Reflections
Voice of a 15 year old in poverty:
If you weave enough bad things into the fibers of a person’s life – sickness and filth, old mattresses and junk thrown into the streets…ruined people, a prison here, sewage there, drug dealers here, homeless people there, then give us the very worst schools anyone can think of, hospitals that keep you waiting for ten hours, police that don’t show up when someone’s dying, take the train that’s underneath the street in good neighborhoods and put it up above where it shuts out the sun, you can guess that life will not be very nice and children will not have much sense of being glad about who they are. Sometimes it feels like we have been buried six feet under…
from Hope for Children in Poverty, Ron Sider and Heidi Unruh, p. 2-3
The bedrock of the Christian response to children in poverty must be prayer for hungry and poor people and for the wisdom and strength to work for justice. We must also use our influence to champion political policies that address root causes of poverty. Third: Offer direct service as in tutoring, working in a food bank…
Paraphrased from Hope for Children in Poverty, Sider and Unruh, p. 25.
The future is not in nonprofits acting more like businesses but in businesses acting more like nonprofits. We want students to bring service into their professions, whatever those may be.
paraphrased from Robert Egger in Begging for Change, p.106
As students of charity…we need to understand that the best thing we can do to help a child in need is not to give that child another meal or tutor, but to pay that child’s parents a living wage.
(Ibid.p.107)
I was a single parent with four children. I did not receive child
support (because I was employed, the government did not go after
the absent father for child support) and because I was employed,
I did not qualify for government assistance. I had to work two jobs for
over fifteen years to be able to provide for my children.Because I had to work two jobs, it resulted in me being away from the home
often. I could not afford child care so, my absence from the home had a great
affect on my children. During the early years of my employment, the college
had a major medical insurance plan -- I could not afford the up-front payment.
I could not afford eye or dental care -- we only went to the doctor when it was
a necessity. It was not until the college moved to an HMO insurance plan that
my children were able to receive the proper medical coverage that they deserved.
The working poor do exist!
voice of an Oberlin College Employee
We are a house divided. Hunger isn’t about food. Homelessness isn’t about housing and poverty isn’t about money. The issues are interconnected…. Until we create a dialogue to share ideas and devise a unified sectorwide strategy, we will continue to be ineffective, and our clients will stay disenfranchised.
Robert Egger, in Begging for Change, p.179.
What actions are most excellent?
To gladden the heart of a human being.
To feed the hungry.
To help the afflicted.
To lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful.
To remove the wrongs of the injured.
That person is the most beloved of God who does most good for God’s creatures.
The Prophet Mohammed
Poverty is no accident. Poverty comes from decisions made by people.
Poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue. It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright.
Benjamin Franklin
Poverty is like punishment for a crime you didn’t commit.
Eli Khamarov
There was never a war on poverty. Maybe there was a skirmish on poverty.
Andrew Cuomo
Poverty is the worst form of violence.
Gandhi
But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
Wm. Butler Yeats