winning the fight

I N S P I R A T I O N F O R T H E C O M M O N G O O D V O L U M E 6 - I S S U E 2 - S U M M E R 2 0 1 4 $10.00

JOURNALTHE

S IX LEADERSH IP STEPS WE CAN ALL TAKE TO TURN THE T IDE

SPECIALEDITION

CH ILDHOOD POVERTY

IN KANSAS

KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER BOARD OF DIRECTORSDavid Lindstrom, Overland Park (Chair)

Ed O’Malley, Wichita (President & CEO)

Karen Humphreys, WichitaSusan Kang, LawrenceCarolyn Kennett, ParsonsGreg Musil, Overland ParkReggie Robinson, TopekaConsuelo Sandoval, Garden CityClayton Tatro, Fort ScottFrank York, Ashland

WEB EDITIONhttp://issuu.com/kansasleadershipcenter

SUBSCRIPTIONS:

Annual subscriptions available on Amazon.com ($34.95 for four issues). Single issues available for $10 by emailing cgreen@kansasleadershipcenter.org.

PERMISSIONSAbstracting is permitted with credit to the source. For other reprint, copying or reproduction permission contact Mike Matson at mmatson@kansasleadershipcenter.org.

KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER325 East Douglas AvenueWichita, KS 67202316.712.4950www.kansasleadershipcenter.org

PHOTOGRAPHYJeff Tuttle Photography316.706.8529 jefftuttlephotography.com

ARTWORKCally Krallmanwww.callykrallman.com

MANAGING EDITORChris Green316.712.4945cgreen@kansasleadershipcenter.org

GRAPHIC DESIGNNovella Brandhouse 816.868.9825 www.novellabrandhouse.com

©2014 Kansas Leadership Center

The Journal (Print edition: ISSN 2328-4366; Online edition: ISSN 2328-4374) is published quarterly by the Kansas Leadership Center, which receives core funding from the Kansas Health Foundation.

The Kansas Leadership Center equips people with the ability to make lasting change for the common good. KLC focuses on leadership being an activity, not a role or position. Open to anyone seeking to move the needle on tough challenges in the civic arena, KLC envisions more Kansans sharing responsibility for acting together in pursuit of the common good.

KLC MISSIONTo foster civic leadership for healthier Kansas communities

KLC VISIONTo be the center of excellence for civic leadership development

JOURNALTHE

3.

“If all of us acted in unison as I act individually there would be no wars and no poverty. I have made myself personallyresponsible for the fate of every human being who has come my way.”

– diarist Anais Nin

I N S P I R A T I O N F O R T H E C O M M O N G O O D V O L U M E 6 - I S S U E 2 - S U M M E R 2 0 1 4

JOURNALTHE

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contents

Welcome to the Journal

By President & CEO Ed O’Malley . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Dispatches from the Kansas Leadership Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Special Edition Introduction: Childhood Poverty in Kansas

By Chris Green . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

STEP 1: UNDERSTAND THE ISSUE

What Every Kansan Needs to Know About Childhood Poverty

By Dawn Bormann Novascone . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

STEP 2: BUILD RELATIONSHIPS AND IMMERSE YOURSELF

Leader of the Circle

By Sarah Caldwell Hancock . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Sharing the Pain

by Brian Whepley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

STEP 3: EXPLORE CHALLENGING PERSPECTIVES

Launching a Conservative Crusade Against Poverty

By Chris Green . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

STEP 4: THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU CAN DO

A Case Study: Charlie Schwarz and His Church’s Work in Planeview

By Laura Roddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

STEP 5: TAKE ACTION AND LEARN

Giving Hope

By Sarah Caldwell Hancock . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

League 42

Photo essay by Jeff Tuttle . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

STEP 6: INNOVATE AND BROADEN YOUR EFFORTS

Setting the Table: College Students Changing the Conversation on Hunger

by Joe Stumpe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Featured Artist: A Graceful Passage

By Cally Krallman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Poem: Celebrate This Kansas

By Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

The Back Page

By Mark E. McCormick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

4.

MAKInG tHe JoURneY,

sIDe BY sIDeLEADERSHIP REQUIRES WALKING

WITH OTHERS, NOT FOR THEM

“Bob, why are you walking?” they asked.

Bob answered, “I just want them to know we are walking with them.”

“You mean you are walking for them. Walkingto raise money or something for these poorpeople?” they replied.

“No, I walk with them, not for them,” Bob answered as he described his 1994 walk from Kansas City to Guatemala and his 2011walk from Guatemala to Chile.

Walk with versus walk for. There is a leadershiplesson there.

As newlyweds, my wife and I started runningmarathons for the Leukemia and LymphomaSociety. You know the drill. We trained hard,raised money and ran for a cure. There was always a moment during each marathon – usually around mile 22 or 23 – when my body hurt so bad that I would think of the patients

I was running for. Doing so helped me make it to the finish. I felt good about my effort. I was proud to help a cause. I was running for them, not with them, which brings me back to Bob, my great uncle.

In the 1980s, Bob, my grandmother Nadine andanother great-uncle, Bud, started a wonderfuleffort to help the poorest of the world’s poor.Called Unbound and located in a warehouse in Kansas City, Kansas, the effort now deliversmore than $100 million annually to help thepoor around the world. Bob passed away recently but his spirit of walking with not for is imbedded in the organization.

How? Consider this. Unbound learned themothers in the local villages in which they work actually know best how to help strugglingvillagers. Rather than Unbound staffers withfancy titles and Twitter accounts deciding how to spend the resources, mothers were empowered. The Unbound staff and volunteerswere there, not to lead the meetings or make

5.

the final decisions, not to do the work for the mothers. They were there to be with the mothers – as friends and partners.

Leadership requires walking with. This issue of The Journal focuses on poverty. All the numbers are going in the wrong direction.Kansas is a more impoverished state todaythan it was last month or last year. One interpretation could be that too many of us are trying to walk for the poor. We make financial contributions to worthy charities, we say some prayers for the poor, we passlaws for the poor, etc. We pat ourselves on the back for what we did for others.

I need to emulate Uncle Bob. I’m not walkingacross continents, but am trying to walk withour brothers and sisters in poverty. You’ll read about the Circles effort in this issue. My involvement with the Wichita Circles effort is one of my attempts at walking with.

Leadership on tough – adaptive – challenges is about walking with.

There are no easy solutions to adaptive challenges. There is no walking for in adaptive work.

Thinking that we are leading for others is a slippery slope to our efforts getting nowhere.Exercising leadership on adaptive work is about creating the conditions for the peoplethemselves to do the work.

In adaptive work, the people you are trying to lead or help – whether they are the poor, the rich, your staff or your neighbors – will respond best to you being with them, not doing for them. Learning the difference is key.

Onward!

Ed O’MalleyPresident & CEOKansas Leadership Center

DIsPAtcHesFROM THE KANSAS LEADERSHIP CENTER

IN SEARCH OF THE BEST LABEL

If you’ve completed a Kansas Leadership Center program, we currently refer to you as being one of our “alumni.” But it’s possible that there may be an even better label.

KLC wants to engage with all of our current and former participants for continued learning, experimenting and sharing as we make moreprogress for the common good. What word do you think best describes your ongoing relationship with KLC?

Share your thoughts with Lynda Wilkinson, KLC’s director of alumni engagement, lwilkinson@kansasleadershipcenter.org, and read her blog on the topic at http://kansasleadership-center.org/blog/2014/06/19/what’s-in-a-word-we-hope-it’s-an-on-going-relationship

IMPROVING TEACHING SKILLS

Two workshops scheduled for this fall at KLC will allow leadership instructors and trainers to hone their skills at using experiential methods to teach leadership.

A two-day Train the Teacher course in Case Teachingwill be offered Sept. 25-26. Participants will developtheir skills in facilitating the case study method oflearning using materials developed by the KansasLeadership Center.

Facilitators interested in developing their capacity to teach using the Case-in-Point method can attend a Train the Teacher workshop on Oct. 29-30. Participants should have some previous experience with the method. Case-in-Point, whichwas pioneered at Harvard’s Kennedy School of

Government, brings lessons to life by having theclass of participants learn about exercising leadershipthrough their own interactions. To learn more, visithttp://kansasleadershipcenter.org/traintheteacheror contact Racquel Thiesen at 316-772-1102 orrthiesen@kansasleadershipcenter.org.

BOOK GARNERING HONORS

“For the Common Good: Redefining Civic Leadership,”a book written by two of KLC’s founders about a morepurposeful, engaging and provocative approach toleadership, has been receiving international recognition.

The 180-page book written by Senior Fellow David D. Chrislip and KLC President and CEO Ed O’Malleyrecently won a 2014 Next Generation Indie BookAward in the category of current events/socialchange. It was also named a finalist for the Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Award in socialscience and is in contention for the “Outstanding Leadership Book of the Year” award being given by the University of San Diego’s Department ofLeadership Studies.

The book is designed to be a useful resource for people wanting to improve civic culture and makeprogress on the issues they care about. It can be purchased online at Amazon.com.

PASTORING THE PASTORS

Faith leaders devote themselves to caring for theirflock, often to the exclusion of their own well-being.By spending so much time on urgent issues there is little chance to reflect on important matters.

KLC’s For the Common Good: Transforming FaithCommunities held a series of one-day Finding Clarityretreats for faith leaders across the state in June and

6.

July. Using the Immunity to Change framework created by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, the retreats called upon faith leaders to spend a dayfocused on a current leadership challenge in whichthey felt stuck. More than 100 Kansans took part in this effort. Participants reported breakthrough moments and greater insight on how progress could be made.

EXPLORE LEADERSHIP AND PUBLIC SPEAKING

Would you like to explore the connection betweenspeaking effectively to groups and the exercise of leadership?

A public speaking skills workshop being conductedat KLC on Oct. 14 will allow KLC alumni to developtheir capacity at public speaking in order to makeprogress on a leadership challenge. For more information,please contact Audrey Hane at hanea@newmanu.edu.

BUILDING COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP

Driven by a goal of creating new leadership development opportunities for under-representedKansans, 12 community-based organization kickedoff their year-long work with KLC this summer.

The Building Community Leadership program is designed to help groups gain the knowledge and skills needed to offer their own sustainable leadership development initiatives to audiences that they are uniquely positioned to serve. The goal of the effort is to increase the numbers ofKansans who are able to participate in high-qualityleadership development programs close to home or with organizations in which they have a high degree of trust.

ENROLLMENT OPPORTUNITIES

Individuals willing to care more, engage more andrisk more on behalf of their community or organizationwill have multiple opportunities to improve their leadership skills and make progress this fall.

Your Leadership Edge programs targeted at Kansans, but open to those from out-of-state, will be offered Sept. 22-24 and Oct. 15-17 in Wichita at the Kansas Leadership Center & Kansas Health Foundation Conference Center. A Kansas City-area Your Leadership Edge programwill also be offered Oct. 22-24 at University of Kansas-Edwards Campus in Overland Park.

Visit the www.kansasleadershipcenter.org for moreinformation and stay tuned for additional enrollmentopportunities at the website.

NEW RESOURCE AVAILABLE

A new aid to help KLC participants learn leadership lessons will be available this fall. For the CommonGood: Participant Handbook is designed to work inconcert with KLC’s For the Common Good program of leadership learning. It contains chapters designed to help you prepare for a KLC program, make the most of your experience and continue experimentingin leadership upon returning home.

The participant handbook can be purchased on Amazon.com. Additional titles coming soon from KLC Press include a practical guide to leadership that breaks down the For the Common Good principles and competencies and a teaching guide that explores how to use KLC’s methods of instruction, including Case-in-Point, case studies,coaching and traditional teaching.

7.

Thomas Stanley, a program managerfor the Kansas Leadership Center’sfaith initiative, speaks during a FindingClarity workshop in Manhattan. Theone-day gatherings are designed tohelp individuals active in their faithcommunities, including pastors, makeprogress on what they care about.

how to win the fight

S IX LEADERSH IP STEPS ANYONE

CAN TAKE TO HELP PAVE

A PATH TO PROSPER ITY FOR

KANSAS CH ILDREN

8.

The problem feels daunting. The number of children in poverty isgrowing in Kansas. Easy, quick-fix solutions are hard to come by.

Childhood poverty in Kansas is, by all accounts, an incredibly challenging and complex problem. It can make your head spin trying to unravel all the layers that surround it. It is a difficultdilemma. But it is most certainly not an insurmountable one.

We already know something about how to fight childhood poverty in Kansas. Experts tell us it takes social programs thathelp provide adequate relief. Faith communities, charities andnonprofits that meet unmet needs and help people set their lives on a better path. Early-childhood development that givesyoung people the best start possible in life. Education that provides skills for a lifetime of success. Good jobs that payenough for parents to live on. Stable and supportive families and communities. And hope that we live in an environment whereit’s possible for anyone to create a better future for themselves.

Despite the challenges, we see small victories against povertyevery day in Kansas. But we clearly need many, many more, and for those wins to add up to something greater. The questionisn’t about whether we can make progress. It’s whether we canmuster the will – the leadership – to do it on a much biggerscale. And it’s whether more people in Kansas are willing to care more, engage more and risk more on behalf of paving a path to prosperity for our state’s children over the long haul.

That’s where you, the reader, come in. This edition of The Journal isn’t just a collection of compelling stories. It’s a roadmap of sorts. We’ve set out six leadership steps that anyone can take to help our state make progress on addressing childhoodpoverty. Each story in the issue illustrates one of the steps.

Whether you’re a full-time advocate with decades of experience or someone wishing to help for the first time on the issue, thisJournal is designed to inspire you to think about how to lead more effectively.

The responsibility of making Kansas a healthier place for all children doesn’t belong to any one person, any one organization.Or government official. Or government entity. It ultimately belongs to all of us. And when our state’s children are denied the opportunityto fully develop their potential because of circumstances far beyondtheir control, we all end up losing in the long run.

But if more of us were able to stretch ourselves to do a bit more – to tackle something that’s just on the edge of what we can do –we might be surprised at the extent to which we can turn the tideon childhood poverty in Kansas. We’ll never know unless we try.

--CHRIS GREEN, Journal managing editor

SPECIALEDITIONCH ILDHOOD POVERTY IN KANSAS

STEP 1:WORK TO UNDERSTAND

THE ISSUE MORE DEEPLY.

