When I began to be involved in the Horizons poverty initiative, I had no illusions about how difficult it would be to make the changes needed to eradicate the causes of poverty. Living in poverty makes it more difficult to see that things will ever get better. When all you can worry about is the day to day things you have to do to get by it is almost impossible to imagine that anything but money can change your circumstances.
My opinion slowly started to change when I attended the Horizons’ Study Circles at the Methodist Church in Corydon in January of 2007 at the urging of Virginia Ireland who was on the steering committee. Each time we met, I learned that poverty has many faces and that the well to do had some illusions about poverty as well. As we continued to meet and discuss, it became obvious that the poor and the well off had much more in common than we had previously thought.
We discovered that we had many community assets that weren’t being fully utilized because they weren’t advertized and we also learned that the stigma of being poor was a barrior to people getting the help they needed. In a large city it seems you can remain anonymous as you seek help. Not so in a small community where people know what you are doing before you do. We needed to change the way the community viewed poverty and its impact on the fiber of our lives.
I’ve become more active in the community since my children are grown and I thought I might make some small difference in improving the lives of those less fortunate than I. It’s proven to be more difficult than I imagined but it is not impossible. There have been some disappointments along the way such as when folks don’t see things happening fast enough and abandon the effort. There have also been successes such as when the poorest of the poor rise to the ocassion and continue to help even when they have little more than themselves and their time to offer in the effort to end poverty.
I stepped out of my comfort zone to attend the Leadership Plenty training in Des Moines with three other community members in the spring of 2007. My first disappointment came when we held an informational and sign up meeting at Breadeaux Pizza and one of the Leadership Plenty trainers announced that he couldn’t help. So, it was left to the two of us remaining to organize and conduct the training. Ultimately, we managed to complete the requirement for 25 attendees by holding additional make up sessions. Joyce Lash was a great help along the way and was very encouraging.
I must admit there were times when I wanted to quit because it felt as if no one was as committed as I was and I thought we would fail. As I mentioned earlier I have lived most of my life in poverty and I was getting along just fine, thank you, so why didn’t I quit? I continued because of little things and some great people who it turned out were as committed as I was.
A small group of Corydon residents, both rich and poor, came together to form Welcome, We Help, inc. I couldn’t quit when there were some who were showing up regularly to weekly meetings for Welcome, We Help and attending two sessions of Leadership Plenty training a week. They were investing their time and making sacrifices too. I stopped dwelling in my pity pool and decided that I would be in it for the long haul.
I live outside of town about nine miles and the trips into town for meetings was a strain on us financially because we are self employed artists with a slim income. My husband gave his support wholeheartedly and joined in the effort and never complained about the extra expense. He contributed his artistic ability to designing flyers, brochures and anything that we needed along those lines. He attended meetings and spoke to groups to further the cause.
Poverty is not a glamorous subject but it is important to end its effect.
Now that we are nearing the end of the NWAF’s requirements for earning the $10,000,
I look back on all of the efforts made by individuals to arrive at this point. We have managed to purchase a cottage in Corydon that we have been slowly renovating because money is hard to come by in these times of economic uncertainty. We met there until it became too cold to meet there-we would meet with our coats on sitting on lawn chairs that we would bring to the meeting. We are again meeting at Chambers and Relph Law firm until we get a bathroom at the cottage. Roberta has been a great asset for us and she gets it!
A group of us would attend the Summer on the Square events once a week last summer to sell raffle tickets for our first fundraiser, The Dam Duck Race, and to advertise the poverty initiative. We would pass out our home published brochures and answer questions.
As I mentioned earlier, I was way out of my comfort zone and it turned out that it didn’t matter that I was poor, what mattered was that some how others were committing themselves to the effort and they weren’t quitting either.
Today we are still plugging along and some days we wonder if we are making progress. After a long hard winter, we decided that we needed a celebration and thus the “Oscars” came to be. What a night! Nobody had to sign in and there wasn’t an attendance requirement to be met. It was a carefree evening of fun and acknowledgement of the accomplishments of a small group of committed citizens who continue to work on ending poverty. Maybe our initiative doesn’t look like much to outsiders but we have made an impact. When a newcomer arrives in our community they are welcomed with a basket of information about our community and are greeted by people in person. We are becoming more connected to the other communities in our county as we communicate about how our various efforts can become more cooperative in our efforts to end poverty. I am proud of the mix of economic backgrounds involved in this endeavor. It no longer matters how much money we make, it matters how much we do.
