Tag Archives: poverty

Shelley Callahan | En Español

In August of 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, with damaging winds reaching 127 miles per hour; but it was when the protective levees failed and were breached that billions of gallons of water poured into the city. New Orleans is shaped geographically like a bowl; the land closest to Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River is higher, and the land in the middle of the city is much lower.

Epic catastrophe occurred as a result of the hurricane, as these waters became a toxic stew of sewage, chemicals, and decay. People developed blisters and rashes from wading in the water; many were stranded in their homes. Others trudged through the foul water to higher ground, making their slow and painful way to the Superdome, which was ill-equipped to help the number of people seeking refuge.

People were eventually evacuated to cities and towns across America. No schools were open during the 2005 to 2006 school year in New Orleans. Aside from a lack of children to educate, the buildings themselves were too badly contaminated and damaged to use. Katrina’s evacuees created a diaspora; victims filed for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in every state in the country. Some chose places to flee based on having family or friends in the area; others were sent by FEMA to places unknown to them.

An ariel view of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Just one year after Katrina hit, about 53 percent of city residents had returned to New Orleans – but less than one-third were back in their pre-hurricane homes. These families faced serious barriers, such as a lack of affordable rental housing. This was especially true because the four largest public housing projects were so badly damaged that the city decided to demolish them. The goal was to build mixed-income housing, but that was very slow in coming. While tracking those who were New Orleans residents at the time of Hurricane Katrina’s strike has been spotty and incomplete, it is known that the poorest sections of the city have not regained their former populations.

Challenges for New Orleans

New Orleans has a rich culture and history; its Mardi Gras celebrations are famous. There is a well-known annual Jazz and Heritage Festival each spring that draws music lovers from all over the world, and there are brass band parades every autumn. The city’s beloved cuisine makes instant fans. New Orleans is burdened by poverty, however, as well as a lack of affordable housing and high rents, crime, and political corruption.

After Hurricane Katrina, there was a host of good people who wanted to create charter schools in New Orleans. Many were established, but some folks found the administration of those schools to be more difficult than they had anticipated. If students did not achieve as quickly as state officials felt they should, schools’ charters could be revoked.

At the same time, the city created an “open border” policy: parents had the choice to send their children to any city school they wished, regardless of what neighborhoods or districts they resided in. This led to competition for students, and also to some financial inefficiencies. For example, some school buses crossed the entire city in a web of transportation; a student could potentially attend a school all the way across the city, passing by two that were closer to his or her home. So costs became higher, which meant less money for other needs.

Many people are familiar with the Lower Ninth Ward, which suffered the greatest destruction during the hurricane, and is making the slowest recovery.

Over the last ten years, many former residents have returned to New Orleans. There has also been an influx of new residents arriving to work in construction and rebuilding efforts. The city, with federal grants, initiated a 1.8 billion dollar school reconstruction plan after the hurricane. This has improved the conditions in which the children learn; but it can also feel like things remain unresolved, as students are moved to accommodate renovations, or are moved to new campuses. The real estate market is tight and expensive. There is a budding technology industry and a booming restaurant scene. The recovery has left many still without the resources to rebuild their lives, though.

New Orleans is ranked as the third most unequal city in the United States based on the income gap, according to a Bloomberg analysis. The economy is adding low-wage jobs much faster than higher-paying ones that could help build a stronger middle class. The poverty rate in the city is 27 percent, which is twice the national rate. Some of the challenges related to government and organization. The city is divided into thirteen planning districts that encompass 72 distinct neighborhoods, most with their own neighborhood organizations. Previously, there were seventeen wards that had been in place since the 1800s, and many people still think of themselves as residents of a certain ward.


Many people are familiar with the Lower Ninth Ward, which suffered the greatest destruction during the hurricane, and is making the slowest recovery. Nineteen areas are registered as historic places, fourteen of them designated as Historic District Landmarks. There are also seven municipal districts and eight police districts. Understandably, many families experience confusion over where to turn for services, or to ask for help with landlord or other problems.

Two years before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’ schools’ performance had become so poor that the State of Louisiana took over the city’s schools, establishing the Recovery School District (RSD). Its mission was — and still is — to turn around low-performing schools. Just before the hurricane, five failing schools became charter schools overseen by the RSD; and after the hurricane, more than 100 schools became part of the RSD — with a total number of 57 becoming charter schools.

At the same time, there is a small but significant number of private schools – and still some parochial schools. There is a belief in the city that there is an almost unbridgeable gap between the poorer students that attend the charter and public schools, and the more well-to-do students that attend the private and parochial schools.

The anniversary of our partnership

In early 2007, Ronald Carter, our President and Chief Executive Officer, who at the time was our Urban Division Director, reached out to organizations that were already in New Orleans doing good work – but who needed more financial help in order to care for the children.

Mr. Carter spoke with Sara Massey, the President of Communities In Schools (CIS) of Greater New Orleans at the time, and a partnership was established. CIS of Greater New Orleans, whose mission is to work directly in 2,300 schools in 25 states and in the District of Columbia to build relationships that empower students to stay in school and succeed in life, has goals and objectives that are complementary to ours here at Children Incorporated. This school year marks the tenth anniversary of our partnership with CIS of Greater New Orleans, where we are able to help sponsored and unsponsored children get the support they need through our sponsorship program and our Hope In Action Fund.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN New ORLEANS?

You can sponsor a child in New Orleans 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 |

Without a doubt, our volunteer coordinators are the backbone of our organization. Without help from these special teachers, guidance counselors, and resource center coordinators at our affiliated schools, we couldn’t reach thousands of children living in poverty every year, helping them to receive the basic needs they require in order to focus on getting an education.