PG. 10

STEP 2:BUILD RELATIONSHIPS

WITH THOSE IN NEED AND

IMMERSE YOURSELF IN

THEIR PERSPECTIVES.

PG. 20

STEP 3:EXPLORE CHALLENGING

VIEWPOINTS ON THE ISSUE

AND LOOK FOR NEW ALLIES.

PG. 32

STEP 4:THINK CAREFULLY ABOUT

SOMETHING MORE YOU

CAN DO PERSONALLY.

PG. 40

STEP 5:TAKE ACTION, EVEN

SMALLER STEPS, WITH

OTHERS AND LEARN

FROM THE EXPERIENCE.

PG. 52

STEP 6:INNOVATE AND BROADEN

YOUR EFFORTS FOR

A BIGGER IMPACT.

PG. 66

9.

7.

STEP

UNDERSTANDTHE ISSUE

1

By Dawn Bormann Novascone

10.

w h at

e v e ry

k a n s a n

n e e d s

t o k n ow

a b o u t

C H I L D H O O D P O V E R T Y

12.

he conversation about childhood poverty is at times loud and confrontational. It’s piercing and divisive. But the cold hard truth is that mostly it’s heartbreakingly quiet.

It’s easy to get bogged down sorting through infinitesimal details about which poverty number

is better and what agency is more reliable. Kansas lawmakers hearfrom one group, and within weeks another group disputes the facts.Confusion shrouds the problem. It obstructs good ideas from some ofthe brightest thinkers. It leaves the average citizen wondering whomto trust. The problem is so overwhelming and complex that it can seemeasier to dispute or ignore the statistics than to find a place to help.

Then take into account that many middle-class families are still struggling to recover from the economic recession themselves. Making time to solve weighty societal problems – even a moral and ethical dilemma like childhood poverty – isn’t a priority.

Meanwhile, childhood poverty grows at an alarming rate. About 1 in 5 Kansas children lives in poverty according to Census figures.Another calculation pegs it at nearly 1 in 4. It’s a national problem.The percentage of children living in poverty in the U.S. has gone up as well.

Too many Kansans are not getting the help they need to move theirfamilies out of poverty and into the middle class. Poverty impactsevery Kansan regardless of their financial wherewithal. It comes at agreat financial toll, be it through higher crime rates, special educationK-12 spending or low graduation rates and an unprepared workforce.

Every dollar invested in helping at-risk children pays incredible long-term rewards. But boosting prevention programs for the state’spoorest citizens is hardly appealing at a time when state revenueshave fallen.

A 10-year trend shows that several poverty indicators have increasedsteadily, including government anti-poverty programs that provideschool lunches, health care for low-income children and assistancebuying food. At the same time, fewer families have qualified for government welfare programs that provide cash assistance to low-income people. The oddity has happened since 2011 wheneligibility standards for cash assistance were changed. The eligibilitystandards show a clear line where philosophical differences on childhood poverty become profound.

Competing Strategies

As much as Americans – Kansans included – criticize social welfare programs, there is a simple truth: Government programs help provide relief.

CHILDHOOD POVERTYHAS GROWN

IN KANSAS. RAPIDLY.

ESTIMATED NUMBER OF CHILDREN LIVING

BELOW POVERTY LEVEL

The percentage of children living in poverty

has gone from 12 percent in2000 to 19 percent in 2012.The estimated number of

Kansas children living belowthe official poverty line has

grown from 80,000 to 135,000,a nearly 70 percent increase.That’s almost twice the rate

it’s increased nationally.

200080,000

2012135,000

t

13.

The implementation is where philosophical ideals collide. There arediffering perspectives on what actually lifts people out of poverty. Advocates say government aid offers a life preserver that keeps people afloat until they find their own footing.

Critics worry it discourages parents from getting jobs. A good example of those differences is unfolding this very moment withinstate government.

The administration of Gov. Sam Brownback has not backed awayfrom new limits on cash assistance, which is the kind of governmentaid typically seen as welfare. In Kansas, a family of four can receive a range of $450 to $500 a month. It’s not good for alcohol, tobaccoor lottery tickets. And the clock begins ticking the day the first checkis cut. In Kansas, recipients are limited to 48 months of aid through-out their lifetime. It used to be 60 months.

Brownback has said the stricter standards were imposed for a clearreason: to encourage adults to get back to work faster and achievelong-term self-sufficiency. The country has spent billions on short-term solutions that haven’t worked, he has argued. Isn’t it time to try something else?

The state is open to new ideas, says Phyllis Gilmore, secretary of the Kansas Department for Children and Families. For starters,she wants to make mental health a priority.

The number of people receiving temporary assistance has beenfalling in recent years, and the program has accumulated a larger reserve fund. Gilmore’s agency wants to channel welfare dollars into “worthwhile programs that help prevent poverty,” which she says are exactly the places they’re supposed to go.

The philosophy doesn’t sit well with everyone. Some advocates also want the state to begin spending at least some of its $47 million cash assistance reserve fund on Kansans – now. Moneymight not be the only answer, but it does help pay the rent and provide gas for job interviews, critics have said. It’s a classic example of the clash of perspectives over childhood poverty between meeting immediate needs and promoting self-sufficiency.

Several advocates across the state believe it’s unthinkable to haveallowed the federal cash assistance reserve to grow so large whileso many families were in need. It’s also not clear to them that thoselosing assistance are able to get jobs to replace that income. The debate grew hotter when the Brownback administration proposedshifting millions from the cash assistance reserve fund for low-incomefamilies to fourth-grade reading programs.

The debate over encouraging self-sufficiency versus meeting needs remains alive in many other aspects of the issue, too, whether it’s

MORE PEOPLE ARESEEKING HELP FROMSOME GOVERNMENTPROGRAM – BUTSOME PROGRAMS ARE SHRINKING.

AVERAGE MONTHLY ENROLLMENT OF CHILDREN

IN THE KANSAS FOOD ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

AVERAGE MONTHLY ENROLLMENT OF CHILDREN

IN THE TEMPORARY ASSISTANCE FOR NEEDY

FAMILIES PROGRAM

200888,314

2013

141,761h

201125,981

h

2013

15,419

14.

expanding health-care coverage for low-income Kansans or reducing food-stamp benefits at the federal level. But some advocates, suchas Shannon Cotsoradis of Kansas Action for Children, wonder ifKansans could frame the discussion in a way that focuses on whatwould help children the most.

“I think we need to spend less time talking about the adults who arerelying on safety-net programs today and probably will be for many yearsto come, and we need to spend more time on how we make surethat today’s poor children don’t become tomorrow’s poor adults. Ourfocus is entirely in the wrong place,” says Cotsoradis, the organization’schief executive and a partner with the Kansas Leadership Center whois attempting to change the conversation on childhood poverty in Kansas.

What’s at Stake

ven when we fight over our perspectives, it’s clear that there’s substantial human capital lost when children don’t find pathways out of poverty. But quantifying that work is difficult.

“The data in and of itself doesn’t get to the reason of why people are poor, so it does leave it to some-

one’s philosophical beliefs to fill in the blanks,” says Karen Wulfkuhle,executive director of United Community Services of Johnson County.

Value judgments take over: The poor make bad decisions. Theywaste money on iPhones. They don’t work. Regardless, economistsagree that attending to the issue of poverty is imperative. It savesmoney in the long run.

By now many of us know about the figures: Every dollar invested canpay significant dividends down the road. Some estimate annual re-turns of quality early-childhood education at 10 percent.

It’s especially true for at-risk children, according to Nobel laureateeconomist James Heckman. He estimates a nearly 7 percent to 10percent annual rate of return on the investment when one calculateslower crime rates, better overall health, lower social welfare costsand more. “There are very, very few government programs that have any rates of return close to this,” says Heckman, from the Universityof Chicago, on his website. Cotsoradis adds another complexity tothe situation in Kansas.

“In Kansas we grow our own. People don’t flock here. So if we’relosing nearly one in four kids because they’re growing up in povertywithout access to good educational opportunities, health care, all thethings they need to grow up to be healthy contributing adults, that really has huge implications for our future workforce and our futureeconomic prosperity,” she says. “So it makes a lot of sense to talkabout why we want to invest in these kids.”

GOVERNMENT AIDHELPS THE POOR. BUT NOBODY’S THRIVING ON IT.

CASH ASSISTANCE THAT A FAMILY OF FOUR CAN

RECEIVE IN KANSAS*

PER PERSON AVERAGE MONTHLY FOOD ASSISTANCE BENEFIT IN KANSAS

$124.19PER PERSON

OR ABOUT:

$4.12PER DAY

*The funds cannot be used on alcohol, tobacco

or lottery tickets.

$450-$500PER MONTH

limited to 48 months(used to be 60 months)

e

15.

But there’s something else: the link between childhood poverty andbrain development. Scientists, pediatricians, sociologists and othersare sounding the alarm about the toll of long-term stress on a child’snon-cognitive brain development. Research indicates that skills such asself-control, resilience and reasoning are affected by long-term stress.

Children living in poverty might not know where their family is movingnext or when the next meal is coming. They are sometimes exposedto violence, drug use and a series of poor decisions. The traumatakes a toll.

It’s something that some prison officials in Kansas have discussedfor years. But it’s getting more mainstream attention in recent years.

Elementary and middle school teachers are paying especially closeattention to children’s home lives. Soft skills are so important thatearly-childhood programs such as the Shawnee Mission Parents as Teachers program encourages parents to start teaching childrenyounger than 3 to learn coping strategies. It’s a small start, but alsoanother reminder how much the deck ends up being stacked against children who happen to born into poverty.

When you’re a poor kid, even where you live can work against you. Just living in a community where people are more segregatedby their incomes reduces your chances for social mobility.

Pathways

here is no sure-fire fix to end childhood poverty. There’s no simplistic checklist for scholars, social service groups, government agencies and the public to follow. And there’s no crystal ball to give the conclusion either.

Here’s what we do know.

Studies say social mobility – the ability to rise above the economicclass you were born into – hasn’t changed that much over time. But the middle class is being squeezed smaller. Families are fallinginto low-income and poverty categories at noteworthy rates. It’s allhappening as the U.S. economy continues to undergo changes withthe decline in manufacturing and agriculture jobs.

As the world has become more competitive, higher levels of education and creative skills have become more prized. Our economyhas become more about consumption and providing services insteadof making things. Many of the paths that provided stable, decent-payingjobs with benefits to people with high school educations or lowerhave disappeared.

t

WE’RE EXTREMELY DIVIDED AS A COUNTRY

OVER WHETHER GOVERNMENT AID IS A GOOD IDEA –AND THE DIVIDE IS ESPECIALLY STARK

ALONG PARTISAN LINES.

PERCENTAGE OF DEMOCRATSWHO SEE AID FOR THE

POOR AS HELPFUL

PERCENTAGE OF REPUBLICANSWHO SEE AID FOR THE

POOR AS HARMFUL

66%

65%

14.

The proliferation of low-wage jobs in Kansas and throughout thecountry means that more Kansans work full time and still cannot movetheir families above the poverty line. Not only do the jobs pay little,but such key ingredients as health insurance, sick time and stabilityare missing. In Kansas, about 23 percent of all jobs are classified aslow wage, according to the Assets & Opportunity Scorecard publishedby the Corporation for Enterprise Development, a national nonprofitthat advocates on behalf of low-income families and communities.

At the same time, family structures have been upended with divorceand single-parenthood becoming increasingly common. Two-incomefamilies have become the norm, and are increasingly important tokeeping the middle class afloat.

The moral dilemma of childhood poverty becomes especially com-pounded because poverty looks different than it did several decadesago. Material belongings once easily identified the haves versus the have nots. That’s changed. Falling prices – the Walmart effect – on consumer goods have made it more likely that a family living in poverty can afford basic consumer products like clothes, toys and even an iPhone. But dramatic price increases on things such as child care and a college education make it increasingly more difficult for families to break the cycle.

Individual decisions do matter, but there are broader social and economic forces beyond an individual’s control that make the odds of rising out of poverty so long.

One-on-one counseling – conducted by state and nonprofit groups – helps. Money is an important part of the equation but even that is not a magic elixir. Poverty would exist if every public and privatedollar was diverted to the issue.

But there is one thing everyone involved can agree upon: Jobs are an essential way out of poverty. “One of the number one thingsthat I think we know is that full-time employment is the number one way out of poverty,” Gilmore says.

Wulfkuhle agrees. She wonders how to bring more businesses intothe conversation about childhood poverty. It would mean creatingmore family-friendly policies allowing employees to stay home withsick children. It would mean a frank discussion about increasingwages through government requirements or employer decisions.

As it stands, she believes that narrow groups of people – state andcounty governments, schools, some faith communities and nonprofitagencies – are working to solve the massive childhood poverty problemwithout some essential thinkers at the table.

“I don’t think (the conversation) is happening in the business community – in that place where the real solution lies in terms of wages,” Wulfkuhle says. There is something – beside jobs – that many agree must be part of the solution. More people need to get involved. Government isn’t the only answer.

MOST CHILDREN INPOVERTY HAVE A

PARENT WHO WORKS.

16.

34PERCENTAGE OF

CHILDREN IN POORFAMILIES WHO HAD

AT LEAST ONE PARENT WHO WAS

EMPLOYED FULL-TIME,YEAR-ROUND

44PERCENTAGE OF

CHILDREN IN POORFAMILIES WHO HAD

A PARENT WHOWORKED PART-YEAR

OR PART-TIME

22PERCENTAGE OF

CHILDREN IN POORFAMILIES WHO

DID NOT HAVE AN EMPLOYED PARENT

THE CHILDREN OF SINGLE PARENTS ARE MUCH MORE LIKELY TO FALL INTO POVERTY.

MARRIED COUPLES WITH CHILDREN WHO

FELL BELOW THEPOVERTY LEVEL

(2012)

SINGLE MOTHERSWHO FELL BELOW

THE POVERTY LEVEL (2012)

6.8%

38%47%

SINGLE MOTHERS WITH CHILDREN

ONLY UNDER AGE 5WHO FELL BELOW

THE POVERTY LEVEL(2012)

18.

“It’s all of us doing what we can together. Government cannot doeverything and cannot do it alone,” Gilmore says.

