March 31: Celebrating Cesar Chavez Day

"To be human is to suffer for others. God help us to be human."
 - Cesar Chavez

Cesar Chavez, born on 3/31/1927.   California, Colorado, and Texas have state-wide holidays and remembrances.

The Neglect of Mental Illness Exacts a Huge Toll

Mental health care is one of the biggest unmet needs of our time. Nearly one in two people in the U.S.will suffer from depression, anxiety disorders or another mental health ailment at some point in their life, and about one in 17 Americans currently has a serious mental illness. Young people are especially prone to these troubles. Yet millions of people living with these conditions do not receive the care they require...

...Mental illness strikes without regard for economic class, but the strain is acute for people with low incomes. About one in six adults living at just above the poverty line or lower has severe mental health problems.

 www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-neglect-of-mental-illness

Food Stamped: The Movie

FOOD STAMPED, the movie, follows a couple attempting to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet on a food stamp budget. Nutrition educator Shira Potash teaches nutrition-based cooking classes to elementary school students in low-income neighborhoods, most of whom are eligible for food stamps. In an attempt to walk a mile in their shoes, Shira and her documentary filmmaker husband embark on the food stamp challenge where they eat on roughly one dollar per meal.

This film is a documentary work-in-progress by Shira & Yoav Potash.  



For more information, see:

www.FoodStamped.com

Women, Children, and Poverty In America

National talk show host, Tavis Smiley, hosts this discussion of women, children, and poverty in America with an all female panel including:

Cecilia Fire Thunder, president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe
Hilda Solis, US Secretary of Labor
Julianne Malveaux, President of Bennett College
Suze Orman, Financial Talk Show Host
and others





Video streaming by Ustream

Meet the Workers Who Pick A Third of the Tomatoes in US Supermarkets

The Perennial Plate, a web series about sustainable food, interviews Lupe Gonzalo, a tomato picker and organizer in Immokalee, Florida. Paid per bucket of tomatoes and living nine to a trailer, workers like Gonzalo struggle to make ends meet. An immigrant from Guatemala, Gonzalo talks about why she came to the U.S. and became an organizer for the Coalition for Immokalee Workers.   Daniel Klein, the co-creator and host of the series, wants to spread awareness about the harsh conditions and labor practices behind the produce we often take for granted. "Most likely," he writes, "there is a wonderful person just like her picking the tomatoes you buy at the grocery store.


   

Kalamazoo leaders pursue alternatives to end violence

Leaders, experts and local churches are rallying together to stop the recent rise of violence in Kalamazoo.

On Saturday, a national expert on reducing crime took center stage in Kalamazoo. His message was instead of arresting gang members and drug dealers, put them in a room with their mothers and police officers to talk one-on-one.

David Kennedy's program has been implemented in 70 cities in the United States and it's dramatically reduced youth violence.

Kennedy hopes to use his program in Kalamazoo too.

He spoke Saturday night at the Interfaith Strategy for Advocacy and Action in the Community in the Bernhard Center on Western Michigan University's campus.

www.wwmt.com/shared/newsroom/top-stories/stories/wwmt_vid_494.shtml

Preparing infants for school: Volunteers from schools, libraries, hospitals team up to promote reading in low-income homes

On a chilly morning, some 20 low-income parents convened on the city's Southwest Side to hear a presentation on how reading to their children enhances brain development and school readiness.

Hardly unusual — except most of the prospective "students" were all younger than 6 months.

"This is wonderful," said Alonya Green, of Chicago, thumbing through the complimentary copy of "Hugs and Kisses," while her baby squirmed on her lap. "I can really see how you have to help your kids learn … even at this age."

Cradle to Classroom, which launched in January 2011, is run by volunteers from school districts, libraries and hospitals in struggling communities and emphasizes the significant role parents play in early literacy. In an era when long-term investment in at-risk youth is difficult to come by, that focus stands out.

"No matter your means, you can help your child develop healthy academic habits," said Bob McParland, a spokesman for Community High School District 218, which includes Shepard High School in Palos Heights, Richards High School in Oak Lawn and Eisenhower High School in Blue Island.

