Poverty is not an aspiration: Breaking the poverty cycle | Michelle Gethers-Clark | TEDxGreensboro

Living behind the door of apartment 12 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I remember the peanut butter came in a can and with every attempt to spread it the bread would tear and with every bite it would stick to the roof of my mouth and the cheese came in a long rectangular box. and I didn't like the taste of melted cheese and butter, it came in brick form. These items were known as welfare food and were distributed in the public housing complex where he lived. I promised that when I'm older I'll find a way not to do it. depending on these handouts being poor is not intentional and being poor is not an

aspiration

being poor is the result of not having a support system that allows you to earn enough money to take care of yourself and your family being poor is labeled as

poverty

, My mother and her father were poor, they grew up in the segregated south in the 1940s and 1950s, they didn't have the opportunity to go to college, excuse me, they didn't have the opportunity to go to high school, they even moved to New York looking for public housing. and jobs and to escape the dirt roads of the houses and the daily work picking cucumbers my mother my father and my elementary teachers taught me to value education told me that there was life beyond public housing and that one day I would go to college my house was Full of love and hope for a bright future, we didn't have much, but what we did have was clean and well maintained.

My mother often talked about what we could afford and what we couldn't. My first lesson in finances came from my mother, who I worked third shift at the post office as a boxing clerk and said we didn't have extra money, but I watched as she set aside money from every paycheck to invest in savings bonds. so I could go to college when I was 13. my mother died my life changed dramatically I lost sight of my dreams my brother my sister and I went to live with my uncles fortunately my new support system gave me the opportunity to continue my dreams at the age of 15 I became eligible for an elderly stay in a school job a federally funded job for at-risk children.

I was classified as at risk because I was from a poor background and had no parents. My job was as a secretary. Judge Shapiro came into my life, an elderly Jewish man who looked gray from head to toe and was wrapped in a black robe when he walked into the courtroom after two years of my job, looked at me and said where you were going to college. . The only two schools I applied to had rejected me. I was on edge after their Judge Shapiro stayed with me after work and helped me fill out a college application and wrote me a check for $20 to cover my college application fee.

I remember going to the post office that day a few weeks later. In the lobby of my high school I picked up the pay phone to call Long Island University to see if they had accepted me. My heart was pounding as I heard the voice on the other end say yes and she did to the first person I told. It was Joe Shapiro that day, he went from gray to a vivid color, opened his desk drawer and gave me the canceled check for $20, which was my application feats that remind me that I was going to college and that I was going to reach my Maximum potential. a stranger from a different world named Judge Shapiro made an investment in me that is still paying dividends today I did it my family did it and the

cycle

of

poverty

was broken my visualization of being poor in poverty and

breaking

the

cycle

is real I thrived thanks to a combination of having a public housing welfare cheese family and a gray haired man.

I got to achieve my dreams. I became a certified public accountant. I became a senior vice president at a Fortune 100 company. I had the opportunity to write a book and now I am president of the United Way here in our community, 14.9% of the United States is poor and living in poverty, that's 44 million people here in our community with a population of approximately 280,000 people, excuse me, there is 20% poverty. and 57,000 people feel trapped in poverty for every face you see behind me there are 1,000 people behind them to demonstrate the magnitude of this problem a family of four living on 24,000 $300 is considered to live in poverty there is a difference between situational poverty when you lose your job and feeling broke requires a solution when you live in persistent poverty, meaning you never have enough money to meet your basic needs, you are disadvantaged and a set of solutions is required, there is a big difference between being broke and being broke, so why is there poverty? so high questions because we often deal with the outcomes of a person living in poverty and don't address the root cause of why someone is in poverty people living in poverty don't want handouts people living in poverty don't want yes people those who live in poverty do not want more services people who live in poverty what barriers have been eliminated so that they can have access to job training and a job to be able to take care of themselves and their families.

I know this because I needed a barrier removed and a man like Judge Shapiro shared his knowledge at his time and wrote a check for $20 that changed the trajectory of my life forever. The topic of poverty and helping communities represents a very special part of my life. In my heart, I've had the opportunity to do some really brilliant research. People who apply innovative solutions to this idea of ​​

breaking

the cycle of poverty, national models and regional models are successfully reducing generational poverty and they do so by bringing together people who are willing to work with each family member from the beginning. birth to career, the evidence points to a model, a business model that is local, logical and integrated, we have to be willing to say that in community and neighborhood settings we can bring together smart people to address this problem of poverty together;

In other words, meeting people and serving them wherever they are. are the successful models that highlight very specific attributes and those attributes include a teacher, a banker, a stranger, a volunteer, a social worker, a job coach, a food stamp coordinator, a housing advocate, a supporter for the workforce development and all of these people have the authority to remove barriers and they come. have hope a smile determination patience compassion passion and I can do it attitude we have seen that these models work and the goal of the model is to ensure that families are educated that families are healthy and that families are employed these very basic elements have now begun to take root here in Greensboro and as a result, United Way has opened a Family Success Center.

The Family Success Center is located in a community with 22 percent poverty and brings together experts and families. Oh, sailing to break the cycle of poverty, the Shepards, a family of three are members of the Family Success Center before the Family Success Center they were homeless they lived in homeless motels they moved to live and sleep on the couches of friends and family and now live in public housing without jobs or opportunities for which they applied and received access to a federally funded Child Development Program for their child. There is still no job, no job training to demonstrate their determination.

Shepherd volunteers at the Child Development Center to show that he is willing to work, but he still doesn't have a job. On the first day of the Family Success Center, he tells me that all I need is an opportunity. Everyone keeps telling me I have no experience, but how can I do it? get experience if no one gives me the opportunity, the Family Success Center offered Mr. Shepherd participated in a job training program, accepting the coach into the program and giving him a boost of confidence to stay on track and helping him refine his approach to employers.

All of this was offered in the neighborhood. Easy access. He removed the transportation barrier and was in class. with his group of classmates Mr. Shepherd now works as a food promoter for Guilford Child Development. Mrs. Shepard is in a GED class taught by an enthusiastic formal lawyer who is now a community college instructor. The class is in the neighborhood with her classmates. The Shepards are making progress. They still have many goals to achieve but they have determination and a support system that offers them opportunities to succeed. They are a role model for their daughter and their peers.

I don't want anyone to feel overwhelmed by the idea of ​​poverty. or statistics, the Family Success Center has been successfully implemented for a year and I just want to share with you four high-level results. It's in a neighborhood, as I shared, with 22 percent poverty and wonderful things have happened for the hundred. and eight families that are in the pilot the first thing that thirty-three bold employers said I'm going to hire thirty-three of your families, we have one hundred percent of the preschoolers are now in environments so that their brains are being stimulated so they can learn, we have a banker who has already opened 39 college savings accounts, they still have one hundred and twelve left for every child whose parents are planning for them to go to college, and an enthusiastic community college instructor is teaching forty adults how to get there. there, he will be cheering and teaching for the next three years.

Three more family success centers will open in our community. Experts and families will together break the cycle of poverty and remove barriers. Poverty and being poor is not something to feel overwhelmed by, maybe just maybe we can stop blaming people for being poor and living in poverty, instead let's learn more about poverty. Two ways to do this: a visit to your community's Family Success Center or learn from reports published by the Brookings Institution on disadvantage and poverty. be a support system for the people in our community we can make a small gesture to end generational poverty we can do this we can in generational poverty one person one family one community at a time who among us is willing to remove a barrier and be like Josh Shapiro and specifically removing a barrier for a girl like me, thank you.