1. The NY Times reports on the lifelong health and wellness impacts of growing up in poverty.

“Poverty damages children’s dispositions and blunts their brains. We’ve seen articles about the language deficit in poorer homes and the gaps in school achievement. These remind us that — more so than in my mother’s generation — poverty in this country is now likely to define many children’s life trajectories in the harshest terms: poor academic achievement, high dropout rates, and health problems from obesity anddiabetes to heart disease, substance abuse and mental illness.

Recently, there has been a lot of focus on the idea of toxic stress, in which a young child’s body and brain may be damaged by too much exposure to so-called stress hormones, like cortisol and norepinephrine. When this level of stress is experienced at an early age, and without sufficient protection, it may actually reset the neurological and hormonal systems, permanently affecting children’s brains and even, we are learning, their genes.”

2. Poverty and Policy reports on the cuts to food stamps that are making their way through congress.

“Last week, the Senate Agriculture Committee finished a bill that cuts the program by $4.1 billion over the next 10 years. This is slightly less than last year’s proposed cut, but only because the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate has changed.

The House Agriculture Committee boosted its food stamp cuts to approximately $21 billion* over the same 10-year period. This $4.5 billion increase over last year reflects substantive changes in the proposed legislation.”

3. Poverty is shifting to the suburbs. There are now more total suburban poor than urban poor, although poverty rates remain higher in urban areas.

“In 2011, the suburban poor outnumbered the urban poor by three million; from 2000 to 2011, the number of poor people soared by 64 percent in the suburbs, compared with 29 percent in cities. Today nearly one-third of all Americans are poor or nearly poor. One in three poor Americans live in the suburbs. If you’re poor in the Seattle, Atlanta or Chicago regions, you’re more likely than not living outside the city limits.”

4. Much of the gap in education results between high and low income children is driven not by public schooling inequality, but by how prepared they are to enter kindergarten.

“…schools don’t seem to produce much of the disparity in test scores between high- and low-income students. We know this because children from rich and poor families score very differently on school readiness tests when they enter kindergarten, and this gap grows by less than 10 percent between kindergarten and high school. There is some evidence that achievement gaps between high- and low-income students actually narrow during the nine-month school year, but they widen again in the summer months.”

5. Community Colleges are failing to live up to their potential, which is particularly troubling given the socioeconomic and racial divide between community colleges and other colleges.

“Of community college entrants, 81.4 percent say they plan on getting a bachelor’s degree. Only 11.6 percent end up doing so.”

1. The National Alliance to End Homelessness is out with a new report that shows there are 633,782 homeless people in the United States, essentially unchanged from last year. The number of homeless people in families did, however, rise to 239,403 (1.4% increase), which is an estimated additional 3,251 homeless children. Homelessness was done among veterans (7.2% decrease) and the chronically homeless (6.8%) in part thanks to policies targeting those populations. Of those who were homeless, 38.4% did not have any form of housing that was “meant for human habitation.”

Read the report; Read a summary from the blog Poverty and Policy

2. The New America Foundation is also out with a new report, this one on college education. In recent years, colleges have shifted increasingly to marketing towards the rich and attempting to draw wealthy students through both merit aid and increasingly expensive and luxurious housing and student life.

Read the report; Read a summary from wonkblog

3. In the wake of the garment factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed over 800, retailers are becoming more open about their supply chains. The New York Times reports, “…a group of major retailers and apparel companies, including some — like Nike and Walmart — with a history of controversial manufacturing practices overseas, says it is developing an index that will include labor, social and environmental measures.

“New research indicates a growing consumer demand for information about how and where goods are produced. A study last year by professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard showed that some consumers — even those who were focused on discount prices — were not only willing to pay more, but actually did pay more, for clothes that carried signs about fair-labor practices.”

Leading up to Mother’s Day, the NCC Poverty Initiative is sharing a series of stories lifting up, celebrating, and praying for mothers who are fighting poverty and alleviating suffering in their communities.

Prayer for Lupe: Dios, gracias for expressing your love through Lupe to farmworkers. Thank you for filling her heart with solidarity and love of her fellow workers. When times get tough, fill her with your grace and courage. Bless and strengthen her family and her work for Fair Food. In good times and bad, let her life overflow with the deepest joy that only You can give. Amen.

Recognized by: Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida

Prayer for Judy: God, thank you for expressing your love through Judy to women in Ohio prisons. Thank you for filling her heart with love of her neighbor, especially imprisoned neighbors we are called by God to visit, despite the fact that they are kept away from mainstream society and so often forgotten by many. When times get tough, fill Judy with your grace and courage. Bless and strengthen her family and her work. In good times and bad, let her life overflow with the deepest joy that only You can give. Amen.