"Children take our lead in everything, whether it's our religion … or what baseball team we follow," he said. "When you start early, they can't help but learn from our example."

www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-x-cradle-to-classroom-0314-20120321,0,6162577.story

I'm On Food Stamps: Don't Hate Me For It

I am on food stamps. This will surprise almost everyone who knows me. I have hidden it from friends, from family, from classmates. 

I use self-checkout at the grocery store so I don’t have to face judgment from the cashiers. I read countless posts on Facebook and receive political emails telling me that being on food stamps makes me a degenerate, someone who is dependant and useless. I hear about how I should be kicked off of food stamps so I won’t be so lazy and will get a job. 

At the time the economy crashed, I was studying to be a chiropractor. My (now ex-) husband was laid off from his good job. It took him over a year and a half to find a new job. During that time we lost our house and had to declare bankruptcy. Our marriage fell apart.

Living on $60 a week.

www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/11336524-452/im-on-food-stamps-dont-hate-me-for-it.html

CBS News: Photographer Puts America's Poverty in Focus

Mentoring Young Readers (In Battle Creek)

Amanda White said her son, Adrian, who turns 6 years old next Wednesday, could read just a handful of words at the start of this school year. Now, the Verona Elementary kindergartener has more than quadrupled his repertoire.

Several of Adrian’s fellow Verona kindergarteners are showing similar improvements thanks partly to a new program that brought a flock of community volunteers to Verona to make stronger readers out of its kindergarteners.


“I think it’s great,” Amanda White, 33, said. “Any time you can get people into the school to help out, it’s great. I’ve seen a tremendous improvement” in Adrian’s reading.


Kim Lehman, the Calhoun Intermediate School District literacy coordinator managing the Verona project, said every kindergartener at the school is currently matched with at least one of 45 volunteer mentors.

The volunteers come from many walks of life. Some are college students and others are local professionals from companies such as the Enquirer and Kellogg Co. Some are retired educators or educators’ spouses. Some are Verona alumni.

http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20120319/NEWS01/303190042/Mentoring-young-readers

"We Don't Do Banks" - Financial Lives of Families on Public Assistance

When asked whether he or anyone in his household has a bank account, Billy, a 24-year-old out-of-work father of two young daughters quickly retorted, “We don’t do banks.” A recent survey by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reveals that Billy is not alone—more than 9 million American households are unbanked, meaning they have no checking or savings account. For more than a decade, policy researchers and advocates have sought to increase the use of bank accounts by low-income and minority households, both by increasing demand through education and outreach and by encouraging banks to better tailor their products to the needs of low-income consumers.

Motivating this line of policy advocacy is the assumption that low-income families would be financially better off “banked.” And there is good reason to believe this is the case: Unbanked consumers spend hundreds of dollars a year conducting routine financial transactions. However, this near singular focus on the banking status of households and its relation to poverty has prevented a richer appreciation of how low-income families manage their money.

 assets.newamerica.net/publications/policy/we_dont_do_banks

State to take over 15 Detroit Public schools

Year-around public schools are coming to Detroit.

Officials with Michigan's new recovery school district announced Tuesday that 15 Detroit Public Schools will be taken over by the state and become laboratories this fall for a new system for low-performing schools.
Six DPS high schools and nine elementary-middle schools will come under the Education Achievement Authority, which Gov. Rick Snyder created to revive the state's failing schools.

An extended-year calendar was approved for the EAA schools, increasing the number of days students are in school from 170 days or 1,098 instructional hours in the current schedule, to 210 days starting this fall. Student will have a quarterly calendar that starts Sept. 4, ends Aug. 6, has 52 to 54 days each quarter and shorter breaks around major holidays.

"I don't know if people understand the magnitude of what just happened," EAA Chancellor John Covington said after a EAA board meeting Tuesday. "This 210 days for students, it puts us at the highest in the nation, only second to Massachusetts." ...

About 12,000 students attend these schools, which were selected because they had the largest percentage of at-risk children, officials said.

www.detroitnews.com/article/20120314/SCHOOLS/203140338/State-take-over-15-Detroit-Public-schools

Companies Paying for Homeless "Hotspots"

A company in the US state of Texas is giving homeless people mobile modems to help patrons of the South by Southwest music and film festival to connect online.

