Tag Archives: poverty

Shelley Callahan | October 2, 2018En Español

Bevins Elementary School lies in the easternmost region of Kentucky, in beautiful Pike County. This area was once a prosperous and thriving one, when its coal and timber industries were booming. The mountain passes and rugged terrain, while suitable for mining and logging, have effectively blocked other types of industries from settling in this part of the state. Thus, as mines closed, those who had spent their lives working underground could not find new employment opportunities above.

Thankfully for the students of Bevins Elementary School, the faculty there not only strive to provide a safe learning environment, but they also work to support grandparents who have found themselves raising kids again – but as seniors this time.

Today, poverty plagues this region, and adults are not the only ones experiencing the debilitating impact of its effects. Thankfully for the students of Bevins Elementary School, the faculty there not only strive to provide a safe learning environment, but they also work to support grandparents who have found themselves raising kids again – but as seniors this time.

A passionate coordinator

On a recent trip to Eastern Kentucky, our Director of U.S. Programs, Renée Kube, visited with the Family Resource and Youth Services Center (FRYSC) coordinator at Bevins Elementary School, Sandy, who is also our Volunteer Coordinator. The school is located in a very small community called Sidney, west of Belfry. With an enrollment of only 227 children, the school is one of the smallest schools in the Belfry district.

Upon meeting Sandy, Renée observed that she takes a great deal of pride in her job. Her excellent work is demonstrated in her dedication to further aiding the children she serves through our programs. In fact, last year, Sandy was nominated by her principal as a contender for the Kentucky Association of School Administrators’ annual Fred Award. The award – inspired by Fred Shea, the postman who is the subject of Mark Sanborn’s national bestseller, The Fred Factor – recognizes non-administrative staff, students, and volunteers statewide whose daily efforts are deemed extraordinary and integral to a positive learning atmosphere in their school communities.

We support children in need in Eastern Kentucky.

Renée pictured with one of our sponsored children at Bevins Elementary School

Sandy is impassioned by FRYSC’s work to remove the “non-cognitive barriers” to children’s success in school by providing them with clothes, shoes, school supplies, and hygiene items throughout the academic year. She also works closely with the other coordinators in the middle and high schools in the Belfry district to collaborate on outreach efforts between older and younger siblings in the same families.

This is in order to ensure that all children are receiving the basic needs that are so important to their academic success. When it comes to working with our sponsored and unsponsored children, Sandy explained to Renée, her primary focus is always to obtain clothing and shoes, as well as school supplies. Sandy considers each child’s individualized personal needs upon selecting her purchases.

Training for grandparents

As Sandy discussed how she would like to see the resource center develop, Renée learned about a county program to be launched by FRYSC coordinators this school year called Grandparents As Parents (GAP) — a program for which financial assistance is greatly needed. There is a high percentage of grandparents and great-grandparents raising children in Pike County, sometimes due to parents passing, and other times because parents are incapable of caring for their own children as a result of problems with drug abuse. Many require support with regard to issues such as recognizing the signs of bullying; training on how to monitor kids’ social media use; how to utilize technology for themselves for job training; and how to check online for academic performance and behavior notes for the children in their care. The workshops will also touch on budgeting, and proper sleep and nutrition; and attendees will be provided with literature for reference.

After listening to Sandy speak so passionately about helping these grandparents – many of whom are living in poverty, and never expected to be raising their grandchildren — Renée informed Sandy that Children Incorporated would be happy to provide funding for this special program through our Hope In Action Fund. This fund is maintained for instances just as this. Now Sandy can rest assured that grandparents in her community will receive the support they need to raise their grandchildren to be the most successful students they can be.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN KENTUCKY?

You can sponsor a child in Kentucky in one of two ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members, or email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | September 21, 2018En Español

Nestled in picturesque mountains and steeped in a rich cultural heritage, Pike County is situated in the very heart of Appalachia – an economically depressed area that stretches from the Virginias to Tennessee and Kentucky. This was once a thriving region, as a result of the success of its then bustling coal and lumber industries. In 1994, however, the Eastern Division of The Pittston Company closed its coal mines.

Today, rampant unemployment and widespread poverty paint a somber life in Pike County.

Unfortunately, rugged terrain has effectively blocked other industries from settling in this part of Kentucky. Thus, as mines closed, those who had spent their lives working underground could not find new employment opportunities above. Today, rampant unemployment and widespread poverty paint a somber life in Pike County. Their debilitating effects impact not only the adults there; hunger and cold nights in bed are the plight of too many children in this area, as their parents struggle to make ends meet.