The secretary wants to see stakeholders from communities acrossKansas come up with creative ways to address the root problemswithin their region. Some of this already takes place, but Gilmorewould like to see more. Jobs must be part of the equation everywhere.Others agree. Kansans must step up and do more.

But where do they start?

The Kansas Association of Communication Action Programs hassome ideas.

Community Action outreach director Jesyca Hope Rodenberg says small steps, even tipping better at restaurants, helps. But she suggests Kansans start talking about the problem. Don’t wait for government policy to make changes. Create the change by voting, calling lawmakers, talking to your co-workers and asking your boss about paid sick leave and minimum wage, she says. Engage in meaningful conversation on social media.

But meaningful conversation demands respect, she says. Don’t unfriend someone on Facebook because you don’t agree with them.

“It is OK that we disagree with each other. It’s not OK that we don’t listen to each other,” she says. She urges the public to be respectful of the poor as well.

She urges Kansans to stop worrying about how poor families spend their food stamp money – laws do a good job of regulatingthat already – and start thinking about how it feels to lose the freedom to plan a menu for their own family.

“I would be aghast if strangers were allowed to judge me based on what I have in my grocery basket,” she says. “I just want peopleto think about it.”

Another key step, Rodenberg says, is for people to start listening andunderstanding what would truly help those in need in their communities.

There are other, more immersive ways to better understand the challenges of poverty. Kansans can invite the Kansas Association of Community Action Programs to come to their organization, workplace or nonprofit and conduct a program called Poverty Simulation.It is designed to help people understand the frustration and confusionthat Kansans experience while struggling to maintain employmentwithout money to pay for food, school supplies, child care, mortgage,insurance and gas. Before participants leave, they’re asked to writedown what they’ll do to help.

POVERTY NUMBERSARE A GOOD INDICATOROF RISING NEED IN

KANSAS. BUT THEY’RENOT SIMPLE.

FEDERAL POVERTY LEVEL IN KANSAS

$23,850FOR A FAMILY OF 4

But children living in families with twice that level of incomecan be considered low income.

Yet the official poverty rate measures only pre-tax income

and doesn’t consider governmentbenefits or factor in how the

costs of housing, taxes and childcare vary from state to state.Supplemental poverty rates

compiled by the government could provide a better sense ofhow rich or poor people feel.

SUPPLEMENTAL POVERTY RATE FOR EVERYONE

IN KANSAS*

*ADULTS AND CHILDREN

OFFICIAL AVG.14.5%

SUPPLEMENTAL AVG.11.5%

from 2010 to 2012

2.9%LOWER

19.

At a recent Poverty Simulation session held in Johnson County, severalparticipants were already volunteering for programs aimed at children.But many wanted to do more. A Shawnee Mission teacher organizesa group focused on childhood poverty at her Wellsville church. Sheacknowledges that it took her awhile to get past her perception ofwelfare abuse with some. But eventually she decided that childhoodpoverty was too widespread to ignore.

“I can focus on the abuse and to me all that does is relieve my conscience,” she says. “It assuages my guilt.”

Instead she’s decided to focus on something more basic when itcomes to thinking about childhood poverty.

“It’s not us-versus-them,” she says. “It’s all of us.”

ABOUT THIS STORY:

Journal writer Dawn Bormann Novascone interviewed more than two dozen Kansans and national experts and advocates for this story. She also reviewed a variety of legislative testimony,employment data, poverty data, economic studies and opinionpieces. Her research also included participating in the Poverty Simulation within her community and reviewing reports focused on the long-term effects of childhood poverty.

Bormann Novascone also drew on her own experience and training as a volunteer Court Appointed Special Advocate working within the family court system, and 15 years as a newspaper reporter covering some of the state’s wealthiest and poorest communities,youth issues, crime and politics.

LOWERCRIMEREATES

LOWER SOCIALWELFARECOSTS

INVESTING IN HIGH QUALITY, EARLY

CHILDHOOD EDUCATION CAN MAKE A

HUGE DIFFERENCE.NOBEL LAUREATE

ECONOMIST JAMES HECKMAN ESTIMATES A NEARLY

7-10%ANNUAL RATE OF RETURN ON THE INVESTMENT IN AT-RISK

CHILDREN WHEN ONE CALCULATES

BETTEROVERALLHEALTH

Maria Padilla’s day is probably much like yours. She gets

up in the morning and wakes her children, then delivers them to three different schools.

School and activity schedules differ, so sometimes she needs to make two trips. The youngest, a kindergartener, has half-day school, so Maria

picks her up and then eats lunch with her.

The Salina woman shuttles the kids to appointments and makes sure they have what they need. The familyhas joined the local YMCA to try to live a healthier life, and they always try to eat dinner together. Maria loves

to gather everyone at the end of the day. She likes to keep a clean house and is an excellent cook.

MARIA IS ALSO STRUGGLING TO LIFT HERSELF AND HER FAMILY

OUT OF POVERTY.

20.

STEP

2BUILD RELAT IONSH IPS

AND IMMERSE YOURSELF

21.

Maria Padilla and her daughter Amy look out the window of

their home in Salina.

18.

Maria sits in the middle of her family on the front porch of their home in Salina. Her children are, clockwise from left, Carla, Juan,

Jack, Michelle and Amy.

Then she met the man who became her husband.When she looks back, Maria sees that things startedto go wrong as soon as she moved in with him. “Hewould want to do things that single men do, go out,drink, things like that. He wasn’t responsible.” Sheleft him for a time and went to Georgia with somefamily members, but he followed her. He also hit her.She now knows she was living with domestic violence.“You get used to it,” she says. “Someone else seesit, but you don’t.”

When Maria accompanied her husband to visit familyin California, he offered some acquaintances a rideback to Georgia. Maria remained behind with theirthree children; the plan was for her husband to comeback for them. When driving across Kansas, the menwere stopped. The highway patrolman asked if hecould search the car, and the men agreed. One of thepassengers had what Maria calls “something” in hisbackpack, and all the men were arrested. Maria rodethe train to Kansas with her kids to get her husbandout of jail. They never left.

Maria and her husband had two more children, buttheir relationship didn’t improve. He often refused to contribute to the household in any way other thanworking on weekends; when Maria would returnhome after work, he hadn’t changed the baby’s diaperall day and expected her to cook a large meal and doall the cleaning and other home maintenance tasks.Maria says her friends would ask her, “Don’t you see how he treats you?”

Then he started mistreating the kids. The oldestdaughter, Michelle, was particularly bothered by hisverbal abuse. One day when Maria was at work, shethought, “Maybe he will die soon, and I will be free.”She realized that she was wishing for her husband’sdeath, and that something had to change. She toldher children later that week that she had to leave and that they could choose to go with her or remainwith their father. They all chose to go with her.

They left with nothing.

Maria came to California from Mexico at age 19 because she wanted to help her family achieve a better life. Finding a job was difficult because her education had ended at sixth grade, and the language barrier and cultural differences troubled her. “In Mexico, you walk places,but here you don’t do that. People are locked up in their houses,” she says, and when she did meet people, they didn’t speak Spanish. Unable to speak the language, her confidence crumbled.

By Sarah Caldwell Hancock

23.

24.

STARTING OVER

In some ways, Maria was lucky, because she wasable to go to a shelter in Salina. “They welcomed me and wanted me to feel comfortable,” Maria says.“They bought a lot of food because they knew I cook.The shelter is on top of the building and the office isbelow, and everyone would say, ‘Maria is cooking!’They wanted me to have whatever I need.”

Maria’s needs went beyond housing and food. Shequit her job when she went to the shelter becauseshe feared her husband would follow her and causeproblems for her at work. She lacked legal papers to work, and even though she could find jobs atrestaurants, she was always afraid. The Domestic Violence Association of Central Kansas helped herconquer her fear by assisting her in obtaining a legalwork permit. She also was placed at the top of the list for a house through the Salina Housing Authority.

While sorting our her legal problems, including a divorce, and meeting her family’s immediate need for shelter, Maria set about supporting herself. Sheworked at a grocery store for a year, a chain restaurantfor eight months and a chocolate factory in a seasonalposition for a few months. She worked at a pizza factorythroughout 2013. In addition to supporting her family,she wanted to demonstrate her desire to work so herrecord is solid when she’s able to apply for citizenshipin three more years.

When working at the factory, Maria woke up at 4 a.m.and returned home at 4 p.m. The schedule left her exhausted, and the $1,200 she made each monthwasn’t enough. The housing authority charged her income-based rent of $550, so she was able to payrent and for car insurance for herself and her oldestdaughter, but she often couldn’t stretch her incomeenough to keep food on the table.

Maria’s eyes brim with tears when she talks aboutthis experience. She asked herself, “I am working,but why don’t I have food?” She felt helpless, yet

reluctant to ask for assistance. “What people don’tunderstand is that it’s embarrassing. We don’t wantto go and ask for help,” she says.

When she finally relented and went to a local foodbank, a volunteer looked her up and down then triedto send her elsewhere. “I look clean, my shoes don’thave mud. You have to go smelling bad or look like a hobo or smell like alcohol, or they think you don’tneed the help. I think maybe she wanted me to lookbad or ugly so she could help me,” Maria says. Thesituation was later rectified by another staff member,but Maria felt humiliated.

Besides her kids, the thing that kept Maria going wasa desire for education. She puts it simply: “I want toget my GED to get a better job.” Her English is nowexcellent, and she knows bilingual staff members areneeded in courthouses, schools and hospitals. Shealso watched her oldest daughter, Michelle, leavehome for college at Fort Hays State University.Michelle wants to be a nurse, and Maria wants to liveup to her own potential as Michelle achieves hers.

Maria’s voice breaks when she talks about Michelle.The emotion is a complicated concoction of love,pride and inadequacy. “When she enrolled in college,she did everything,” Maria says. “I don’t know anythingabout that — this is the first generation in college.She filled out all the papers. She doesn’t even wantto ask me for money,” she explains. Michelle workedand paid the application fees herself.

In the hope of accelerating the process of obtaining her GED, Maria made the difficult decision to quitworking so she can spend more time at the adult education center. As soon as she drops her youngestoff at kindergarten, she goes to the education centerto study. She returns in the afternoons when she canto log additional time. Her progress has been slow,but it’s becoming easier. “My writing and readinghave improved, so I don’t need any help,” she says.“It feels pretty good. I wish sometimes I could staythere for seven hours.”

25.

Maria’s biggest challenge is balancing her prioritiesand responsibilities to her family, her education andher adopted country. She admits that she cries withfrustration at times when she doesn’t have money topay a bill, but she remains optimistic. “I have to bepositive because positive brings positive things. I don’twant negative; I want positive in my life,” she says.

CIRCLES: POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

Circles of the Heartland is a major source of the positive message that Maria can finally achieve her goal of a better life. Maria heard about Circles, a self-funded nonprofit with eight sites in Kansas and more than 70 in the U.S. and Canada, in the Family Self-Sufficiency program through the SalinaHousing Authority. The Salina group started in February2012 and offered its inaugural class in May 2013. Maria contacted Rodney Denholm and Shelly Martin,program administrators, who urged her to apply.

A 14-week Getting Ahead class is the first step in Circles’ long-term approach to helping participantsfind a path out of poverty. The curriculum helps thosein the class analyze their current situations, includingwhere their money goes, how they spend their time,how to calculate debt-to-income ratios, and thecauses of poverty. A workbook discusses conceptssuch as the hidden rules of economic class and important differences in language with the goal of helping people learn new problem-solving approaches rather than living subject to the “tyranny of the moment.”

Shelly explains that the class works because peoplestruggling to attain financial stability often bouncefrom crisis to crisis and don’t have the same life experiences as those raised in the middle class. “We learn from our parents, this is how you handlethis, this is a checkbook, this is savings, this is a retirement account – we know those terms and understand those things. They’re just experiences,but they’re not written down anywhere,” she says.“It’s a huge barrier for those who live in poverty.”

Class participants also learn about building resourcesand setting goals. When the class concludes, graduatesbecome circle leaders – the center of the circle – andare matched with allies, who surround the leaders.Allies go through their own training to learn about theexperience of those in poverty in general and their circle leaders in particular, then they serve the leadersby meeting with them weekly and offering support.Their role is to encourage leaders as they meet theirgoals, not to offer instruction or unsolicited advice or meet material needs. Including the Getting Aheadclass, circle leaders commit to at least 18 months of Thursday meetings.

Deb Marseline serves as an ally and is teaching thecurrent Getting Ahead class. As a former social workerand college instructor of social work, she says shehas always believed people have potential and capacitybut are hindered by their circumstances. “Getting involved as an ally, I support somebody and show themthat they have survived a lot and that they have theskills and capacities to change their situation,” she says.

Deb has seen the program make a huge difference to circle leaders and the new Getting Ahead class because it gives them a community. Meetings typicallybegin with a meal, and the Circles staff provides activities for the children so the adults can focus. Participants and allies make the meetings a priorityand are eager to connect. “People who are on thefringe or feel isolated now have a community wherepeople love and support them despite their situation,”she says.

The support has made all the difference to Maria. “I want a better future for my kids. And that’s whatI’m doing, I’m trying to go to school to learn and get a better job. When you come to the program, youknow what you want, and they say they’re going tohelp you follow that goal,” she says. The programsteeled her resolve and helped her have the confidenceto make the difficult decision to quit her job so shecould concentrate on school and family. “Circles has made me brave,” Maria says. “I wasn’t like thisbefore. I see what I want. My allies have helped me a lot. Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to do

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF MARIA

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Maria and Amy leave for school, the first of two trips Maria will make to transport her children to school that day. She takes Amy first and then comes back for her older sister Carla; despite a busy morning, Maria finds time for prayer; Maria gets a hug from Circles of the Heartland coordinator Shelly Martin at a meeting in Salina; each night Maria tucks Amy into bed after reading her a book and saying a goodnight prayer with her.

“I want a better future for my kids. And that’s what I’m doing, I’m trying to go to school to learn and get a better job ...

I wasn’t like this before. I see what I want. My allies have helped me a lot. Sometimes I feel like I don’t want to do something, but they tell me ‘C’mon, you can do it!’”