The firm behind the idea says it is an opportunity for the homeless to earn money and meet people.
But critics argue that it is degrading and takes advantage of people when they are down on their luck.

John Terrett reports with 2 minute video from Washington:

www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/03/2012313223927421528.html

Meet the Filmmakers of Finding North, a Documentary about Hunger in America

A new documentary about hunger in America called “Finding North" was screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT, and received excellent reviews from The Los Angeles Times and Variety Magazine. The film shows several families in the United States struggling with food insecurity, demonstrating the extensive reach of hunger in America. I had a chance to interview the film's two directors, Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush, and asked them about their inspiration and what they learned about the complexities of hunger. Read their responses below, and watch the film trailer for a sneak peak at this exciting new documentary. 

(From Bread for the World Blog at:

blog.bread.org/2012/03/meet-the-filmmakers-of-finding-north-a-documentary-about-hunger-in-america.html

Or view the trailer below:

Gov. Rick Snyder aims to stop truancy; cut welfare if children skip school

It's a question city leaders have grappled with for decades, how to keep youths off the streets and away from lives of crime.

Gov. Rick Snyder proposed his answer Wednesday while discussing public safety (in Flint).  Let's get kids back in the classroom, Snyder said.


The governor proposed a program to stop truancy in public schools, calling on the Michigan Department of Human Services to put more social workers in public elementary schools in Flint, Detroit, Pontiac and Saginaw.
"I also call on DHS to require regular school attendance as a condition for eligibility for temporary cash assistance," Snyder said.

Current policy only requires school attendance for children ages 16-18 to be eligible for cash assistance to parents, he said.

"There's nothing that says, if you're 8 years old, you have to go to school," he said. "How dumb is that?"

www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2012/03/gov_rick_snyder_aims_to_stop_t.html

Growing Gaps Bring Focus on Poverty's Role in Schooling

The fractious debate over how much schools can counteract poverty's impact on children is far from settled, but a recently published collection of research strongly suggests that until policymakers and educators confront deepening economic and social disparities, poor children will increasingly miss out on finding a path to upward social mobility.

The achievement gap between poor children and rich children has grown significantly over the past three decades and is now nearly twice as large as the black-white gap, according to Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist. He examined data on family income and student scores on standardized tests in reading and math spanning 1960 to 2007.

As the income gap has grown, so too has the disparity in how much money and time affluent parents invest in the development of their young children compared with such efforts by low-income parents. For example, between birth and age 6, children from high-income families now spend an average of 1,300 more hours in "novel" places outside their homes, schools, and day-care centers than children from poor families, a trend documented by Meredith Phillips, an associate professor of public policy and sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/03/07/23poverty_ep.h31.html

Great Start collecting used, new children’s books

In honor of National Reading Month, the Berrien County Great Start Parent Coalition is collecting gently used and new children’s books Monday through April 9.

Drop boxes can be found at Chemical Bank locations in Berrien County, as well as the Volunteer Center of Southwest Michigan offices in St. Joseph and Niles.  The books collected will be donated to various literacy programs throughout Berrien County, including the Benton Harbor Sunrise Rotary’s Red Wagon Program.

“Reading aloud with children is known to be the single most important activity for building the knowledge and skills they will eventually require for learning to read,” Marilyn Jager Adams, internationally known for her work with cognition and education said. “Early literacy has also shown to have a significant impact on the reduction of generational poverty.

 www.nilesstar.com/2012/03/05/great-start-collecting-used-new-childrens-books/

Middle schoolers (in Battle Creek) learn the impact of service at Community Action Warehouse

As she hoisted canned food into the cart of an elderly woman this afternoon, 12-year-old Elizabeth Calderon said she’d learned something new about her community.

“There are lots of people in need that we need to help out,” the Northwestern Middle School sixth-grader said.  But she also learned this: “It’s great helping people out.”


That’s exactly what Melissa Hatmaker said she wants to hear.


Calderon and 19 of her classmates were at the Community Action warehouse today as part of a service learning project organized by Hatmaker, a sixth-grade math teacher at Northwestern. Hatmaker said she started the project this school year to expose students to volunteerism and show them they can make a difference.

www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20120228/NEWS01/302280032/Middle-schoolers-learn-impact-service