Our Mission
Our mission is to address the cycle of poverty and injustice in our nation’s most underserved communities. We aim to work at the local community level to remove social, financial and cultural barriers for children from impoverished backgrounds to enable them to succeed in school, business and life.
Beginning before a child is born, with mothers and fathers, our goal is to have a direct impact on those issues that have a material impact on a child’s ability to succeed.
Child Care: More than 12 million children younger than the age of five are in some form of child care in the United States. Nearly one-third of families with young children are poor, and one-third of poor families are pushed into poverty by their child care expenses. Families most often pushed into poverty by child care expenses include households with three or more children, those headed by a single parent, those with a black or Hispanic head of household, and those headed by someone with less than a high school degree or someone who does not work full time.
Food Insecurity : 1 in 9 Americans are food insecure, representing over 37 million people, including over 11 million children. Food insecurity disproportionately affects the Black community, where poverty rates more than twice that of white, non-Hispanic individuals.
Homelessness: There are more than 2.5 million homeless children in the United States, including ~1.1 million children under age 6 and including approximately 1.4 million who are enrolled in public schools. More than half of those experiencing homelessness are Black.
Safety and Security: Individuals experiencing poverty have a complicated relationship with safety and security, and there is a strong correlation between poverty, safety and security, and victimization. Enabling families to feel safe and secure in their communities allows them to escape the gangs, violence and other influences that affect development and growth.
Shelter: Over 5.9 million children live in families with low incomes and receive no government housing assistance.
Clothing: Millions of poor children nationwide lack adequate clothing. This affects children in painfully silent ways that diminish their quality of life and opportunities. This can lead children to drop out of or skip school and also have behavioral and academic problems.
Education: Education is essential to breaking the cycle of poverty, exclusion, domestic violence and family breakdown. Realistically, we cannot undo the past, but through education and learning, we can help propel children forward. Many factors contribute to a decline in education, but critical to advancing learning is breaking the cycle of poverty, access to quality education, safety and security and lack of funding.
Mentoring and Role Models: Long term research suggests that caring, positive adult role models can, under the right circumstances, help mitigate the risk factors faced by many children and adolescents. Consistent adult involvement in a child’s life leads to better outcomes.
Foster Program: In 2019, over 600,000 children spent time in foster care in the United States. On any given day, over 450,000 children are in foster care. Approximately 23,000 children age out of the foster program every year, of which over 50% become homeless.
Abuse: Approximately 1 in 7 children experience abuse. Children living in poverty are 5 times as more likely to experience abuse than children not living in poverty. Besides the physical challenges arising from abuse, children experience long term psychological effects of abuse that help to stifle their development.