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Maria studies for herGED diploma during the day in hopes of obtaining a better job; Maria hugs Anna Prockish, a Circles coach, during a Circles of the Heartland meeting in Salina. Circles has provided a crucial support network for Maria as she works to lift herself and her family out of poverty; Maria reads to her youngest child Amy before bed with help from her daughter Carla; Maria walks with her daughter Michelle in their Salina neighborhood. Michelle is the oldest child of five and is attending Fort Hays State University. She returns home on the weekend to help the family.

something, but they tell me ‘C’mon, you can do it!’” Pat Murray, one of Maria’s allies, has known her onlysince November but is impressed with “this strongand loving woman.” “She’s working on beginning educational things,” Pat says, “and it’s not easy because of everything else she has to do,” notingthat taking care of her family requires much of Maria’sattention. “She’s real persistent and doesn’t give upeven though some days it’s discouraging,” Pat adds.

In addition to offering encouragement, Pat says Circleshelps participants by emphasizing intentionality. Thelarger culture “is loud, fast, garish and competitive,”Pat says, and those qualities don’t nurture growth inthose who are struggling. Circles offers a differentmessage: “Your real self is good enough and is whatmatters. It’s … a way to try to attack or respond orchange, and there’s great hope in that, and joy,” she says.

Shelly Martin says that joy moves both from allies to circle leaders and from circle leaders to allies. DebMarseline agrees and thinks the larger communityhas much to gain. “When we don’t know our neighbors,we’re missing that voice at the table, the amazingstrengths and resilience they have. In some waysthey are creative problem-solvers because they’vehad to be. They have survived things that I wouldn’tknow how to survive,” she says. “The more connectedwe are together, the more interested we are in solvingthe problems together.”

LEARNING LEADERSHIP

Maria demonstrated how far she’s come recently bybringing her voice to the table when Circles sponsoreda poverty simulation. About 100 participants wereplaced in “families” living in poverty. Each family received a scenario and a packet of money and had to meet certain objectives in 20- to 25-minute“weeks,” and families had to make it through fourweeks while navigating a community, paying rent,finding transportation, prioritizing bills and solvingproblems along the way.

Maria participated in the poverty simulation as a volunteer along with other circle leaders. Her stationwas a grocery store where participants could pay incash or food stamps, but the catch was that partici-pants couldn’t speak English. Maria had to tell themthat if they needed help, they could speak Spanish orbring an interpreter. One participant who happens towork at a social services agency balked at this turningof the tables and laughed when Maria told her shecouldn’t speak English. Laughter seemed inappropriateto Maria, so she seized a chance to explain when allwere invited to share at the end of the simulation.

Maria, normally shy about public speaking because of her accent, told everyone what it felt like to be unable to speak the language and therefore unsureabout whether someone was laughing at you. Afterexperiencing the simulation and hearing Maria speak,the participant who laughed admitted that she hadnever realized what non-native English speakersmight be feeling when they come to her for help.“She understood what that felt like,” says Maria,smiling in triumph.

Shelly says Maria’s contribution led others to impor-tant insights. “It helps people to understand moreclearly the picture of poverty and see what familiesare struggling and up against day after day after day in a month. It’s an eye-opening experience for a lot of people,” says Shelly. Clear vision is rapidly becomingimperative: In Saline County, 1 in 4 children live inpoverty. Adults are only slightly better off; for them,the numbers are 1 in 5. Shelly adds that she expectsthose figures to worsen to 1 in 3 and 1 in 4 soon, and that many schools already have 80 percent ormore students qualifying for free or reduced lunch.

Adults and children living in these fragile situationsface an environment that is perhaps kinder to thepoor than a generation or two ago. Government aidand the falling relative costs of many consumer goodshave improved standards of living. But it’s also a climate where the poor are increasingly falling furtherbehind as rungs to prosperity and self-sufficiency –assets like a college education, savings and child care – grow increasingly out of reach.

28.

Before she was involved in Circles, Shelly was anurse. “I worked with low-income people every day,and I thought I could explain exactly what povertywas like in my community. I was so wrong,” shesays. “When I started seeing how devastating thosenumbers were in our community, I realized how badthe problem was.”

Now that Maria is a leader in her own life, has a community around her and is adding her voice to that community, she has a new perspective on herself and her abilities. “I am a stubborn woman,”she says. “I’m doing whatever it is to get my goal.Sometimes I surprise myself.”

Her family is on a good path, too. Amy liked kinder-garten, and Juan succeeded in sixth grade.

Jack, in his teens, has had difficulties in school butworked at Burger King, helped with Amy and prom-ised to study and get good grades so he can serve in the U.S. Army. Carla was a junior and wants to follow in her older sister Michelle’s footsteps and go to college. Carla and Michelle have struggled with the legacy of domestic violence, but both aregetting help.

Aside from raising her kids and seeing them launchsuccessful lives, Maria’s dream is to open a restarant – just a small place or a food truck to begin with, so customers can see if they like it. “That’s why I’mgoing to school, because that’s the goal that I have,”she says. “Later I’m going to say I started from the bottom, and I’m here.”

Shelly thinks Maria will make it. “I’ve seen her grow,” she says, recalling how raptly the poverty simulation participants listenedto her, some with tears in their eyes. “I know her emotion andher desire and need to tell people in the community her vantagepoint made a huge difference. She said, ‘I did it, Shelly.’ I said,‘yes you did, and next time you’ll do it again. Next thing youknow you’ll be not only leading your circle, you’ll be leading the community.’”

29.

SHAR ING THE PA IN

By touching the soul, a heartbreaking song brings new understanding to the tragedy of childhood poverty

By Brian Whepley

Taped, torn, thumbed and now appallingly grungy, my copy of the blue-covered 1983 edition of “TheNew Rolling Stone Record Guide” reveals all kinds of vinyl treasures.

Loving music but unable to play anything but thestereo, I danced into Rolling Stone and any other publication covering rock, punk, blues, soul and whatever else caught my ear. When a five-star review of the album “Watch Your Step” describedTed Hawkins as a cross between soul singer SamCooke and gentle bluesman Mississippi John Hurt

and declared “soul and blues fans need to hear this,” I had a mission: Buy it.

I don’t remember where I picked up “Watch YourStep,” but I’ll never forget the impact. The songs,recorded in 1971 but unreleased for years, were joyful, aching, sad, even hilarious. Some combined all those feelings, but the ones that hit hardestseemed drawn from nowhere but personal experience:“Put in a Cross,” “Sorry You’re Sick,” “I Gave Up All I Had” and “Peace & Happiness.”

None hit harder than “The Lost Ones.” In two minutes and 50 seconds of desolate examples,Hawkins tells of crushing poverty and its toll on thechildren who have no control over their circumstances.The song leaves no doubt Hawkins had seen if notexperienced every bit of the devastation he describes.He was reporting from the front lines and embeddedin emotion.

There’s the tragic reality:Mama is dying and daddy is gone.I’d call the doctor but there’s no telephone.

There’s hunger:Icebox is empty and the food is all gone.This wouldn’t be happening if my daddy was home.

There’s isolation: I’d call the neighbors but I don’t even know their name.They’ve lived there 10 years, oh ain’t that a shame.

There’s no hope:We’ve all tried praying but I don’t know how to pray.

And there’s the chorus’ sad recognition of being written off:We are the lost ones, living all alone.

“The Lost Ones” struck a chord with me, I think, because it struck so many chords. It’s easy to blamethe poor for being poor and then dismiss them. Butone devastating point after another in Hawkins’ lyricsrips that simplistic argument to shreds, just by recitingthe facts. What on earth have these poor kids done to deserve their circumstances? Absolutely nothing,from what I hear.

I’m always looking to hear something new – oftensomething old, actually – when it comes to music. It can be loud, proud, slow, fast, sad, mad or glad, but it must move me. When music connects on a

deep level the way Hawkins’ does, it’s special. I don’tknow if his music changed my life, but it sure made itricher and possibly a bit more thoughtful.

On “The Lost Ones,” Hawkins’ voice takes his striking words and paints pictures in my mind andheart that I just cannot dismiss, making a case thatthe cold, hard facts of printed words alone cannot.Accompanied by his basic guitar – he scratched out a living singing on L.A.’s Venice Beach – his singingcuts to my soul. He has made others’ songs his own– Webb Pierce’s “There Stands a Glass,” Cooke’s“Bring it on Home to Me,” John Fogerty’s “Long as I Can See the Light” – but Hawkins’ own words hit hardest.

They are about not having things – love, parents,medicine, money, a drink, the ability to make goodchoices. But his voice – husky, deep, bouncing, piercing – fills and washes over those voids. It’s a voice that led me to buy copies of “Watch YourStep” from cutout bins and force them upon friends – “You have to hear this. You have to feel this.”

Hawkins knew what he sang. He stole, used drugs,went to reform school and prison, and drifted acrossthe country before settling in L.A. in the 1960s. Repeatedly “discovered” but never finding lastingsuccess, he died of a diabetic stroke on Jan. 1, 1995,eight months after his only major label release.

Hawkins was forever shaped by childhood. Born poor in mid-1930s Mississippi, he never knew his father, and his mother was an alcoholic and aprostitute. “I’d come home and want to be cuddled,but my mother would never cuddle me,” he said in 1993. “She never could love me, and because I never got love, I can never give love. … The onlyway I can share any love is by singing.”

Share he did.

LISTEN TO “The Lost Ones” Hear the song at www.kansasleadershipcenter.org/blog.

Ideology and the povertyissue: Why it matters

Liberals often argue for preservingand enhancing government programsthat ease the strains of poverty,while conservatives tend to criticizethose same initiatives, arguing theyare unaffordable or do more harmthan good. And that’s where the discussion often stops.

The divide over what we think aboutthe social safety net in our country isonly growing steeper as our countrygrows even more ideologically andpolitically polarized. The partisan gapover the social safety net, the PewResearch Center found, representsthe starkest divide in our politics today.

This schism has profound implicationsfor Kansas. Poverty is increasing in thestate at the same time that membersof the Republican Party in Kansas maybe increasingly skeptical of government-based efforts to alleviate it.

Furthermore, nearly 42 percent ofKansans identified themselves asbeing conservatives in a Gallup polllast year. Conservatives represent thelargest ideological group in Kansasand can heavily influence actionspaving the way for a better Kansas.

18.

Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute called for a conservative social justice agenda in an article he wrote for Commentary magazine earlier this year.

STEP

EXPLORE

CHALLENGING

PERSPECT IVES

Launching a conservative crusade against POVERTY

3

In this Q&A, Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute discusses his call for a social movement to build up the institutions of faith, family, community and work and what it could meanfor a place like Kansas. Earlier this year, Brooks wrote an interesting essay titled “Be Open-HandedToward Your Brothers” in Commentary magazine. In it, Brooks, a devout Catholic, argues that peoplewho are ideologically conservative need their own social justice agenda, one consistent with their conservative values. His views certainly won’t resonate with everyone, and he’s been criticized on both the left and the right for them. But in a country where the conversation about poverty is oftenstale and repetitive, Brooks challenges the status quo and gives us all – regardless of our ideology – something new and provocative to be curious about.

By Chris Green

33.

Q: In your magazine essay, you write that, with America continuing to suffer years after the Great Recession, it’s time for conservativesto have “a social justice agenda of their own.” You say a lack of a positive plan makes it possiblefor conservatives to be portrayed as heartless and callous. What has made it difficult for conservatives toarticulate an anti-poverty agenda?

A: To begin with, the conservativeidea of economic growth throughfree enterprise – incidentally that’snot the conservative history goingback very long. It was (PresidentRonald) Reagan on the political side,and (economist Milton) Friedman on the academic side, that were responsible for making free andopen markets a staple of the right.And the way they explained it waspretty revolutionary. The way they explained it was in largely materialterms. They said, “Look, everybody’sgoing to get richer. That’s great, isn’tit?” So the problem is it’s kind of recent and the opening vernacularwas the most obvious argument forthe free enterprise economy. Whichwas “it’s really good for materialprosperity.” Conservatives, therefore,never really learned another way to talk about it.

Q: You talk about the need for a positive social agenda that is “tangible, practical and effective.” For you, thiswould be based on three pillars – TRANSFORMATION, RELIEFand OPPORTUNITY – in that order. Could you please tell meabout each of those pillars and why the order is important?

A: When you talk to people who pull themselves out of poverty, there’snothing theoretical about what they say. They’ll tell you basically thatto pull themselves into mainstream society, to do well, to be happy,to prosper, the first thing that they need to do typically is they gettheir act together. So transformation, moral transformation is requiredas the first step for a lot of people.

Then there is a lot of material relief that has to be dealt with. Butagain you can’t get that sort of stuff until you have the values thatyou want to deal with these kind of things. Then material relief reallykicks in. After that, you have to be able to look toward the future andsay, “Hmmm, if I work hard and play by the rules, I can get somethingreally awesome.” Which is the whole notion of hope and opportunity.

So they follow in that order. Which is really kind of interesting becauseit turns out that that order is upside down from what psychologistsusually talk about.

If you don’t do all of those three things (transformation, relief and opportunity), you’re not going to get the job done and you’re going to either make the problem worse or not solve the problem with vastamounts of cash. And that’s one of the reasons we haven’t solvedthe problems of poverty. The right is pretty good at talking aboutmoral transformation and hope and opportunity but not very goodabout talking about relief. The left, all they can talk about is relief. So the result is they just get stuck sort of talking about welfare thewhole time. Neither side has all the pieces in place, and you need a synthetic solution that will actually get you through all three steps.

TRANSFORMATION RELIEF OPPORTUNITYi i

34.

Q: One of the most eye-catching thingsabout your piece to me was your acknowledgment that there are needyAmericans, that “voluntary charityalone simply cannot get the job doneon its own” and that there’s need for a limited government safety net.As a person passionate about free enterprise, how hard was it to cometo this conclusion? How commonlyheld is the belief in a limited safety net among conservatives today?

A: Virtually all Americans understandthat. You have to spend a whole lot of time in the Ivory Tower to notrealize that there’s need out therethat’s going to go unmet by the$300 billion that goes into private

charity. That’s a lot and that’s abeautiful thing and conservativesdisproportionately give it, but you know, you look at somethinglike Hurricane Katrina where it’spennies on the dollar that weregiven privately for what we needed for recovery in that particular community. What I thinkconservatives need to recognize is that there’s not just a place for a safety net. It’s one of ourgreatest achievements as a society that we’re able to do that.

