Anas Hassan

From Despair To Hope

The town of Oakridge had seen better days. Once a bustling hub of manufacturing and coal mining, it had fallen into disrepair over the years. The factories had closed, and the coal mines had long since dried up. As the jobs disappeared, so did the families that had called Oakridge home for generations. The town’s streets, once alive with the sounds of children playing and neighbors chatting on front porches, had grown eerily silent. Boarded-up windows and "For Sale" signs dotted the landscape, casting a shadow over a community that seemed to be fading away.