Promise Project Overview

“God has not called us to be successful, but faithful…Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.”

--Mother Teresa

Project Promise is a coalition of non-profit organizations, service providers, and individual community members with the goal of ending poverty. They have come together to provide resources to those who may be living in poverty, as well as those who want to understand poverty and what they can do to help fight it in the Fox Cities.

“Poverty in America is a pressing and moral problem. All faiths speak out on the need to care for the poor and vulnerable and to strive for the common good…Poverty is not a Democratic or Republican issue…it is a moral issue.”

--Fighting Poverty with Faith: A Week of Action (September 2008)

The mission of this community resource is to engage our community in the elimination of poverty.

Project Promise will work to eliminate poverty by building awareness of the causes and conditions of poverty in the Fox Cities, by educating the community about the impact and complexity of poverty, and by facilitating collaborative action. Project Promise will be a cooperative effort of providers, supporters of social services, businesses, community members and all others who seek to advocate for the needs of people living in poverty in the Fox Cities. It is not itself a provider or funder of direct services to the poor. Project Promise will work to accomplish its goal by using the following three strategies: Awareness, Education, and Action.

“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”

--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love (1963)

Working committees with the following responsibilities have been established:

INFORMATION & ANALYSIS

· Create knowledge and understanding of poverty

· Analyze and evaluate data such as census information, trends/community reports, poverty information and other statistics

· Complete poverty root cause analysis

· Create understanding of our current delivery system, including developing the “Continuum of Care” for poverty

· Identify gaps and measure progress toward goals

AWARENESS & EDUCATION

· Build awareness of systemic nature of poverty

· Enhance communication between agencies and the community

· Communicate knowledge and understanding of poverty, including development of Speakers Bureau and cultivation of relationships with media to build public awareness of poverty

· Create opportunities for the community to learn about poverty

· Recognize and build upon existing community collaborations and relationships

ACTION & IMPACT

· Support on-going work of existing agencies and the community

· Support partners engaged in advocacy

· Amplify the voice of poverty

· Convene the community

· Facilitate public policy discussions

· Facilitate community initiatives and innovations

· Inspire personal, community, and public policy change necessary to end poverty

What follows is a listing of the Poverty Coalition’s goals that for 2009:

Fox Cities Project Promise

Poverty Coalition Goals

Approved December 10, 2008 at the Membership Meeting

The Fox Cities Project Promise Poverty Coalition will:

1. maintain a long-term focus on poverty in the community.

A. All Committees

2. establish priorities based on the needs of the community and consistent with existing community plans.

A. Complete Root Cause Analysis (Analysis and Information)

B. Analysis of community plans and existing data sources such as the LIFE Study (Analysis and Information, Executive Committee)

3. facilitate connectivity between all those involved in service to those in poverty but will not regulate their activities.

A. Interfaith Focus on Poverty Week (Action and Impact)

B. Volunteer & Resource Fair (Action and Impact)

C. Annual Report to the Community (Awareness & Education, Executive)

4. document and build awareness of the continuum of care of poverty services.

A. Complete a Continuum of Care Schematic (Action and Impact)

5. help educate the community on poverty and services so that every member of the community will know a few key facts about poverty, such as;

o The number and percentage of people living at or below 100% of the federal poverty guideline.

o The percentage of children qualifying for free or reduced lunch.

o The number of homeless people

o The awareness of the 2-1-1 service

o Current priorities of the Coalition.

A. Update the Website (Executive & Action and Impact)

B. Collect Poverty Data (Analysis and Information Committee)

6. help educate the electorate about policy and its impact to those living in poverty.

A. Legislative Lunch/Dinner (Action and Impact)

7. not become an agency, but will be an entity organized and run by volunteers that engages other agencies, businesses and the community at large in activities that work to eliminate poverty.

A. Build Coalition Membership (Executive Committee & Awareness and Education)

B. Develop Speaker’s Bureau (Awareness and Education)

C. Continue to Share Project Promise Process for Coalition Building (Speakers Bureau)

8. not raise grant funds to support it, but will advocate for the development of funds that support the work of agencies, businesses and other organizations that support the mission of the Coalition.