Recognized by: Bo Schneider

I would like to honor my wife Judy. She is the mother of three children and raised another boy after his mother died, during her second marriage. She is involved with Kairos Prison Ministry International and as served in Trumbull Correctional, while they housed some women there for a while. While there she realized that the women, receiving State pay of $17.00 a month, were having trouble securing basic items like soap, both bar and shampoo, toothpaste, hygiene products of all kinds. At one point when Ohio’s funds were really at a low point, the women had to purchase their own toilet paper. Judy started seeking help from churches and organizations and twice a year that would supply the 375 ladies their hygiene needs. Trumbull closed their women’s facility and added them to Cleveland pre-release facility. Now, Judy is still helping a total of 580 women; she sees to their needs twice a year. It’s brought quite a few amazing stories. So what do you think about this mother of 4, grandmother of 13, and great grandmother of 5? Happy Mother’s Day, Judy.

Prayer for Traci: God, thank you for expressing your love through Traci to the St. Louis community in so many ways. Thank you for filling her heart with love of her neighbor. When times get tough, fill her with your grace and courage. Bless and strengthen her family and her work. In good times and bad, let her life overflow with the deepest joy that only You can give. Amen.

Recognized by: Dr. Deborah Krause and Dr. Martha Robertson, Eden Theological Seminary

Rev. Traci Blackmon is a pastor ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal church and the United Church of Christ, a licensed registered nurse, and a mother of three. She currently serves as the 18th installed and 1st woman pastor in the 156 year history of Christ the King United Church of Christ. Rev. Blackmon uses her access to the profession of health care to connect people living in poverty in St. Louis, Missouri with free access to healthcare – delivering thousands of free flu shots to different centers around St. Louis each year. (This year we offered the shots in the Eden Chapel and over 500 people were served!)

As a licensed Registered Nurse with over 25 years experience in health care, Reverend Blackmon is employed as the Coordinator of faith-based initiatives for BJC HealthCare and as a senior consultant with The Praxis Group, LLC.  Reverend Blackmon has created and facilitated capacity-building workshops on such complicated issues as racism; sexism; heterosexism; classism; interfaith dialogue; congregational grief and domestic violence.

In addition to her work in community health care, Traci’s congregation offers many resources to the families and children of St. Louis – empowerment for young women and girls, an oratory contest to inspire and challenge children, many education programs, and employment help. It is a church with a real passion for social justice.

Finally, Traci is one of the organizing leaders that is bringing Magdalene House to STL which is a transitional and empowerment program to help women move out of sex work and off the streets.

Traci is an incredibly powerful leader, and is the mother of three wonderful young adults: Kortni; Harold II; and Tyler Blackmon.

Leading up to Mother’s Day, the NCC Poverty Initiative is sharing a series of stories lifting up, celebrating, and praying for mothers who are fighting poverty and alleviating suffering in their communities.

Prayer for Terry: God, thank you for expressing your love through Terry to the children and families who are hungry in her community. Thank you for filling her heart with love of her neighbor. When times get tough, fill her with your grace and courage. Bless and strengthen her family and her work. In good times and bad, let her life overflow with the deepest joy that only You can give. Amen.

Recognized by: Brad Sheppard, Executive Director, Our House: Caring for Callaway’s Homeless

First Presbyterian Church in Mexico, Missouri has a pastor with a passion for keeping children and families free of hunger. When Rev. Terry Kukuk of Mexico, Missouri learned in the Spring of 2012 that the Buddy Backpack program (which provides food on the weekends for eligible school children) for Audrain County, MO, would be reduced substantially due to the lack of funding, she immediately organized an event that raised over $100,000 for the program. That lead her to a broader concern for hunger in Audrain County. Next, she organized a group of community leaders to launch an effort to bring a new food distribution center (food pantry or bank) to the county; that effort is now underway.

Prayer for Marybeth: God, thank you for expressing your love through MaryBeth to her family and community members seeking employment. Thank you for filling her heart with love of her neighbor. When times get tough, fill her with your grace and courage. Bless and strengthen her family and her work. In good times and bad, let her life overflow with the deepest joy that only You can give. Amen.

Recognized by: Lancaster County Council of Churches in Lancaster, PA

A single mom, MaryBeth Stover worked hard to get off welfare and to overcome homelessness and poverty in her own life. Now, through her work, she is inspiring others to follow her lead.  Not only is MaryBeth a caring and devoted mother to her two children, but MaryBeth Stover inspires so many who are trying to build a better life for themselves and their families. In her current job as a career counselor to the unemployed, this bubbly and vivacious woman works with people who are experiencing the desperation and poverty she herself faced three years ago. She encourages them to persist and to hold onto their dreams. “If I can crawl out of poverty,” she often says, “you can, too.”

