On Poverty

The project I'm working on with a team of other leaders for Leadership Charlotteville centers on poverty. The reason for this is that over 25 percent of our population is living at or below the federal poverty level. We're trying to define it, raise awareness and present opportunities for those interested in volunteering or contributing to organizations that can help.

Poverty, therefore, is a topic that has been on my mind quite a bit.

What it isn't: poverty is not merely being poor. A person living in poverty is not one who has missed a few car payments or who is barely making enough to make ends meet. Poverty is without hope. It is a state of not even being able to conceptualize a way to pull oneself out of a dire situation. It is generational; it has its own culture. Poverty is a state of barely being able to live, and living is precarious. People who are impoverished may not even know it. Why? Because their state of living is all they've ever known and the daily struggle to keep body and soul together is all consuming, a real-live Survivor without the payoff at the end.

I found this wonderful, moving piece "What is Poverty" today. It was originally published in America's Other Children: Public Schools Outside Suburbs, by George Henderson in 1971 by the University of Oklahoma Press. This is what poverty is, and it's right here, among us.