Poverty Symposium

The Symposium on Issues of Poverty strives to raise awareness of the serious challenges that poverty presents to the residents of Oberlin and the surrounding area. As members of both religious and secular communities we commit ourselves to work for the amelioration of poverty today and the eradication of poverty tomorrow.

Poverty Symposium

The Poverty Symposium has come to a close, and was a resounding success. We thank everyone who helped make this Symposium possible: planners, contributors, participants, volunteers and of course, attendees!

Poverty Symposium Follow-Up Meeting

Anyone who attended the Symposium in part or in full is invited to join us for a follow-up meeting where we will discuss the Symposium as a whole, its individual events, the evaluation responses, what we can do better in planning future events, and how we can make sure that the energy and momentum produced by the Symposium doesn’t stop here! The meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 14 at 4:30 pm at the Oberlin Public Library. Lunch provided.

The Poverty Symposium strove to bring issues of poverty in Lorain County to the forefront of our consciousness and to suggest avenues for change, but this is merely a starting point. The struggle against poverty is an ongoing one. If you attended any of the Symposium events and have been motivated to learn more about issues of poverty in Lorain County, want to get involved, or want to learn more about the resources available to you, please feel free to browse the information in the Resources link.

With the hope of aiding institutional memory and the planners of future events, the Poverty Symposium Planning Committee is assembling a document that will contain information about the planning of the Symposium, transcripts of all the events, reactions of attendees, planners and volunteers, and much more. If you attended any Symposium events and have any reactions that you think would be valuable to future planners and organizers (such as thoughts and feelings about the content, form or execution of the sessions) please feel free to put it in writing and send it to Benny Wheat at for inclusion in this institutional memory document.

If there were Symposium events that you were unable to attend or would like to revisit, there will be video recordings of all the sessions as well as transcriptions available soon.

For more information about the symposium, please contact and .