On a recent trip to Pike County, our Director of U.S. Programs, Renée Kube, and our U.S. Projects Specialist, Shelley Oxenham, visited Valley Elementary School. There, they met with our Volunteer Coordinator Betty. Valley Elementary School has an extremely high enrollment of almost 1,000 students, from kindergarten through the eighth grade. Despite a large number of students at the school, with the help of the resource center and our program, Betty is hopeful that her efforts are making a big difference for children who are coming from impoverished households.

Betty explained to Renée and Shelley that she loves the flexibility of the Children Incorporated sponsorship program. It is very helpful to her to have the ability to purchase a wide variety of items for students, depending on their individual home situations. This way, she is able to make specific purchases in meeting the individualized needs of each child in her care. She said that our sponsored and unsponsored children are constantly in need of clothes and shoes; she also provides them with school supplies and food baskets often.

Meeting a special sponsored child

Sarah benefits greatly from having a sponsor with Children Incorporated.

During their visit, Renée and Shelley met with a few students who are enrolled in our sponsorship program. One student in particular stood out to them: Sarah* is in the eighth grade, and she lives with her parents and two sisters. She genuinely appreciates the support she receives from her sponsor.

Sarah anxiously awaits the items that she receives regularly thanks to monthly contributions. These donations especially help her in obtaining new shoes and clothing that she otherwise would go without. Betty also purchases art supplies for Sarah using her sponsorship funds, because Sarah loves art. She told Renée and Shelley that her family cannot afford art supplies, so she is incredibly grateful that her sponsor helps to support this passion of hers.

Internet famous

Before leaving Valley Elementary School, Betty showed Renée and Shelley a video of some of the third-grade students there who have become quite well-known on social media. The children were learning about coal mining and the industry in class, and their teacher challenged them to make a video demonstrating some of what they’d learned about the subject. The video would be entered into a much-anticipated annual community event – the CEDAR, Inc. Coal Fair.

With help from local high school students, the third-graders sang to the tune of Taylor Swift’s recent hit “Shake It Off.” After three days of filming, they finished the video, called “Mine the Coal”. When the fair was over, their teacher posted the video on her personal Facebook page, where it was widely shared, and where it has now accumulated more than 215,000 views. Along with Valley Elementary being a big school, its students are also a big hit on the internet!

*Name changed for child’s protection.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN KENTUCKY?

You can sponsor a child in Kentucky in one of two ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members, or email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | September 18, 2018

Companies choose to partner with charitable organizations for a variety of reasons, and a successful corporate partnership benefits both the nonprofit and its sponsor. When you make the decision to partner with Children Incorporated, you are choosing to make a lasting impact not only on impoverished children, but also on their families, and entire communities as well.

About Children Incorporated

Founded by Jeanne Clarke Wood in 1964, Children Incorporated is an international nonprofit organization with a steadfast vision: to provide children living in poverty with the basic needs and education that they would otherwise go without – the tools that they need to break the cycle of poverty.

When you make the decision to partner with Children Incorporated, you are choosing to make a lasting impact not only on impoverished children, but also on their families, and entire communities as well.

Children Incorporated passionately believes that children everywhere deserve education, hope, and opportunity. We provide sustainable solutions that enable children around the world to receive such necessities as food, clothing, health care, and an education. These essentials, so often taken for granted, are vital to a child’s growth – both as an individual and as a contributing member of their local community.

Our Work

Children Incorporated partners with already-established schools, orphanages, homes, and childcare centers to address the specific needs of the children they serve. Each of our approximately 300 projects has its own local staff member who administers our program on a volunteer basis. We also maintain many special funds, such as our U.S. and International Feeding Programs Funds; we provide assistance for income-generating projects, health care and educational assistance programs; and we support critical projects, like school expansions, medical clinic repairs, housing improvements, and more.

Read more about our special funds:

U.S. Feeding Programs Fund

Mosquito Net Fund

International Feeding Programs Fund

Warm Clothing Fund

Skills Training Programs Fund

How to get involved

Most often, companies choose to sponsor a whole project rather than individual children. This type of approach allows a company to have an even greater impact in the lives of many children, as well as in a community as a whole. It is our aim to work with you as a team to bring basic needs assistance and programs that teach self-sustainability to children and communities in need.

Read about our special projects around the world:

Building Homes in Bolivia

Providing Dorms and Beds in India

Feeding Programs in the Philippines

Hearing Aids for Children in Lebanon

Gardens for Schools in Arizona

Computers for Students in Kentucky

By partnering with us, you help meet the needs of the children that we serve, so that they may grow, learn, and have the opportunities in life that they deserve.