Safety nets for people who aretruly indigent are a really good andnoble thing, and it’s an incredibletestament to the productivity of our magnificent free enterpriseeconomy that we can afford to do

it, which is precisely the point –that we need to have fiscally sanepolicies so that we can continue to afford the safety net. The reasonyou need to be an economic con-servative, in my view, is that’s theonly way that you can guaranteethe preservation of the safety netfor the most indigent citizens. Thenwe should be able to celebrate it.We’ve got to have conservativesstop saying the safety net is for takers. People do take at certainpoints in their lives. But we shouldbe proud of the fact that we can make that happen, within limitsthat don’t hurt them and their lives,don’t destroy their opportunities,don’t make them permanently dependent and don’t drive oureconomy over a cliff.

A: Not the government. The big role of the government is gettingout of the way of people to transform their lives. Then private society,and civil society has this important role. All of us as citizens should be thinking, “What can I do for the transformation of people who are in poverty and people in need?” And incidentally, “to transform myself as well?” Because we need the same things that poor people do – faith, family, community and work.

And we need to think more about creating these institutions, doingthings that the government really can’t do. Talking more openly about intact families. Trying to keep communities together. Trying to integratepeople who are in poverty into our communities as opposed to shuttingthem out, which is the wrong thing to do morally. And most importantly,to make clear that work is a blessing.

Q: What do you mean by transformation? Whose responsibility is it to do

the work of transforming character and values?

WE’VE GOT TO HAVE CONSERVATIVES STOP

SAYING THE

SAFETY NETIS FOR

TAKERS.

35.

Q: The challenge I would see is that“limited” could be a subjective term. Are you concerned about the goal posts on “limited” being moved over time?

A: For sure. It’s like that in anythingthat you’re doing. It’s the slipperyslope argument that anything canturn into a beast that gobbles upeverything and everybody is desperateand using the safety net. I understandthat that’s the danger but that’s nota good enough argument to not do a safety net.

There really are people who are in need, and we can relieve it.What that is, is a charge for us to be responsible citizens who are self-governing and we rememberwhat actually it means.

Q: I’m trying to imagine what this would look like in real life. If this was something that I cared about in Kansas,what would I be doing to promote this agenda?

A: The two things to be a conservative warrior for, number one, are a really well-ordered culture where we say it’s not OK for culturally liberal forces to be at war against faith, family, community and workbecause that is a war against poor people. In other words, you needto be a culture warrior but not for puritanical or religious reasons butfor social justice reasons.

Number two, it’s to be full bore on the opportunity agenda. Basicallythe opportunity agenda has three parts to it: Number one is to be awarrior for education reform – education policy that’s all about choiceand innovation. Because choice and innovation serve kids as opposedto a system that serves grown-ups.

Second is to be a radical for jobs. We simply can’t have a culturewhere people talk about dead-end jobs. There’s no such thing as adead-end job. There are dead-end people, there’s a dead-end culture,there’s dead-end government, but there are no dead-end jobs. Youneed to have a mentality that all jobs are a blessing and no job is apunishment. Therefore, you have to have a government orientationand a culture orientation toward radical job creation.

The third thing is entrepreneurship, but not entrepreneurship for billionaires. Billionaires will take care of themselves. It’s entrepreneur-ship for low-skill, low-income people. The greatest area of damagesocially that we’ve done through the American economy of late ismaking it harder for low-skill entrepreneurs to get started because of licensing requirements. We need to relax these things and be as true to our roots as we ever were when we talk about landscapingbusinesses, roofing businesses and contracting businesses and all the things that people are going to start.

A: What you find on the left is you get two typical reactions. One is,“Wow, it would be unbelievable if conservatives started talking this way. I could really imagine myself not being a diehard leftist if therewere alternatives.”

Now the second is actually more common. The one that you hear the most.“You conservatives don’t actually want to help poor people. You just wantto win votes,” or “I don’t know what you’re up to buddy, but stop it.”

Now that means you’re doing things absolutely right, when you get thatreaction. The truth is if conservative politicians start talking about socialjustice and make a serious bid for the poor, they’re going to win. And it’snot just one way to win. It’s the only way to win in a country that’s stillsuffering after the recession.

Q: Your piece appears aimed at conservatives.What kind of reception have you received from liberals and moderates?

36.

Q:

Do you get any pushback from conservatives?

A:

Sure. It’s a new way of thinking. Conservatives stand athwart history

shouting stop. But you know, I’m autopian conservative. I believe that wereally can and should make progressall the time. Conservative principlesare fundamentally sound and good

and right, but we have to think aboutthem and frame arguments in new

ways and use conservative principlesovertly to help people who need the

help the most. But when you do that,people will say, “That’s not the way

I think about these things. Thissounds like veiled liberalism.” It’s

actually not. It’s the most conserva-tive thing ever. But it’s a new way oftalking and if you talk in a new way,

you get pushback. But that justmeans you have to make it sticky.

19.

38.

Q: How does this happen though? How might these movements wind up forming in a place like Kansas?

A: For one thing, in Kansas, I’ve been out there. You’ve got like fivechurches for every person. There’s a ton. It’s a very religious state. You have a lot of people who attendreligious service. You have very strong houses of worship out there.One of the things that the religiousmovements need to take on is howthey’re going to reconnect people to meaning in their lives.

Faith is going to be the easiest onefor them to get their minds around,but the other ones are going to be really important, too. Remember,Saint Paul didn’t talk just about havinggreater faith, he talked about leadingmore upright lives. He talked a lotabout family morality. He talked constantly about the integrity of communities. He talked about the importance of work. It’s clear thatthese things are all linked deep in the minds of any social reformer. And it’s going to be religious reform-ers that are going to have the greatestvoices in this. They need to be able to take this on as a big cause.

Q: With so much of our contemporary debate around alleviating poverty focused on government, what will it take to strengthen the institutions of FAITH, FAMILY, COMMUNITY and WORK?

A: Government can affect culture, it really can, but really only citizens can make culture. That’s what social movements are allabout. The key thing is I don’t want people running around saying,“Faith, family, community and work are the most important things for prosperity and happiness, so the government really needs tostart getting serious about policies that will bring people to those institutions.” That will have unintended secondary consequences.I’m enough of a libertarian to know that the most important thingis to stop hurting those institutions. But I’m also enough of a stu-dent of social movements to understand that, at the same time,you can have social entrepreneurs who can fundamentally inflectthe culture.

We’ve had four great enlightenments in the United States wherewe’ve had mass conversion of people returning to their religiousfaith. It’s happened over and over and over again, and dispropor-tionately among the poor you’ve seen this. It was hugely important— it was a beautiful thing for the lives of people that were largelyin disarray, that they were able to find the truth and meaning thatcomes from an honest and well-organized religious life.

Communities form on the basis of social movements and, frankly,we need a social movement for work. It sounds absurd, but we’vegotten rich enough, and we’ve lived with the welfare state longenough that now we need a social movement that’s pro work.Crazy. But we really can do that. It’s happened throughout historyand social reforms come on the basis of those movements.

“COMMUNITIES FORM ON THE BASIS OF

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

AND, FRANKLY, WE NEED A SOCIAL MOVEMENT FOR

WORK.”

Q: I wonder, though, will the people doing this work have to experience moral transformations of their own?

A: I think so. That’s always the case. When you operationalize valueswithin a community it’s because you need some sort of a conversion. I think a lot of people in the United States have decided that the job oftaking care of the poor is just the government’s or that the reason peopleare poor is that they’re stupid and lazy. It’s not limited to people who are secular. I think a lot of religious people believe this, too. And so, of course, you’re going to have to actually have leadership. People want to be heroes. One of the things that I find is that I talk to the moststridently conservative groups and I stand up and say, “Are you going to be a warrior for the poor or not?” It’s a standing ovation line. Peoplewant to be heroes to people who are weaker than they are. They justneed to know what to do.

Kansas is a perfect laboratory for this, by the way, because you have agovernor who understands these principles and you have a Legislaturethat can do a lot of good and you have a lot of religious congregations.What if you had a summit on this? Heck, I’ll come out there and set it up.And basically have the faith leaders and the government leaders aroundthe table and say we’re going to divide and conquer this problem. We’regoing to go back and talk to our congregations. We’re going to go backand talk about how we can stop hurting, and let’s start a movement,man. Let’s start a social movement.

“People want to be heros.... They just need to knowwhat to do.”Learn more about Arthur C. Brooks of the American Enterprise Instituteand read his writing, including hiscolumns for The New York Times, atwww.aei.org/scholar/arthur-c-brooks/.

Arthur Brooks speaks during an American Enterprise Institute event with the Dalai Lama, a key Tibetian Buddhist spiritual figure, earlier this year.

The Planeview neighborhood sits in southeast Wichita. Hastily constructed during the World War II era to house an influx of Boeing defense workers, the area now provides an affordable place to live and hosts networks of new immigrants.

A LEADERSH IP

CASESTUDY

41.

STEP

TH INK ABOUT

WHAT YOU CAN DO

4

whenthe door

slams shut

THE STORY OF CHARL IE SCHWARZ AND H IS CHURCH ’S WORK

IN W ICH ITA ’S PLANEV IEW NE IGHBORHOOD

An idea occurs to him. It’s 2009 and the federal government’s stimulus efforts to bolster the economyare in full swing. Looking around at the community’sramshackle houses, he thinks to himself, “We shouldtear this down. We can take advantage of grants andimprove the neighborhood.”

He didn’t know it then, but Schwarz – lanky, soft-spoken and middle-aged – was hardly the first well-intentioned person to step into Planeview andthink he could do something to help. The trouble was, those good intentions had only rarely translatedinto lasting progress.

Over the years, Planeview had seen its fair share of what 25-year resident Al Rose, a retired UnitedMethodist minister, calls “plop and drop communitydevelopment.” Groups, including local government,would offer help only to pull out after grant fundsdried up. Services that residents had come to counton disappeared.

The pattern had left many residents disillusioned and distrustful of the promises being made to them.While cleanups and other one-day events offered bysome groups tended to work fine, they also didn’t do much to alter the day-to-day challenges Planeviewresidents’ faced -- poverty, lack of transportation andpoor access many services, such as medical care.

Schwarz hadn’t visited the neighborhood, part of aonce-booming “instant city” built decades ago, oreven thought about it for years. But he could suddenlyrecall his time as a teenager, when he had driventhrough the area with a friend and “caused grief,”making their car backfire on purpose.

“Unless you went to Joyland [a now-defunct Wichitaamusement park], you tried to stay away fromPlaneview,” Schwarz says. “As the neighborhood declined, there was nothing there – there’s no reason to go there.”

part aSTANDING IN THE PLANEVIEW NEIGHBORHOOD

IN SOUTHEAST WICHITA, CHARLIE SCHWARZ

SCANS THE AREA AND SEES NOTHING BUT

BUILDING AFTER BLIGHTED BUILDING.

By Laura Roddy

42.

WHAT IS A

CASE STUDY?It is a story designed to help you explore deep and meaningful questions about leadership and decision making. This case unfolds in two sections that prompt distinct sets of questions.

43.

Charlie Schwarz attends a meeting in the Planeview neighborhood. He decided to make assisting Planeview his mission while transitioning through several major life changes.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOPLEFT: The intersection ofRoosevelt and Roseberrysits in the northwest part ofPlaneview. The neighborhoodis home to a diverse array of residents, more than half of whom are Hispanic;a mural covers a building in Planeview; Schwarzlearned as he talked to others that his initial idea to tear down dilapidatedhouses in Planeview was a bad one because it wouldreduce the supply of afford-able housing for residents.

45.

Planeview is a neighborhood in southeast Wichitathat was hastily constructed in the World War II eraas housing for an influx of Boeing defense workers.The community had declined over time, but the costof housing is low, and there are established networksthere for new immigrants.

The 4,400 residents are diverse – 53 percent Hispanic,22 percent Caucasian, 14 percent Asian and 7 percentAfrican American. The neighborhood is also impover-ished. About 30 percent of Planeview’s 1,300 households live on less than $15,000 a year, makingit one of the state’s poorest neighborhoods.

It wasn’t perhaps surprising that Schwarz would find himself on the cusp of working on behalf of theresidents of Planeview. He already had been servingmeals to the needy for years and had an extensiverecord of voluntarism and public service.

The path that brought Schwarz to the communitybegan when he attended a training at the KansasLeadership Center with his pastor, the Rev. Jeff Gannon,and several other members of Chapel Hill Fellowship, aUnited Methodist congregation in affluent east Wichita.

The group was encouraged at the training to dosomething for the common good. One of the membersof the Chapel Hill group had deep ties to Planeview,working for more than two decades to help placenew immigrants there.

Gannon wanted to inspire members of his congregationto live their faith more fully and help those in poverty.That day, the Chapel Hill team essentially formed thePlaneview Transformation Coalition, and the groupvisited the neighborhood.

Ultimately, Gannon, the pastor, challenged his congre-gation to make a 10-year commitment to the neigh-borhood, and Schwarz made his own commitment.

Schwarz had recently married and undergone heartsurgery. When he returned to his accounting job, hefound out that his entire division was being eliminated.

He was occupying his time by readying his and hiswife’s previous homes for sale and looking for work.He talked it over with his wife and decided to makehelping Planeview his mission.

“I knew I had the time to do this,” Schwarz says. “Iknew that down the road there were going to be morethings that we were going to ask our congregation.”

But Schwarz recalled his KLC leadership training and the concept of diagnosing the situation, andwanted to spend some time educating himself andtesting whether his initial thinking about helpingPlaneview was the right path.

He kept asking questions, listening and pondering howto help improve the lives of the residents, many of whomwere new immigrants. Schwarz burned through a lotof shoe leather getting to know the people in Planeview.Several joined the Planeview Transformation Coalition.

But it was a conversation with Planeview’s seniorservices coordinator that delivered a big wake-up call for Schwarz.

The coordinator, Gay Quisenberry, previously hadbeen the manager for Christian singer Rich Mullins.She had been raised middle-class but had decided to live among the people she was helping, choosingto live in the nearby Hilltop neighborhood, which hadsimilar characteristics to Planeview.

