Panel Discusses Passion, Innovation and Struggles in the Fight Against Poverty

Media Contact: Lori Fogleman, 254-710-6275

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WACO, Texas (Nov. 16, 2017) — Specialists in the nonprofit field focused on innovative solution models through the lens of faith and hope for addressing the problems of hunger and poverty in communities during the annual Drumwright Family Lecture at Baylor University.

Passion for fighting poverty

The panelists— Heather Reynolds, President and CEO of Catholic Charities Fort Worth, Jeremy Everett, founder and executive director of the Texas Hunger Initiative at Baylor, and Robert Doar, resident fellow and Morgridge Fellow in Poverty Studies for the American Enterprise Institute— have many things in common, most notably, their passion for fighting poverty on the local, state and national levels.

Reynolds didn’t grow up in poverty, but her parents made sure that she frequently came face to face with poverty through community service. Her call to this work became serious when she became a parent of an adopted daughter and learned that poverty was the one thing that stood in the way of the biological mother’s ability to raise her daughter.

“While I am forever grateful for my daughter, I will never quit fighting to end poverty as long as I have breath in me, because I’m a firm believer that poverty should not stand between a mom’s dreams for her child and her ability to make those things happen,” Reynolds said.

The inequity of wealth in America has been on Everett’s mind since he entered college. He was inspired by the story of St. Francis, who gave away his possessions to live a life intertwined with people in poverty and to rebuild the church. He was so inspired that he decided to give away all his possessions in college and pursue a career in nonprofit work.

Doar, a member along with Everett of the National Commission on Hunger, grew up watching his father, John Doar, serve as an assistant attorney general under Robert F. Kennedy. He built a program designed to fight poverty through work with civil rights and made great progress. He decided that when he became of age, he would get involved in politics and find ways to help people move up in opportunity and escape poverty through employment, stronger families and better schools.

“Texas is really lucky to have these two outstanding people doing work for people in need,” Doar said. “Government doesn’t solve every problem. We are so dependent on work and programs like theirs.”

Innovations in the fight against poverty

Reynolds. Everett and Doar are all engaged in thinking of innovations—both in programs and policies— that can reduce poverty and increase opportunities for low-income families and children. Reynolds said her organization partners with academic institutions so they can study the efficacy their work.

“I’m not in the business of repeat customers. I’m in the business of ending poverty. So, we as an organization want to know what works and what doesn’t work,” Reynolds said.

CCFW is particularly interested in addressing low graduation rates among community college students throughout the country. Reynolds said community college is often the option for low-income citizens and a degree may be the difference between a lifetime of minimum wage employment and a lifetime of living wage employment.

“Less than 20 percent of students who start community college ever graduate or transfer to a four-year university,” Reynolds said.

In response to this concern, her organizations exercises intensive case management at community colleges to encourage students to continue in their education regardless of financial or social barriers.

“Heather and her team of case managers are taking each individual and each family and helping them develop that blue line so they can be guided through the process of poverty to financial independence,” Everett said.

Everett’s Texas Hunger Initiative is focused on building a cross-sector collaborative approach across the state and getting organizations working together to identify needs, develop strategic plans around them, and addressing those needs comprehensively.

“Poverty is too complex for any one organization, individual or agency to be able to address all the time,” Everett said. “The only way that we’re going to be able to effectively reduce hunger and poverty both domestically and globally, is if we’re all working together.”

Everett points to the collaborative efforts in communities like San Angelo, where 10,000 children were on the free or reduced-price lunch program in 2009. In response, citizens organized a coalition of city, state and federal officials, churches, nonprofits and school districts to work together on summer hunger. Churches offered their kitchens for use, businesses gathered volunteers to deliver meals, neighbors opened their homes, and after a few months of planning, San Angelo was able to serve 20,000 meals to children. THI has replicated that model to provide more than 500 million meals to children across the state of Texas simply by getting people to work together.

The balance between government initiatives and private initiatives

Everett said an effective systemic approach to addressing poverty involves different organizations playing different roles.

“Part of what we believe as Christians is that we’re created in the image of God,” Everett said. “We believe as Paul wrote, that everybody plays a role in the Body. We all don’t have to do the same thing.”

Reynolds looks at it this way: nonprofit organizations foster relationships and care about people as a whole while the state agency office has transactional relationships. However, sometimes the nonprofit sector ends up looking like an extension of the government, which in some cases provides agencies with the majority of their funding.

“The social service agencies where people should be forging relationships with clients that are long term and truly transformational often have gotten reduced to ‘Here’s some assistance’ and not offering people something transformational,” Reynolds said.

There is a fine line, Reynolds said, between healthy partnership with government and an unhealthy partnership.

All the panelists agreed that a healthy partnership with all sectors contributing through different roles will help the country move forward in assisting vulnerable populations.

by Joy Moton , student newswriter, (254) 710-6805

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