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Shelley Callahan | September 13, 2018En Español

Recently, our Director of U.S. Programs, Renée Kube, and our U.S. Projects Specialist, Shelley Oxenham, visited one of our longest-standing and most stable partnerships – the Family Resource and Youth Services Center (FRYSC) of Pike County in Kentucky. Children Incorporated began our outreach in Kentucky not long after the founding of our organization in 1964. At that time, our program was in only one county in the state: Menifee. Unfortunately, when our volunteer coordinator in Menifee County retired a few years later, no one was able to step in and take her place; so that project site was reluctantly closed.

In order to continue helping children in need in the Appalachian Region of the United States, one of our staff members at the time, Dorothy Carver, went to our founder, Mrs. Jeanne Clarke Wood, with an interesting proposal: her husband was relocating for work from Richmond, Virginia, where our headquarters was located at the time, to North Carolina. Mrs. Carver offered to reinstate our Appalachian Division with a focus in western North Carolina, where extreme poverty was rampant. Mrs. Wood agreed; once Mrs. Carver relocated to North Carolina, she began traveling regularly, steadily expanding our sponsorship program in the state.

Today, Children Incorporated is affiliated with all seventeen public schools in Pike County, which is the easternmost and largest county in North Carolina.

A Breakfast for Champions

In 1990, when Mrs. Carver retired, our Appalachian Division consisted of 32 projects in western North Carolina. Her assistant, Irene LeCroy, took her place as the new Appalachian Division Director. Mrs. LeCroy worked hard to continue to expand our work with impoverished children and their families. She wanted Children Incorporated to acquire affiliations in Kentucky, as well as move into West Virginia. It was she who first learned of Kentucky’s newly-developed Family Resource and Youth Services Center. Thanks to Mrs. LeCroy, our first re-affiliations since the early 1970s were in Pike County, Kentucky. The first was Kimper Elementary School in March of 1993 – and more and more were added over the years.

Today, Children Incorporated is affiliated with all seventeen public schools in Pike County, which is the easternmost and largest county in Kentucky, encompassing 788 square miles. It has a rugged mountainous terrain, with narrow river valleys and great scenic beauty. However, the continuing decline of the coal industry has yielded high rates of unemployment; underemployment; and rural out-migration, in which families are forced to leave their homes in search of steady work elsewhere. The county’s child poverty rate is 29 percent – and twelve percent of those kids live in deep poverty, in which their families’ incomes are less than half the poverty threshold.

We are incredibly grateful for our coordinators in Pike County, who work hard every day to ensure children’s needs are met.

Since this year marks Children Incorporated’s 25^thanniversary of our work in Pike County, Renée and Shelley decided to start their week-long trip of visits to our affiliated schools in the area with a breakfast meeting to acknowledge the FRYSC coordinators, who also serve as our volunteer coordinators. Renée and Shelley invited all seventeen coordinators, as well as Mr. Robert Osborne, who is the Director of Federal Programs for the Pike County Board of Education, and who supervises our coordinators there.

Renée and Shelley hosted a fun breakfast, getting all the coordinators together to reminisce about how Children Incorporated sponsors and donors have facilitated their work helping kids in Eastern Kentucky over the years. Renée and Shelley also made it a point to express their gratitude to the coordinators for dedicating so much time and effort to ensuring that their students benefit fully from their sponsors’ crucial support.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN KENTUCKY?

You can sponsor a child in Kentucky in one of two ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members, or email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | August 31, 2018En Español

After spending three days visiting our affiliated projects in Guatemala, Luis Bourdet, our Director of International Programs; Ron Carter, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and I arrived at the last project we would be visiting: Casa Central in Guatemala City. Founded in the mid-nineteenth century and run by the nuns of the Sisters of Charity, Casa Central has a long and honorable history of ministering to children living in poverty, offering them a place of refuge from the instability and crime that pervade their neighborhoods.

Providing children with food to take home is an important way to keep them healthy so they can attend school.

When we arrived in the early afternoon, we were greeted warmly by our Volunteer Coordinator, Sister Estefanía, who showed us around the center. The center is a large two-story facility that comprises classrooms for primary and secondary schools, a social assistance center, courtyards, and an industrial-sized kitchen. Beautiful flowers grow in pots along its walkways, and some of the buildings there are painted bright colors. These things make the environment at the center a cheery and welcoming one.

As we walked, Sister Estefanía explained to us that children between first and twelfth grade attend school at the center. There, they are not only provided with a good education, but they are also given a safe place to learn and play during the day while their parents are at work.