When Quisenberry encountered Schwarz, she had already been living and working with the poor fornearly a decade. She sometimes questioned outsiders’motivations: “Are we going into Planeview or Hilltopbecause we want them to be middle class?”

Quisenberry quickly pegged Schwarz as being justthe latest in a fairly long line of ill-prepared do-gooders.

“The first time I met Charlie, I thought he’s a reallynice guy, a great guy, and he’s going to fall on hisface,” Quisenberry says.

46.

She went on to tell Schwarz not to draw assumptionsabout Planeview and not to come in thinking he hadsome great idea that would change everything. Toomany people in Planeview had become used to a groupswooping in, promising something big – and maybeeven delivering to a degree – but then disappearing.

She also told him why his initial idea to tear down dilapidated houses was a terrible one. What Schwarzsaw as eyesore represented a rare chance at affordablehousing for people in Planeview. Schwarz’s idea, she toldhim, would take away the homes they desperately needed.

part bBUILDING A CLINIC

Armed with new information, including his conversa-tions with Quisenberry, Schwarz reassessed his goals.He still wanted to help in Planeview and decided tostart something that he thought would be low-hangingfruit, something that would fulfill a clear need in the community.

Schwarz was also aware of the stigma surroundingPlaneview as crime- and drug-ridden. But that wasn’twhat he experienced in visiting the neighborhood.

In his view, the problems were being created by only about 1 percent of the people there. The rest of the residents were very giving and hardworking,struggling to provide for their families. Many workedtwo or three jobs, often without owning cars, makingaccess to health care elsewhere in Wichita difficult.

Neighborhood residents were already in the midst ofstaving off another round of disappointment. Budgetcuts were hitting the city’s parks department andneighborhood residents were concerned that theirrecreation center – one of the few public gatheringspots in walking distance – would be closed.

Schwarz recalls sitting in a community meeting andseeing the ties becoming tighter around the necks of the “suits” from City Hall. About 300 Planeviewresidents had gathered to voice their concerns. Itshowed Schwarz how deeply the residents careabout opportunities for their children, and he alsosays it was the most diverse crowd he has ever beenamong, about a third Hispanic, a third Asian and therest black and white.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. If you were Charlie Schwarz, how would you respond to the interpretation that his idea to tear down the houses is all wrong for Planeview?

2. What tough interpretations might be useful for Charlie to explore in this situation?

3. What does Charlie’s experience in this section tell you about the challenges of diagnosing a situation?

47.

ABOUT 300 PLANEVIEW RESIDENTS

HAD GATHERED TO VOICE THEIR CONCERNS.

IT SHOWED SCHWARZ HOW DEEPLY THE RESIDENTS

CARE ABOUT OPPORTUNITIES FOR THEIR CHILDREN.

Schwarz kept meeting with people in Planeview.Sometimes he was alone, and other times his pastoror fellow church members were involved. One day,he had a discussion with folks from Brookside UnitedMethodist Church, Hunter Health Clinic and the city.

It was evident that one area where there was greatneed was with the Hunter Health Clinic’s Planeviewlocation. The clinic operated out of tight space inBrookside. The two tiny exam rooms were only 7 feet by 7 feet; there was a physician’s assistant butno full-time physician for this community of 4,400.

But there was some encouraging news: The clinichad rudimentary plans for an expansion and about$250,000 secured in federal and state grants.

Schwarz believed that he and his congregation couldmake a significant contribution to the area by helpingimprove medical care in Planeview. He saw helpingwith the health clinic as just the first step in a processof engagement that his congregation would have with the residents of Planeview.

Delivering on that promise might earn not only thetrust of Planeview residents, but he also felt it couldenergize the members of his church to sustain theircommitment to the neighborhood.

“The people in our congregation will have a deeperexperience in interacting with the people in Planeview.… It changes our perspective, and it changes the perspective of the people in Planeview. That’s what’s really cool – interacting with people, changing perceptions.”

Schwarz, however, didn’t have a background in construction or engineering or even fundraising. He was an accountant by trade but was determinedto help the people of Planeview. He made no outwardpromises, but wanted to use his network to help fulfill the need for medical access in Planeview.

The first thing he focused on was getting architecturalplans. He and Gannon tried one firm but only wereable to secure a discounted rate. Schwarz then tookthe plight of the clinic to his friend Kerry Hunt atGLMV Architecture and asked the firm to donateits services.

Hunt presented the idea to the partners, and theyagreed to do the work pro bono. In the end, it wasthe equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars in work. Clinic officials and architects worked togetherand determined that a new building would be mostcost effective. Planeview was put up so fast to accommodate the Boeing defense workers inwartime that there is nothing constructed in a standardmanner, requiring many accommodations for utilitiesand plumbing.

Brookside was willing to set aside land on its property,and Hunter Health was willing to make a 25-yearcommitment to serving the community.

Schwarz was feeling pretty good – that is, until Hunt told him the project needed an experienced engineering firm to provide precise architectural engineering plans.

“It felt like a brick wall,” Schwarz says.

“THE PHYSICAL STRUCTURE IS NOT

THE CHURCH,”SCHWARZ SAYS.

“A PEW OR A CHAIR IS NOT THE CHURCH

...THE CHURCH IS THE PEOPLE.

OUR CHURCH ISOUTSIDE THESE FOUR WALLS.”

CHARL IE SCHWARZ

Armed with new information, Charlie Schwarz reassessed his goals

and decided to work on improving access to medical care in Planeview.

50.

It took additional effort, but Schwarz got ProfessionalEngineering Consultants to consider the great need in Planeview. The company allowed its employees to donate their services as long as they did the workon their own time.

With that work completed, Schwarz was ready to do the legwork on securing a contractor. Schwarzwas asking contractors to take on the project at costwith no overhead profit. Schwarz secured HuttonConstruction and finally had a detailed bid. It was a $600,000 project.

Numbers and budgets were familiar territory forSchwarz, though. He worked with Hunter HealthClinic to whittle that down, scaling back on someplans. He recruited a Methodist men’s group to do some of the construction. Hunter Health Clinicwas able to allocate an additional $100,000 from its grant pool for the project.

Finally, Schwarz had his marching orders: He neededto find about $100,000 to finance Planeview’s newHunter Health Clinic; and he did have a time crunch. It was now well into 2010, the clinic needed to bebuilt by 2011, or the grant money would expire.

“I had to close the gap,” he says.

Schwarz honed his business plan. He had the tacitbacking of his congregation, which had agreed to thepastor’s challenge to support Planeview and was con-tributing with donated school supplies and tutoring.

Schwarz was serving a three-year term as chairmanof his church council, and he gave both the counciland the congregation periodic updates on the clinic

project. While he did involve others, particularly thoseon the Planeview Transformation Coalition, progresson the clinic mainly fell on his shoulders. Schwarzalso felt that while he had his pastor’s endorsementand assistance, he didn’t fully have Gannon’s ear, asbusy as he was with day-to-day church operations.

Still, the land for the clinic was set aside, and HunterHealth had committed to 25 years. Schwarz had precise architectural and engineering drawings. He even had many hours of free labor arranged.

To secure that $100,000, Schwarz set his sights on a large private foundation linked to a prominentWichita business family that he thought was his bestand maybe only hope. Schwarz submitted the plansfor the new Planeview Hunter Health Clinic. The response? A polite but firm no. Already in this project,Schwarz had encountered some roadblocks, so he pushed back. He was persistent. He called thefoundation grant manager. He pleaded his case; he asked why.

Finally, the manager responded, and she didn’t mince words. A Planeview health clinic simply did not align with the foundation’s philanthropic interests in any way.

The door slammed shut.

Schwarz was devastated. He had put all his eggs in this foundation’s basket. For the first time, he felttruly flummoxed.

Want to find out how Charlie’s story ends? Visit www.kansasleadershipcenter.org/blog to read this case study’s epilogue.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Is Charlie primarily treating this situation as an adaptive challenge or technical challenge? What do you see in the story that leads you to that conclusion?

2. To what extent is Charlie successfully energizing others in this story? What might he do to be more effective?

3. How would you respond if you experienced a disappointment like this with your own leadership challenge? What options does Charlie have to hold to his purpose?

51.

“THE PEOPLE IN OUR CONGREGATION WILL

HAVE A DEEPER EXPERIENCEINTERACTING WITH THE

PEOPLE IN PLANEVIEW. . . . ITCHANGES OUR PERSPECTIVE,

AND IT CHANGES THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE

PEOPLE IN PLANEVIEW. THAT’S WHAT’S REALLY

COOL – INTERACTING WITHPEOPLE, CHANGING PERCEP-

TIONS.”

CHARL IE SCHWARZ

Nathan Rogers attempts to climb a pole in Planeview.

52.

By Sarah Caldwell Hancock

gIvINghOPE

53.

By Sarah Caldwell Hancock

STEP

5TAKE ACT ION AND LEARN

A SMALL GROUP SHOWS

THE PERS ISTENCE ,

FLEX IB I L ITY NEEDED TO

OVERCOME CHALLENGES AND

TO ADDRESS POVERTY

MEANINGFULLY AT

THE COMMUNITY LEVEL

It’s a familiar tale: A group identifies a challenge and starts working on it, but loses momentum. Butwhere this particular story leads might surprise you.

The challenge? Poverty in Greenwood County, a large eastern Kansas county about 60 miles east of Wichita. Nearly 18 percent of the population lives below the poverty line there, compared to 13.2 percent statewide.

To help address the problem of poverty, a team from Eureka’s First United Methodist Church starteda program to provide kids a place to eat breakfast and play games on days when school started late.The efforts were sparked by the church’s participationin Leadership & Faith Transforming Communities programs offered by the Kansas Leadership Center.But progress proved difficult.

First United Methodist member Jan Stephens saysthe group felt like it was spinning its wheels. “It’s anoverwhelming prospect,” she recalls. “We had somemeetings and asked, ‘What do we do about this?’”

Nothing seemed to be working. Attempts to get aKLC alumni group to start meeting foundered amidbusy schedules. “We became aware we weren’t getting anywhere, that we didn’t know the right players,” Stephens says.

After struggling to meet for about three months,members of the group heard about four families with similar goals who had broken away from a localchurch to form the Flint Hills Christian Fellowship.“They were new, and we didn’t know them,” saysStephens. “We met and they were gung-ho, andthat’s where it really jelled.”

Led by Matt Osborn, the faith group joined forceswith the KLC alums and helped form an organizationcalled Community LinC (Love in Christ). Patsy Garnerof First United Methodist says the new organizationobtained nonprofit, tax-exempt status “in recordtime” last spring. By the summer, the group wasserving one community meal a month, expanding totwo meals per month at the beginning of this year.

The new organization not only boasts a board of directors and a large volunteer base, Stephens explains, but its volunteers also come from many different organizations and factions within the community.

While the group serves meals at First Methodist,seven churches in all are represented on the board,which meets monthly. About 25 people form the core group of volunteers. Treasurer Jan Taylor keepsthe finances in order, and an event team led by Matt’swife, Beth Osborn, plans meals and coordinates volunteers using a project management website.They even plan special meals, such as a Valentine’sDay menu with bacon-wrapped hamburger steaks,ranch potatoes and chocolate cake for dessert. At another February meal, breakfast was on the menu,and the group served 127 plates and 20 to-go boxes.

‘WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? ’

After moving from questions of “Can we take thison?,” Community LinC achieved technical success relatively quickly; however, the group faced other,more difficult hurdles as it worked across factionsto address poverty. Serving meals was one thing. Answering their own church members’ questions and debunking stereotypes about those they are aim-ing to help has added another layer to the challenge.

Garner says she sometimes hears comments fromchurch members about helping freeloaders, or “thesepeople” who want handouts. “That should not keepus from helping others,” she says. “We have an education job within our own church membership,and some have come and helped and some are justasking questions – who are these people? We have tothink of that as opportunity.”

Stephens says that there’s “always going to be people who think everyone should be able to pullthemselves up by their bootstraps, and that’s not

always possible.” She thinks some in her congregationhave changed their thinking over time. Stephens andothers from First United Methodist ensure that atleast two people from their congregation attend everymeal, and Community LinC has communicated appre-ciation for use of the church facility. The next step isgetting more church members to attend the meals.

Communicating with skeptical members within theirown church hasn’t been the only challenge. Workingacross different denominations has also requiredeveryone to set aside assumptions.

As a “pretty middle-of-the-road Methodist,” Stephenssays, she is not always comfortable with some outwardshows of faith, but she likes how Community LinCdemonstrates the love of Christ. “It’s wonderful tosee how people from different churches come together.We’re learning about each other,” she explains. Partof that is not judging each other’s choices. “I’ve neverasked why [Osborn’s group] left a more formally established church and started their own. It’s not my choice, but it’s theirs,” she says.

Matt Osborn stresses that the group’s purpose transcends church boundaries. “I don’t want this to get into denominational differences and arguingabout a bunch of nonsense,” he says. “There arepeople from other churches around town working together to make this happen. I think that’s a miracle.We’re building community among the ministry itself.I’m hoping it spills all over town.”

Stephens says KLC leadership training was crucial to starting Community LinC. “We really learned howto identify competencies,” she says, noting that common language was helpful.

“So when we said we need to diagnose the situation,it wasn’t a scary or foreign term. We learned to useour strengths. I’m not sure if it’s divine leadership orKLC leadership, but a lot of people were around thetable and we really didn’t have an election, but we

54.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Volunteer Patsy Garner (left) hugs or greets everyone who attends the free community meal at Eureka’s First United Methodist Church. Volunteers for the group putting on the dinner, Community LinC (Love in Christ), comefrom organizations and factions across the community; Joshua Osborn eats some fruit at a dinner; the meals have connectedchurch representatives with people that might not have met otherwise. First United Methodist member Jan Stephens says she’s lived in Eureka for 40 years and people have come in for the meals she has never seen before; volunteers prepare one of the twice-a-month community dinners in the church kitchen earlier this year; a meal prepared earlier this year included breakfast items, such as biscuits. Volunteers served 127 plates and 20 to-go boxes that day.

55.

needed a secretary, president, etc., and people said‘I can do that’ and were in the places they needed to be,” Stephens says.

She would like to see the Community LinC board as a whole gain greater familiarity with the KLC leadership framework so that everyone shares thesame vocabulary. “I think it would be easier if we all had a taste of those principles,” she says.

