child poverty rate in half by 2020.

Among the key points of her proposal is a $1 billion Child Opportunity Fund to promote innovative solutions to reducing child poverty. Her fund, designed as a public, private partnership, requires state matching funds and would evaluate the best practices being used in communities and help them to go to scale.

Her plan also calls for revamping the Food Stamp program, reforming the asset rules used to determine qualification and raising benefit levels. Clinton’s plan would also make the School Breakfast program universal for all low-income children and double summer feeding programs over time.

Clinton spent most of the afternoon at the invitation-only event talking about the plan, which she says builds on her earlier proposals. Among her key talking points was the importance the proposal places on expanding programs like Head Start, which provide vital support services to families - services that are needed to assist them in being able to improve their lives and the lives of their children, she said.

To better illustrate the human conditions of the area that her plan is aimed at improving, the New York Senator had two local mothers share their stories.

Bridget Sexton, 21, of Wheelersburg, a working single mother and full-time student at OUS, spoke tearfully at times about her dependence on OUS’s child development center. Without the center to watch her infant daughter, Sexton said she would not be able to attend her nursing classes.

Karen Reed, a married mother of four children ages 3 to 12, spoke about the support the Head Start program has provided to her family over the years. Reed said her youngest son is developmentally disabled and the family depends heavily on the program’s referrals and teachers to help them handle the situation.

“Head Start has helped me tremendously. Giving referrals and emotional support,” Reed said. “The teachers are my friends. I need their support. When you have a developmentally disabled child, you don’t know what to expect.”

Clinton said she would expand the Head Start program and increase eligibility to include more children as part of her agenda against childhood poverty.

She added the billions of dollars spent weekly on the Iraq war would go a long way toward expanding those services that directly affect the lives of Ohioans and other Americans.

As crowd members questioned Clinton, sharing more tales of hardships often made worse by bureaucratic struggles, the presidential candidate touted her proposals of universal health coverage, increased minimum wages, expanded earned income tax credits for families and a windfall profit tax on large gas corporations.

All of the problems and issues families face each day – from paying medical bills to putting gas in a vehicle to get to work - are connected and need a set a of comprehensive fixes, she said.

“All of this is connected. Too often people look at these problems like they are individual problems... we have to look at all facets. It is all connected. We have got to get income up and we have to deal with these costs so people can get more money in their pockets to take care of things,” she said, adding “but if we don’t have health insurance for everyone, we’re never going to get out of this. We’re going to keep running around and around in circles. I believe you have to have health care for everybody and it has to be affordable.”

Clinton told those in attendance she needed their support in next Tuesday’s Ohio primary to make the proposals a reality. “I’m essentially asking you to hire me for the toughest job in the world,” she said. “Stop and ask yourself what our next president has to do. We have a long list of problems to solve when (President) Bush leaves that White House.”

If given the job, Clinton said, “I will not forget you. I will get up every day in the White House and work my heart out to help you and your families right here in southeast Ohio.”

CARRIE KIRSCHNER can be reached at ckirschner@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2653.