Only a few years ago, MaryBeth and her two children were living on public assistance in a tiny, one-bedroom apartment. At the time, she worked as a data entry clerk but her job was 14 miles from her home, and, she had no car. She depended on the one bus that came in the morning and the one that returned in the evening to get to and from home and work. But many times the bus came late, or she missed her bus connection while bringing her infant son to child care. Though her  supervisor warned her about lateness and told her she was in danger of losing her job, she saw no way to correct what she couldn’t control. No matter how early she rose in the morning she couldn’t change the bus schedule. Nor could she change her work schedule. While she knew she could lose her job, she didn’t see a solution. She didn’t have the money to buy a car, and the car she tried to borrow left her stranded and in tears.

She felt trapped until she learned about Wheels to Work, a Lancaster County Council of Churches program that sells dependable, used cars below cost to the underemployed. Through the Wheels to Work program, MaryBeth purchased a car. That first Friday night she owned her car, she drove her children the four hours to the Maryland shore. She wanted them to play in the sand, to feel the breeze, smell the salt air,  and watch the ocean waves roll onto the beach. “We arrived about midnight and went on the beach,” she recalls, with tears rolling down her cheeks. “ I didn’t have money to stay anywhere, so we all played on the beach for an hour or so. Then we drove home. We all had a wonderful time.” Having this ability to give her children a trip to the beach, even a brief one, meant the world to MaryBeth, and this beach trip also marked the beginning of a new life for MaryBeth and her family.

MaryBeth’s personality and persistence, supported by an old, reliable Toyota, has changed everything. Now a star employee, MaryBeth has received three raises. “I’m making it,” she exclaims. “I’m paying my bills. I bought a little house with a little garden out front. I love my job, because I get to see other people succeeding, too. I love being able to pay back by helping others, and I love being able to do more for my children.”

MaryBeth is a member of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Please join us in wishing a Happy Mother’s Day to MaryBeth Stover and to hard-working mothers everywhere.

Prayer for Kathleen: God, thank you for expressing your love through Kathleen to hungry and sojourning people of St. Louis. Thank you for filling her heart with love of her neighbor. When times get tough, fill her with your grace and courage. Bless and strengthen her family and her work. In good times and bad, let her life overflow with the deepest joy that only You can give. Amen.

Rev. Kathleen Wilder is an ordained elder in the United Methodist Church and has pastored Centenary United Methodist Church in St. Louis since 2007. She has cultivated a ministry of caring and courageous people with a strong commitment to serving the city of St. Louis. Centenary church provides a significant part of St. Louis’ plan to end homelessness through The Bridge (formerly CENTENARY CARES), the primary drop-in center for the City of St. Louis. Through The Bridge ministry, the church has served over 200,000 breakfasts, lunches, and dinners seven days a week to homeless and food insecure persons since November 2005, and provides many additional social services as well. Rev Wilder is an outspoken advocate for social justice, and a deeply compassionate and hard working person. She holds up her staff, and is a great collaborator with other ministries in St. Louis. She is the loving mother of three children; Andy, Jesse and Grace.

Recognized by: Dr. Deborah Krause and Dr. Martha Robertson of Eden Theological Seminary

Prayer for Dawn: God, thank you for expressing your love through Dawn to her neighbors in Flat Rock who are hungry, and to her family. Thank you for filling her heart with love of her neighbor. When times get tough, fill her with your grace and courage. Bless and strengthen her family and her work. In good times and bad, let her life overflow with the deepest joy that only You can give. Amen.

Recognized by Rev. Dr. Terry Gallagher and Sinclair Gallagher, United Church of Christ ministry team and founders of Sacred Conversations.

We first met Dawn and her children at the First Congregational Church in Flat Rock when we started the community meal program in 2006. 

There is not an “It’s a Wonderful Life” movie type ending to this story. Dawn still struggles to feed, clothe and house her family everyday. Multiple health issues abound, their home still gets extremely cold in the winter, that old decrepit truck still breaks down frequently and so miles & miles need  to be walked by Mom & her kids alike.  But there is something more to this life then a fairy tale ending would provide. There is a sense of purpose & wholeness that derives it’s joy from the life action of “love of neighbor” and this one family’s actions spills over into a life example for all of us. This is the stuff of a way of life that the Gospel calls us to live.