ADDRESS ING POVERTY

Regardless of whether they use the term, all whowork with Community LinC understand that povertyis an adaptive challenge – a problem that resists tidysolutions. Garner says they know they have to pre-pare themselves for a long, messy process. “We arenot reaching with our meals nearly all of the hungrypeople in this area, and we’re not learning about theirother needs, although we’re working toward that,”Garner says. “But we’re making a little progress inthose areas. You can get very discouraged with proj-ects if you don’t realize the adaptive nature of contin-uing efforts.”

Building community is a necessary first step, andCommunity LinC is careful to be inclusive. Meals areopen to the entire community. Although many whocome struggle with income problems, others havedifferent needs. Matt Osborn notes that physicalneeds are often a “doorway.” “Our goal is to ministerthe love of Christ to all people whether they are richor poor or whatever, with love and primarily by providingmeals and meeting them at their points of physical,spiritual and social need,” he says.

Stephens shares that view. “I’ve lived in Eureka for 40 years,” she says, “and we have people come who I’ve never seen before. People without networkscome.” The volunteers, including clergy from everychurch in town and everyone who serves, make an effort to sit down and eat with those who are receiving the meal and get to know them.

Stephens says that working with Community LinChas stretched her and helped her get to know peopleshe doesn’t typically encounter. “We’re all comfort-able in our own circles, and I am so lucky to be in agood life situation and not have to face the challengessome of these people have faced. When we’re allclean and warm, we can’t understand why othersaren’t, and it’s not always their fault,” she says. “It’s broadened my horizons.”

As individuals’ horizons broaden, gaps between them narrow. Many who attend the meal contributesomething to the donation jar. Some also add prayerrequests to a designated container, including a familywith a high-risk pregnancy that came to a later mealwith a healthy baby. Many have donated funds orfood to the effort or have helped solicit corporate donations, such as turkeys for the Thanksgiving meal from Cargill or beef from local ranchers. MattOsborn puts it succinctly when he says, “We are seeing community built.”

MORE THAN MEALS

Community LinC’s ambitious goals include raisingfunds for a facility of its own and providing classes tohelp those in poverty improve their quality of life andattain independence. Stephens started working towardthis goal by inviting community professionals from a variety of fields to bring educational materials tomeals. In February, a representative from GreenwoodCounty Hospital Home Health brought dental carekits. A display with nutritional information from K-StateResearch and Extension was another recent addition.

Osborn says having a Community LinC building would help expand the organization’s offerings. Somearen’t comfortable coming to a church, so a neutralsite is a necessity. Osborn also sees the possibility of deeper impact.

57.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Matt Osborn, who leads the Flint Hills Christian Fellowship, stands in front of Eureka‘s First UnitedMethodist Church, where Community LinC serves meals. The group started with help from both Osborn’s church and KansasLeadership Center alumni from First United Methodist. Seven churches are now represented on the board of Community LinC;diners pray before one of the community meals at the church; volunteer Tasha Brandt cooks a dish for the dinner; Jim Baker of Eureka enjoys one of the meals. Community LinC organizers would like to raise funds for a facility of their own and provideclasses to help those in poverty improve their quality of life and attain independence.

“The overall vision is if I give a free meal to someone,have I really benefitted them?” he explains. “Morethan just a meal, long-term, we’d like to provide different ways of looking at life.”

One challenge of poverty is losing the feeling of helping others. “People might want to come and helpin a garden or be involved in something else. My vision would be a Community LinC center – a room, a kitchen and some other facilities to be used for jobfairs and workshops or any number of things to benefitthe town and overall community,” Osborn says.

Stephens says that people in poverty situations concentrate on short-term problems such as havinggrocery money or paying rent. Instead, she wantsthem “to see hope, that their children can go to college, or they can have a full-time job, or there’s

help even if they have financial problems, that there’shope for a better quality of life.” She says educatingfamilies in a friendly environment will help them learnabout available resources as it enriches community.

Osborn credits the people in Eureka with helpingCommunity LinC get off to a good start. “The peopleof Greenwood County are some of the best you’llever find on earth,” he says. As his group works toexpand, he hopes to continue to encourage all to con-tribute. He knows the area has suffered economically,but he sees a way forward. “I hear a lot of folks com-plain that this area has a black cloud over it. I thinkthat’s garbage. We choose to let it stay there, or wecan choose to make a difference. I encourage othersto be part of the solution.”

Identify an area of community need.

Experiment with efforts addressing it.

Evaluate your efforts. Reassess if things aren’t working.

Grow your circle by engaging others.

Focus on building relationships, not just meeting needs.

Be prepared to grow and change through the process yourself.

Make progress one step at a time.

Keep your eye on the larger challenge.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

LESSONS frOm grEENwOOD COUNTY:HOW DO YOU ADDRESS POVERTY AT THE COMMUNITY LEVEL?

58.

Eliana Osborn, 2, enjoys a meal at the church.

“Never let the fear of striking

out keep you from playing

the game.”BABE rUTh

By Jeff Tuttle

A player looks on during the opening ceremonies of League 42 earlier this year.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: Caiden Hollowaygets a hit in a League 42 T-ball game in Wichita; Izzy Ristich looks on as her team is announced at the opening ceremony forLeague 42; League 42 founder and T-ballcoach Bob Lutz encourages his team during a game; teams greet each other at the end of a game.

from first pitch to home runIt started out as just an idea. A question really. A dribbler of an infieldsingle that kept rolling toward thefences and is on its way to being an inside the park home run.

With organized baseball long absentfrom many of the neighborhoods in the urban core of Wichita, a generationof children had been growing up without much access to playing America's national pastime.

Then, Bob Lutz, a sports columnist for The Wichita Eagle, asked last year in a Facebook post whether anybodywould be interested in a grassroots effort to bring youth baseball back to the inner city and allow children thechance to develop a love for baseballand what playing it can teach themabout life.

The scribe's thought became a sparkthat caught fire, bringing in dozens of volunteers, spurring the involvementof community groups that work withyouths and enlisting the cooperation ofcity government officials.

It led to the creation of League 42,named for legendary barrier-breakingplayer Jackie Robinson, which openedplay this past spring with 16 teams and220 players ranging in age from 5 to 12. The league's opening night, capturedby Journal photographer Jeff Tuttle,shows how one person's thought can snowball into something that can enrich the lives of hundreds, both players and volunteers.

It's a good reminder. Your ideas havepower. And many more may sharethem. But you may have to be willing to make the first pitch.

A team lines up to be announced during the opening ceremony of League 42, which began play this spring.

52.

Monica Brown helps with the food assembly at the Hyatt Hotel in

Wichita on the night before theofficial start of the 2014 Kansas

Hunger Dialogue. The dialogue wasstarted in 2010 to build agreement

among Kansas higher educationinstitutions about hunger

awareness and action.

67.

STEP

6INNOVATE AND BROADEN

YOUR EFFORTS

SETTINgThE

TABLEDIALOGUE PULLS COLLEGE STUDENTS INTO EFFORTS

TO CHANGE THE CONVERSAT ION ON HUNGER

For Cassie Standley, the realization that someKansans don't always know where their next meal is coming from sank in while she was tutoring a Wichita fourth-grader. When snacks were handed out, the boy would usually tuck his away uneaten.

"He didn't know if he'd have food to eat when he gothome," says Standley, who graduated from WichitaState University in May. "That was kind of shocking to me. I'd never known anyone like that."

Zach Martin, a freshman this past year at HutchinsonCommunity College, didn't need anyone to teach himabout food insecurity. Growing up in Manhattan, Kansas,

his parents divorced and his mother was forced towork multiple jobs to feed her two sons. "As a kid my diet was terrible — 'Kid Cuisine' and soda," Martinsays. "I was hungry a little bit as a kid."

However they come to know that hunger and food insecurity exist, college students such as Standleyand Martin are leading efforts to do something aboutit on their campuses, in communities across the stateand in other areas of the world. Working with theirschools and other organizations, the students conductfood drives and meal-packaging events, set up foodpantries, raise money, perform research and stageevents to draw attention to hunger.

By Joe Stumpe

The students are also part of a public conversationthat's trying to shift the focus from hunger relief tothe kind of transformational development that headsoff the need for it. That development, the thinkinggoes, will not result solely from anti-hunger and anti-poverty efforts but from work in agriculture, technology, business, public policy and many other fields.

The students grapple with many of the same challengesas their older counterparts when they try to makechange happen, from raising awareness of an issue to finding the resources to address it. Plus there are challenges specific to their situation: a lack of experience, the growing pains and distractions thatcome with the college years, and a transient pool of manpower to draw from.

But they bring special attributes as well.

"When you get college kids behind something, they'regoing to see it through and get it done," says BrianWalker, executive director of the Kansas Food Bank."The passion that brings, the amount of students thatcan bring to the table, is enormous."

REFRAMING THE PROBLEM

On a chilly night this winter, some of that passionwas evident at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Wichita. It was the night before the official start ofthe 2014 Kansas Hunger Dialogue, and many studentswere already in town for the event. Instead of loungingin their hotel rooms or looking for fun in Wichita's nearby

Old Town entertainment district, the students sortedrice, beans, pasta and other shelf-stable ingredientsinto thousands of bagged meals for distribution by the Kansas Food Bank.

Not that they weren't having fun. Decked out inschool colors, hairnets and plastic gloves, participantslet out cheers as they filled boxes with the meals.

The Kansas Hunger Dialogue was started in 2010 tobuild agreement among Kansas institutions of higherlearning regarding hunger awareness and action.Ninety students, teachers and administrators attendedthe first dialogue, a number that grew to 155 peoplerepresenting 16 schools this year.

In addition to hearing from experts in the hunger field, participants made presentations about what'shappening on their own campuses and broke intosmall groups to exchange ideas about what does,doesn't and could work. For instance, students fromKansas State University came away from the dialoguewith the idea of starting an on-campus food pantry,similar to what's been done at other schools.

One of the most common themes heard at the dia-logue is that many Kansans are not aware that thereis a problem with hunger and food insecurity here.That's led several campuses to hold week- and evenmonth-long "hunger awareness" programs, often involving symbolism. For example, students at FortHays State planted 365 plastic folks on the school'squad -- one for every 10 people living in poverty inEllis County, where the college is located.

LEFT TO RIGHT: Individuals from several schools and organizations help with the food assembly prior to the Hunger Dialogue. Students sorted rice, beans, pasta and other shelf-stable ingredients into thousands of bagged meals for distribution in Kansas;Michelle Dreiling works as a food assembler; Isaac McNary demonstrates how to package the food prior to its being boxed.

"It's not so much doing similar things but things that are appropriate for each campus," says WSU professor Deborah Ballard-Reisch, who has ledhunger awareness efforts.

Estimates are that 1 in 6 Kansans are "food insecure,"a term the U.S. government uses to mean a person'sconsistent access to adequate food is limited bymoney and other resources. Another measure of theproblem is the number of Kansans -- nearly 200,000each year -- who receive emergency food throughfood banks and other organizations.

The food insecurity rate is highest in some of thestate's most populated areas, plus the southeast region and northeast edge. Riley County and GearyCounty, where Manhattan and Fort Riley are located,share the highest food insecurity rate -- 18.4 percent.The figure comes from Feeding America’s Map theMeal Gap Project.

The problem is even more pronounced for the state’schildren. Nearly 23 percent, about 162,400 children,are food insecure in Kansas. Woodson County hasthe highest percentage number of food-insecure children in the state, 32.5 percent. Sedgwick Countyhas the highest numbers of food-insecure children(30,630) followed by Johnson (24,840), Wyandotte(12,070) and Shawnee (10,360) counties.

"Initially, the (Hunger) Dialogue existed to raise awareness of the issue," says Josh Mosier, this pastyear’s executive director of Kansas Campus Compact,which hosts the event. "Now that we're in year four,

the idea is to reframe the discussion so that it's not about charity. Hunger is a multifaceted problemwith complex solutions."

SOWING THE SEEDS OF TRANSFORMAT ION

Students at Kansas State University have a long history of helping the Flint Hills Breadbasket foodpantry in Manhattan, which primarily serves city residents rather than students. For 18 years, an event known as "Cats For Cans" has collected cashand canned food donations for the pantry prior to a K-State Wildcats home football game.

Hunger relief and awareness efforts have grownalong with the university's School of Leadership Studies. Much of what's taught in the school shouldsound familiar to anyone who's been through theKansas Leadership Center's training in principles and competencies.

In class, students spend time diagnosing situationsand analyzing stakeholder perspectives in the community they're trying to impact. Outside class,they try not just to complete service projects, but to engage those different stakeholders as well.

"There are so many leadership aspects to it," K-Stateteacher and academic adviser Lori Kniffin says."Hunger is an issue students can connect to and start practicing some of those competencies."

Kniffin doubts that any current campus hunger efforts qualify as "transformational" but saysthe Hunger Dialogue has sown seeds in that direction. "That is something that came awayfrom the dialogue, that 'aha' moment."

Students in one class, Lead 405: Leadership in Practice, have worked on The Facing Project (manhattanhunger.facingproject.com), collecting stories from people visiting the Flint Hills Bread-basket for help. The plan is to publish the storiesin a book to raise awareness.

On a weekday in March, K-State senior AlyssaCasanova interviewed several people at the food pantry. One was a veteran and single fatherwho'd been deployed overseas three times, twiceresulting in injuries. Another was a woman with a master's degree who'd lost her job after takingtime off to deal with an autoimmune disease and to help her single son raise his children.

"You don't really think of people who are hungryas people who are in those kind of situations,"Casanova says afterward. "It's really eye-opening."

Still another pantry visitor turned the focus back on Casanova.

"There was one lady who said she thinks collegekids are all just rich kids coming to school," Casanovasays. "Actually, I'm a single mom, I have two kidsmyself. I'm also on food stamps. It's nice forthem to be able to see us in a different light."

Another K-State student in the leadership school,Tyler Morrison, says he is a rich kid, or at least

one from a comfortable, private-school background.Morrison says he grew up helping his parents conduct food drives and serve holiday dinners to the poor in north Texas. He's done the same in Manhattan, preparing and serving meals at the First Methodist Church each Wednesday.Morrison and the other volunteers sit down and eat with their guests and try "to get to knowtheir stories."