A powerful ending to an amazing trip

After touring the school, we made our way to the social assistance center area, where our sponsored and unsponsored children and their parents were waiting to meet us. Chairs were lined up on two sides of the room, and there was an aisle down the middle. Two long tables full of food items, like cereal, grains, cooking oil, and spaghetti noodles, stood in the front of the room. Luis addressed the crowd of more than fifty families, all of which listened patiently as he described how grateful we are to have the opportunity to help support the children we serve through Casa Central.

Two long tables full of food items, like cereal, grains, cooking oil, and spaghetti noodles, stood in the front of the room.

When Luis finished, Sister Estefanía invited each family, who had brought their own large woven bags with them from home, to approach the tables. Two other Sisters began filling their bags with food items. Once the bags were full, some of them stood as tall as the children!

As the families left with their food through the back door, we said goodbye to each one, shaking the parents’ hands – and they all had big smiles on their faces. I, too, was smiling – thinking about just how lucky I am to be working for such an amazing organization as Children Incorporated. To see that these families are receiving the food items they require for proper nourishment, and to know that their children are healthy enough to attend school – all thanks to our sponsors and donors – was a great way to end a very special trip to Guatemala.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN GUATEMALA?

You can sponsor a child in Guatemala in one of three ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members; email us at sponsorship@children-inc.org; or go online to our sponsorship portal, create an account, and search for a child in Guatemala that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Ron Carter | August 22, 2018En Español

I first traveled to Guatemala in 2004. That trip was strictly for personal reasons, as I was going there to meet my Guatemalan-born daughter, who was in foster care at the time, as my family and I awaited final approval of our adoption. Even though I was quite focused on the task at hand, I couldn’t help but notice the many contrasts in the “Land of Eternal Spring.” Beautiful modern buildings stood side-by-side with tiny make-shift houses; and modern cars shared the roads with men and women in traditional Mayan attire leading oxen and goats to market.

The heavily-polluted air of the mostly grey cities hung in stark opposition to the pristine air of the countrysides, where lush green vegetation grew all along the slopes and hillsides. In the midst of it all were the people: most of them honest, hard-working folks trying to get by on very small incomes. I couldn’t help but respect and admire their persistence — often in the face of great struggle — to support themselves and to create better lives for their children.

Children Incorporated changes the lives of young people all around the world, but never has the impact of our work been clearer to me than after this visit to Guatemala.

Returning to Guatemala

I returned to Guatemala on two occasions over the next decade, and I grew to have a particular fondness for the country and its people. It wasn’t until this year in July, however, that I was truly able to witness first-hand the incredible work that Children Incorporated is doing in the country. Along with my co-workers Luis Bourdet, our Director of International Programs, and Shelley Callahan, our Director of Development, we visited five of the seven Guatemalan schools where the Children Incorporated sponsorship program operates.

At each school, we were welcomed with open arms and treated like royalty. As our group arrived at each center, we were surrounded by happy, smiling youngsters who were genuinely glad to have us as their guests. Our wonderful volunteer coordinators also greeted us warmly and shared many touching stories of how these children and their families depend upon assistance from our organization so that these youngsters may attend school, receive clothing and food, and have opportunities to learn skills that will help them find jobs when they reach adulthood.

While in Guatemala, I met with many of our sponsored children at our affiliated projects.

Children Incorporated changes the lives of young people all around the world, but never has the impact of our work been clearer to me than after this visit to Guatemala. There, we met a man who as a child was enrolled in our sponsorship program. As a result of the assistance he and his family received, he graduated from school, went on to attend university, and is now a teacher at one of the schools where we have sponsored children. He credits Children Incorporated with making this all possible. I also spoke with a single mother of three who had stopped by one of our program sites to collect badly-needed food items provided to her as part of our sponsorship program.

As she gave me a big hug, in broken and limited English, she told me that without Children Incorporated, her family would not be able to afford enough food to eat each month. She would also be unable to afford to send her children to school. As tears rolled down her cheeks, she asked me to let “everyone in America” know what a blessing Children Incorporated is to her family, and many others like it.

An incredible appreciation

I left Guatemala with an incredible appreciation for the country and the strong, resilient people who live there. I also left with a clear understanding of what Children Incorporated means to them. Though Children Incorporated is quite small in comparison to other child assistance organizations, the scope of life-changing work that we accomplish is huge. On a daily basis — not only in Guatemala, but all around the world — we are offering people hope for their futures; an upper hand as they struggle to make ends meet, and even to survive. I hope that you will join us as we continue to positively impact the lives of children and families all around the world. Your donations make our work possible; therefore, you are the ones who are truly responsible for the opportunities we are providing. Thank you very much.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN GUATEMALA?

SPONSOR A CHILD