GALLIPOLIS — “This discussion has to be had,” Gallia-Meigs Community Action Agency Executive Director Tom Reed said as a “conversation on poverty” sought to come up with potential solutions to helping the area’s poor on to a better life.

Solutions ranging from additional support for agencies battling poverty to reestablsihing a sense of community were proposed by about 20 people who attended the discussion for Gallia and Meigs counties Thursday at Gallia’s Senior Resource Center.

There was agreement some of the more obvious answers, such as jobs, education and cooperation between government and non-profit agencies like Community Action, require additional resources to continue efforts to relieve poverty.

But other ideas focused on affordable health care, transportation in a rural area and the basics of food, clothing and shelter.

The ideas from the discussion, one of 25 held around the state at the behest of Gov. Ted Strickland’s anti-poverty task force, will be submitted to the task force and eventually heard by similar initiatives from the administration of President Barack Obama.

“What comes out of this is a list of priorities that we hope will be considered,” Reed said.

Some thoughts aired during the discussion stressed the need to get back to basics — knowing your neighbor and having enough compassion to help that individual if he or she is in depressed circumstances, needing aid with family or life skills, and even giving them a ride if they cannot attend available services and classes to lift them out of a cycle of poverty.

“It’s about getting back to a community that supports single moms, needy families and a way to foster self-respect,” said Sandra Edwards, Community Action’s emergency services director.

Numerous services are still open to low-income individuals for such skills as computer usage and job searches, although the groups agreed finding alternative means of getting the word out about them is necessary, due to limited resources in promoting them.

Additional support of such organizations as Second Harvest, which serves food banks in southern Ohio, was discussed. Community Action’s Teresa Varian said Second Harvest currently offers a service called Ohio Benefit Bank, in which volunteers provide instruction and assistance in such areas as tax preparation and family services.

Ohio Benefit Bank has been promoted with people applying for heating energy assistance through Community Action as a means of providing more help for their situation, Varian said.

Reed said these discussions and ideas arising from them are valuable in telling government how to address increasing numbers of people needing assistance.

“Until the economy improves, people will need these services,” he said.