The actual topic of hunger is touchy, he says. "Not too many like to talk about the subject. They want to talk about their lives."

Morrison, who's involved in the proposed on-campus food pantry at K-State, says there aremany reasons why students go hungry or subsiston non-nutritious meals. It can be as straightforwardas spending money on rent or tuition instead ofgroceries. For many, money is especially tight atthe beginning of the semester, when student aidmay not have arrived. Money from home oftentakes time to catch up with students who comefrom foreign countries. Some students have family or friends they could ask for help but are embarrassed to do so.

Nationwide, the number of on-campus foodpantries has grown from four in 2008 to 121today, according to a recent tally. The increasingnumber of students from low-income families who view higher education as necessary to a securefinancial future is one factor feeding the growth.

"There's a lot of need in the city, but there's also a lot of need among students," Morrison says.

“wE wANT ThEm TO ThINk

ABOUT BEINg INvOLvED IN ThEIr

COmmUNITIES BEYOND jUST ThEIr

fOUr YEArS IN COLLEgE.”

Zach Martin, a student at Hutchinson Community College, grew up facing food insecurity and is part of an effort

to start a food pantry on his campus.

hUNgEr DIALOgUE

BY THE NUMBERS

90The number

of students, teachers and administrators who attended the

first Kansas Hunger Dialogue in 2010.

155The number of

people hailing from 16 different schools at the 2014 dialogue.

32.5%

The child food insecurity rate in

Woodson County, which is the highest

percentage in Kansas.

200,000The approximate

number of Kansans who receive emergency food through food banks and other organizations

each year.

22.5%

The food insecurity rate for children in Kansas, according to Feeding

America’s Map the Meal Gap Project. The percentage is equal to 162,400 children.

1in 8The number of people in the

world estimated to be suffering from chronic hunger or regularly

not getting enough food to conduct an active life in

2011-13. The total number of undernourished, 842 million,

has fallen 17 percent since 1990-92.*

*(Source: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations).

72.

41.

fIghTINg hUNgEr

ON CAmPUSOTHER EXAMPLES FROM ACROSS THE STATE

PITTSBURG STATE UNIVERSITYStudents are positioned to open

the Gorilla Assistance Pantry (named for the school mascot) next fall, fundedpartly by a "Hunger Games" fundraiser

modeled on the popular movie.

h

h

WICHITA STATEStudents have partnered with

community members to package hundreds of thousands of emergency

meals for overseas relief, collected food and volunteered for the

Kansas Food Bank and formed the Hunger Awareness Initiative to raise awareness on campus.

h

BUTLER COMMUNITY COLLEGEInterest in the issue might be

surmised by the fact that both the current president, Kimberly Krull, and her

predecessor, Jackie Vietti, attended this year's Hunger Dialogue. In December,

the school opened a food pantry in the library on its main campus in El Dorado.

h

HUTCHINSON COMMUNITY COLLEGEHonor students are trying

to get a food pantry started. It's tough to get students in

two-year institutions motivated for long-range projects, says

student Zach Martin, but a surveyshows a real need. "How ridiculous

is it that in the most obese country in the world we have

all these people at our doorstepneeding help?" he asks.

73.

5

‘WE ALL HAD THE SAME ISSUES ’

Students at Fort Hays State established a foodpantry three years ago, after the university's Centerfor Civic Leadership launched an initiative to addressglobal issues such as poverty, hunger, immigration,sustainability and human trafficking at the local level.

"Hunger is definitely the main one we focus on," saysBrenna Johnson, a junior majoring in organizationalleadership. "With hunger, we can do a lot more hands-onactivities. Other events just bring speakers. We havefound that students really like hands-on activities."

As part of Poverty Week at Fort Hays State, studentscamped out in handmade shacks, watched a filmabout Haiti and made a meal out of rice. Using foodsupplied by Numana, the El Dorado-based interna-tional hunger relief organization, students also packaged 50,000 meals, with half going overseasand the rest staying in the United States.

The university's food pantry, located in the library, is utilized by students but probably needs tweaking,Johnson says. She says some students may be embarrassed to use it, others don't know it exists,and still others wouldn't know what to do with thedry and canned goods if they got them.

"We would like to provide more recipes for studentsto use," she says. "We'll get a can of beans, and it

will sit in there for months. We think it's because students are like, 'How do I cook this?'"

Johnson came away from the Hunger Dialogue with a feeling that Fort Hays students are not alone in thechallenges they face.

"I think we all had the same issues – getting (fellowstudents) involved or getting them passionate about hunger."

BEYOND THE COLLEGE CAMPUS

Ottawa University, a private school with about 600students, may be the smallest Kansas college with an active anti-hunger effort. Sandra Marlatte, an instructor in social and behavior sciences, got the ball rolling when she took two students to the firstKansas Hunger Dialogue. Back in Ottawa, the triostarted Hungry For Change, a chapter of UniversitiesFighting World Hunger. Today, about 20 Ottawa students participate.

The students hold a competitive food drive withBaker University, their nearby rival, during theschools' annual football game. They stage a "HungerBanquet" at which attendees are randomly assigned a seat at tables representing rich, middle-class andpoor homes, then served meals ranging from steak

LEFT TO RIGHT: Butler Community College President Kim Krull assembles food with other students from the school; The meals packaged by the students will be distributed by the Kansas Food Bank; Both Krull and her predecessor at Butler Community College, Jackie Vietti, attended this year’s Hunger Dialogue. The school opened a food pantry in its library on its main campus in El Dorado last year.

57.

and dessert to rice and water. They use a grant fromAmerican Baptist Churches, with which Ottawa University is affiliated, to help the Communities in Schools program in Ottawa provide snacks tomiddle and high school students.

Seniors who take a problem-solving class at Ottawaproposed starting an on-campus food pantry. How-ever, as Hungry For Change member Janelle Baileynotes, the seniors "handed that off to us" when theyleft – an example of the way the transient nature of the college experience can impact plans.

"We're struggling to get that going because wehaven't found a permanent location," Bailey says. As a result, "It's difficult to advertise it."

For now, the pantry is run out of Marlatte's office.Statewide, there seem to be no good statistics on the number of college students utilizing foodpantries. Rick McNary, who attended the Hunger Dialogue as a representative of the Outreach Inter-national hunger organization, says the fact that thepantries are regularly refilled shows they're needed.

"Students don't want to admit that they're hungry, but they are slipping into the food pantry and gettingsupplies," he says. "They're often empty."

WSU students conducted a survey of their campuscommunity that drew more than 1,000 responses.The results were similar to the overall estimate offood insecurity in Kansas: 17 percent reported eating

fewer meals than they would like to. Of respondentswith children, 31 percent said they'd gone hungry sotheir kids could eat. A common complaint was thelack of accessible, affordable and healthy food options.

On the broader issue of development, there may be little that college students can do to change economic, political and cultural conditions that contribute to hunger. However, they won't be college students forever. Mosier says food pantriesand other charitable efforts are "entry points" to fighting hunger and food insecurity.

"We want them to the think about being involved in their communities beyond just their four years in college," Mosier says.

That's exactly where Morrison, the K-State student,says he's headed during and after a hopefully successful career in the private sector. "Every nonprofit is going to need someone for the board, or to help them financially."

The Kansas Food Bank's Brian Walker has no doubtthey can make a difference, and not just in the area of hunger.

"The long-term effects of that is that you've gotthem committed to supporting nonprofit work, not only in the hunger business but in Big BrothersBig Sisters or whatever," he says. "You get them involved at that age, and they're going to stay committed to helping."

76.

a GraCeFuL PassaGeBY cAllY KRAllMAn

FEATURED ARTIST

I have been painting in the Midwest, primarily Kansas, for more than 25 years. I have traveled to many placesthroughout the world, but I am still drawn to the simplisticbeauty of Kansas. Many people think of Kansas as just a flat agricultural state, but in fact it is full of wonderfulhills, tree-lined rivers and creeks, and other unique landformations. The sunrises and sunsets are breathtakingand calming at the same time. Our four seasons create myriad colors worthy of any artists' palette.

My work ranges in size from 6”x 8” all the way up to 4’x 8’. I am always looking for the perfect composition,and Kansas can certainly provide that. Endless roads,fields of grain, chromatic sunrises or dramatic sunsets are always on my radar.

I believe there is a large audience for Kansas art, includingthose who proudly call her home or those who have movedelsewhere and want a reminder of our beautiful state. I am

thrilled to be able to share my vision and perception with others. It is my goal that one of my paintings mayspur a memory of a familiar scene or simply evoke a feeling of “home.”

I enjoy plein air painting (on location). There is no betterway to capture all the nuances of a scene. Although studiopainting makes up the largest portion of my work, paintingen plein air keeps my perceptual skills honed. My pared-down setup consists of: pochade box, tripod, paints, solvent,brushes, viewfinder, canvas panels, paper towels, sunscreenand bug spray – lots of bug spray!

My home studio includes two work areas. I have one areafor painting, including up to three easels for working onmultiple paintings at the same time. The other area servesas a framing/stretching station and also houses my inventoryof frames, canvas, stretcher bars and paintings that arenot yet at a gallery.

77.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg wrote “Celebrate This Kansas” for the state's 150th anniversary of statehood in early 2011. Later that sameyear, storm chaser and photographer Stephen Locke took this photo near Cunningham of a receding supercell, catching magnificent colorsand textures at sunset. Mirriam-Goldberg and Locke have teamed up to create a new book, being released this fall. Called “Chasing Weather: Tornadoes, Tempests, and Thunderous Skies in Word and Image” (Ice Cube Press), the book matches 70 of Locke’s storm photos withMirriam-Goldberg's weather poetry. Mirriam-Goldberg has always been in love with weather, which makes living in Kansas especially ideal.

Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is the 2009-13 Kansas Poet Laureate and the author or editor of 19 books, including her new memoir aboutbeing poet laureate, “Poem on the Range: A Poet Laureate's Love Song to Kansas.” She teaches at Goddard College in Vermont through a low-residency program, and leads community writing workshops widely. See more of Mirriam-Goldberg’s writing at her website and blog, www.CarynMirriamGoldberg.com.

CeLebrate

this kansas

BY cARYn MIRRIAM-GolDBeRG

Celebrate this sky, this land beyond measuredtime that tilts the seasonal light. Dream the returnof the stars, the searing rise of summer or fast spreadof thunderheads, the secret-holding cedars andwitness rocks that migrate across the prairies.We breathe the air of those who spoke languagesforgotten as the glaciers. We walk the fieldsthat once fed the fish of inland oceans.We turn our heads away from where the raccoonhid his family from the storm hundreds ofgenerations beforehand. This rain was once a man's last wish, this heat what warmed a weathered rock enough for a woman to rest on with her baby, these fossils, love songs of memory and longing after the beloveds die. This horizon once andalways the homeland of butterfly milkweedoranging in ancient sun. This creek's trail rerouted by deer and wild turkey. This wooded curvethe one favored by bluebirds and monarch butterfliesfollowing last summer south. All we see, the ghostand angel of trails through the grasslandsover thousands of years, the remnant of hard rainswhere the grandmothers and grandfathers sang of weather and loss, wars and births. The bones of this land and the feathers of this sky know us better than we know ourselves.

FEATURED POEM

80.

THE BACK PAGE DestInAtIon neveRlAnD?

I sURe HoPe not

I’m uncomfortable thinking of myself as Peter Pan, although it was my favorite childhood Disney fantasy.It’s not that I haven’t wanted to grow up or that I’ve wanted to fly or that I remain distrustful of Captain Hook.

It’s more that I don’t like how much I identify withPeter Pan’s betwixt-and-between plight with regardto helping children trapped in poverty.

When JM Barrie, Peter Pan’s creator, was 6, his olderbrother fractured his skull in a fall. The brother diedjust short of his 14th birthday but in their mother’smind his brother remained a boy forever – thus PeterPan, the boy who never grew up.

One theory insists that Peter Pan inhabits a betwixt-and-between world, floating in a purgatory betweenEarth and Neverland (Heaven). From there, the eternally pubescent Peter Pan escorts children the rest of the way to Neverland.

As a journalist, I’ve considered myself a child advocate, too, but wonder if writing about childhoodpoverty constitutes work avoidance. Am I watchingchildren founder while describing the water?

I’m a year removed from covering shocking childpoverty in Missouri’s Ozarks, and several years froma 20-year newspaper career -- mostly in Kansas --often covering child poverty.

The first child poverty story that jolted me, however,wasn’t my own. Twenty years ago, a co-worker cov-ering social services shared her story about a gaggleof homeless children who ate breakfast at McDonald’severy morning – from the restaurant’s dumpster.

But countless stories followed in my own career: stories about children whose “weekend” food back-packs sat empty by Friday evening; children humili-ated at school because their mother couldn’t bathethem or wash their stinking clothes; children whosemothers stayed with boyfriends offering a place tolive but who also beat, abused, and in some cases,killed them.

The noble interpretation of what I’ve done journalisti-cally is that I’ve helped raise awareness about theseissues. But keeping my journalistic distance has leftme less outraged than I once was. Have I reducedtragedies to banal storytelling?

I once arranged for a grocery delivery to an impoverished family I’d interviewed. I clearly caredand wanted to do more. But isn’t that just charitymasquerading as justice?

Betwixt and between is the journalist’s natural “observer” state, but maybe I’m acquiescing to what is also a natural inclination to avoid pain for coping comfort. I wrote often of poverty’s learnedpowerlessness without realizing observers might be susceptible.

Earlier versions of Peter Pan found Peter trapped in his world after being granted the gift of flight. He’d returned home to find bars blocking his windowand his mother cradling another little boy.

My betwixt-and-between escape will mean askingmyself what I’m willing to sacrifice to make progress.Asking if I’m protecting my carefully constructed reality. Would I be willing, for example, to surrendermy prized journalist’s identity for one of a staunch advocate?

Whatever it is, I need to do it.

I don’t want to exist as PeterPan – believing I’m helping,but merely accompanying andcomforting children awaitingtheir fate.

Mark E. McCormick is the executive director of TheKansas African American Museum in Wichita.

“Wealthy men can’t live in an island that is encircled by poverty. We all breathe the same air. We must give a chance to everyone, at least a basic chance.”

– Ayrton Senna, Brazilian racing driver

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