Every other Monday, 59News Anchor Riley Phillips, will be talking to local legislators about the work they are doing for their districts. This week, Riley sat down with Delegate Cindy Lavender-Bowe who represents District 42. 

Cindy Lavendar-Bowe was excited to begin working for the people of Greenbrier, Monroe, and Summers counties. She said she is focusing on education and health this session.

“I’m serving on the education committee, which was probably the most important issue when deciding to run for office. I’m also serving on Health and Human Resources. Those are two big areas where we have a lot of work to do in the state. Education and health related, I’m working with some other delegates on legislation to deal with mental health and counseling with our students. With the drug crisis, our children in our elementary and middle schools are facing a lot of challenges. I believe we need to start recognizing the whole child and not just academics. We need to think about what we can do as a school system to support those students,” Lavender-Bowe explained.

Along with education, Lavender-Bowe serves on the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. She said she plans to make sure farmers are supported throughout her district. She is also committed to helping everyone make a substantial living. 

“I think there are a lot of exciting things happening with supporting the industrial hemp farming. And just making sure we keep the budget and line items there in support of farming and agriculture in my district. That is really important. One other piece of legislation is to increase the minimum wage. I think that is needed for working families all over the state. I am hopeful we can come together to get some bipartisan support behind that. We haven’t increased the minimum wage since 2015. We are currently at $8.75 an hour. It’s really hard to even pay your rent sometimes, so that is another thing we’ve got in the pipeline,” Lavender-Bowe said.