Struggling at the Poverty Line

For the past 12 years I have headed up efforts to reach out to local families in the Suitland, MD, area who are at the poverty level or below. My idealistic idea was to identify families that were trying hard to rise up out of their situations but just needed a boost. In reality, we have made a temporary difference, but for the most part poverty is breeding poverty faster than we can do anything about it.

I identified families in need of assistance by contacting the local elementary school. They always know who comes to school hungry or without a jacket or just doesn’t come to school at all on a regular basis. And believe me there is no shortage of families that meet all of those criteria. I always insisted that the school have the parent (most always a single mom) call me to indicate a willingness to partner with the Census Bureau. We would then meet at a local fast food restaurant of her choice to construct a list of children, including their names, birth dates, and sizes. Our goal was to recognize Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter with nonperishable food items and grocery store gift certificates. At Christmas time, we obtain a wish list for each child and purchase and wrap gifts. We make Easter baskets. We collect gently worn clothing. We collect summer activities – games, books, toys. We get lists for back-to-school and buy school supplies. We serve as an emergency source of money for things like car repairs. We recognize each child’s birthday in a special way – a cake or presents or bowling with friends or some combination of these. We actually furnished an entire apartment for a woman who had been living in a car with 4 children. We often tutor or mentor the children. All of these things mean that the parent will perhaps be able to keep paying rent and electric and telephone bills.

Invariably the families consist of a mom and from two to seven children who are closely spaced in age. If the mom works at all, her job pays just above minimum wage. The food stamps run out before the month is over. Many of the children have learning disabilities. Many of the moms and children are overweight and have poor diets. There is often no car in the family.

The thing that amazes me most is just how easy it is to get support for this program from my colleagues. I established a list of around 100 people who are committed to this program. Time after time they respond to my messages asking for their help. They now know when they are cleaning out their houses that there is a ready destination for their castoffs.

The real question is has this made a permanent difference in the lives of these families? Two families out of the probably 12 we have helped suggest that it has. The second family we helped was able to move out of the Suitland area to a much safer neighborhood, where they purchased a small house. Two years ago the mom called at Thanksgiving to offer two big bags of groceries, which we gladly accepted. This woman could have written a book about how to make your grocery money stretch. She was never unemployed and was constantly fighting to get child support from the children’s deadbeat father, who by this time had a new family. A second person came to work at the Census Bureau soon after we became acquainted. She is feisty and can tell hair-raising stories of what she has seen while living in this area. She has held young men as they died from gunshot wounds. She has helped police pursue known murderers. She doesn’t put up with crap from anyone. She has gradually bettered her position at Census, and just recently was able to move away from Suitland into a house in a quiet neighborhood. She must now get a ride to work since she can no longer walk across the street.

The rest of the families have gladly accepted what we could offer, but never seem to be able to get out of the poverty spiral. And even in the case of our second success story, the oldest daughter (at 17) recently had a baby of her own. She is unmarried and did manage to graduate from high school. But she is headed down the same path of struggle.

It is remarkable too that fathers are so totally absent. They father these children and then just walk away, leaving women saddled with the responsibility of feeding, clothing, and housing a growing number of children.

After 12 years of this, I no longer have high expectations. I continue to do this for the sake of the children who never asked to be born into poverty. I have seen some big smiles on the faces of children whose birthdays have never been very special. I wish I knew how to really make this work.