BEING POOR

Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs.

Being poor is getting angry at your kids for asking for all the crap they see on TV.

Being poor is having to keep buying $800 cars because they're what you can afford, and then having the cars break down on you, because there's not an $800 car in America that's worth a damn.

Being poor is hoping the toothache goes away.

Being poor is knowing your kid goes to friends' houses but never has friends over to yours.

Being poor is going to the restroom before you get in the school lunch line so your friends will be ahead of you and won't hear you say "I get free lunch" when you get to the cashier.

Being poor is living next to the freeway.

Being poor is coming back to the car with your children in the back seat, clutching that box of Raisin Bran you just bought and trying to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box has to last.

Being poor is wondering if your well-off sibling is lying when he says he doesn't mind when you ask for help.

Being poor is off-brand toys.

Being poor is a heater in only one room of the house.

Being poor is knowing you can't leave $5 on the coffee table when your friends are around.

Being poor is hoping your kids don't have a growth spurt.

Being poor is stealing meat from the store, frying it up before your mom gets home and then telling her she doesn't have make dinner tonight because you're not hungry anyway.

Being poor is Goodwill underwear.

Being poor is not enough space for everyone who lives with you.

Being poor is feeling the glued soles tear off your supermarket shoes when you run around the playground.

Being poor is your kid's school being the one with the 15-year-old textbooks and no air conditioning.

Being poor is thinking $8 an hour is a really good deal.

Being poor is relying on people who don't give a damn about you.

Being poor is an overnight shift under florescent lights.

Being poor is finding the letter your mom wrote to your dad, begging him for the child support.

Being poor is a bathtub you have to empty into the toilet.

Being poor is stopping the car to take a lamp from a stranger's trash.

Being poor is making lunch for your kid when a cockroach skitters over the bread, and you looking over to see if your kid saw.

Being poor is believing a GED actually makes a goddamned difference.

Being poor is people angry at you just for walking around in the mall.

Being poor is not taking the job because you can't find someone you trust to watch your kids.

Being poor is the police busting into the apartment right next to yours.

Being poor is not talking to that girl because she'll probably just laugh at your clothes.

Being poor is hoping you'll be invited for dinner.

Being poor is a sidewalk with lots of brown glass on it.

Being poor is people thinking they know something about you by the way you talk.

Being poor is needing that 35-cent raise.

Being poor is your kid's teacher assuming you don't have any books in your home.

Being poor is six dollars short on the utility bill and no way to close the gap.

Being poor is crying when you drop the mac and cheese on the floor.

Being poor is knowing you work as hard as anyone, anywhere.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually stupid.

Being poor is people surprised to discover you're not actually lazy.

Being poor is a six-hour wait in an emergency room with a sick child asleep on your lap.

Being poor is never buying anything someone else hasn't bought first.

Being poor is picking the 10 cent ramen instead of the 12 cent ramen because that's two extra packages for every dollar.

Being poor is having to live with choices you didn't know you made when you were 14 years old.

Being poor is getting tired of people wanting you to be grateful.

Being poor is knowing you're being judged.

Being poor is a box of crayons and a $1 coloring book from a community center Santa.

Being poor is checking the coin return slot of every soda machine you go by.

Being poor is deciding that it's all right to base a relationship on shelter.

Being poor is knowing you really shouldn't spend that buck on a Lotto ticket.

Being poor is hoping the register lady will spot you the dime.

Being poor is feeling helpless when your child makes the same mistakes you did, and won't listen to you beg them against doing so.

Being poor is a cough that doesn't go away.

Being poor is making sure you don't spill on the couch, just in case you have to give it back before the lease is up.

Being poor is a $200 paycheck advance from a company that takes $250 when the paycheck comes in.

Being poor is four years of night classes for an Associates of Art degree.

Being poor is a lumpy futon bed.

Being poor is knowing where the shelter is.

Being poor is people who have never been poor wondering why you choose to be so.

Being poor is knowing how hard it is to stop being poor.

Being poor is seeing how few options you have.

Being poor is running in place.

Being poor is people wondering why you didn't leave.

By: John Scalzi