We have found that our volunteer coordinators are just as grateful for our programs as we are for their service to the children we help to support. Over the years, our Director of U.S. Programs, Renée Kube, has received many letters from our coordinators expressing just how important Children Incorporated is to them, to the schools, and most especially to children and their families.

“We would like to thank the sponsors for their support. All children want to know they’re cared about, and I can tell you that you have provided these children with lots of smiles.”

Removing barriers

“Children Incorporated remains a crucial part of our center’s mission of removing non-cognitive barriers to our students’ education. One of the highlights of working with your organization is that volunteer coordinators are given the liberty of using the Children Incorporated funds to best meet the needs of the individual children and their families. This past school year, one of my greatest blessings was to give food assistance to my families. Our winter was one of the coldest, snowiest winters that we have had in many years. School was dismissed for multiple days at a time, meaning our students were not receiving the free breakfast and lunch meals that families had counted on as they prepared their monthly budgets. Many told me that they simply ran out of funds budgeted for food because of the repeated school cancellations. Children Incorporated allowed the center to purchase food for our families. I had never had the opportunity to work with families that were more grateful in my many years as coordinator. I, too, am incredibly grateful.”

– Vanessa, Kentucky

Mrs. Wood’s vision

Our volunteer coordinators are incredibly grateful for the support of children in our program.

“From my experience over the last thirteen years with Children Incorporated, I have learned that the monetary help with clothing and immediate needs is really secondary to the emotional support that these children get from corresponding with their sponsors. They finally feel like someone cares and they are not alone in this world. The most gratifying thing that I have seen from the children being helped by this program is that a large number of them say that when they grow up and get a job, they want to sponsor a child themselves. We have actually had a few parents of children that were in the Children Incorporated program have their circumstances greatly improve, and so requested to have their children removed from the program so that needier children could benefit. Then, to our amazement, they proceeded to ask how they could become sponsors themselves. That in and of itself shows me the worth of this program, and what is being achieved is exactly what Mrs. Wood envisioned at its inception.

“Thank you, Children Incorporated and all of our sponsors, for the unbelievable difference you make in the lives of our children.”

– Alisa, Kentucky

Bringing smiles to kids’ faces

“Children Incorporated is truly a blessing to my community. It has brought so many smiles to the children’s faces. There are so many kids that benefit from this organization. Without the help from Children Incorporated programs, so many of our kids would do without.

“I am truly amazed with all the things that the sponsors from Children Incorporated do. To see these kids get a package from a ‘stranger’ that loves them is beyond them. It is breathtaking to see what just a note or card can do. I will never forget when one of my new students got a care package from their new sponsor. This girl was very hesitant to open the box. I explained to her that it was a gift from her sponsor and told her they wanted her to have what was inside. This girl, with a tear in her eye, said, ‘Why would anyone buy me something?’ My heart broke. I wanted to break down and cry. As she opened the box, she looked inside it with the biggest eyes. It was filled with clothes, art supplies, toys and snacks. She leaned over into the box and grabbed a box of snacks and said, ‘Wow! I finally got a snack for school. I can’t wait to show my daddy. He will be so excited.’

“As she went through her box of goodies, she showed me each piece and kept smiling and hopping around with excitement the entire time. She had to lay all her clothes out and look them over. She rubbed a soft footie to her face, and I truly cherished every moment she pulled something new out of her box.

“So many children are impacted in such positive ways by the sponsors in their lives. I cannot overstate the tremendous impact of Children Incorporated on our work, and most importantly on our students.”

“Putting a smile on a child’s face is a miracle in itself. A helping hand makes more of a difference than anyone can ever imagine. This program means the difference between a child being able to have their basic needs met for school and that same child doing without. We would like to say thank you for everything that you do for our kids. With your help, our kids can have a brighter future.”

– Alice, Kentucky

True heroes

“I truly believe Children Incorporated has made an impact on my students’ lives. I have seen their smiles, felt their hugs and their appreciation for gifts and letters of encouragement from their sponsors.”

– Deborah, Kentucky

“As I’ve said for years, the sponsors are the true heroes of the Children Incorporated program. It is amazing to think that strangers care enough about a child – a child they have never, and most likely will never, meet – to send help. I hope sponsors realize that the friendships and bonds that they create with these children are just as valuable as their monetary donations. Children Incorporated and its sponsors are changing the world one child at a time.”

– Stacy, West Virginia

“We would like to thank the sponsors for their support. All children want to know they’re cared about, and I can tell you that you have provided these children with lots of smiles. The Children Incorporated program has given our students a huge sense of pride as well as the knowledge that someone cares. Parents come in and say, ‘I appreciate the sponsorship so much.’… I’m surprised at how much people are willing to give, especially to children they’ve never seen in person. My words of thanks fall way short of conveying how important sponsors are in these kids’ lives.”

– Wally, North Carolina

A tremendous impact

“Thanks to the remarkable network of sponsors, we were able to provide required school uniforms, socks, underclothes, and winter coats, hats and gloves. We also provided a countless number of school supplies, personal care items, emergency food and more. In addition, through the Hope In Action Fund, with which Children Incorporated provides additional help in education and health matters, we were able to do three very different and significant things:

Sponsorship goes a long way in helping kids in need.

“At Lucy Ellen Moten Elementary School, where the neighborhood streets are not deemed safe enough for trick-or-treating, the coordinator was able to provide an in-school Halloween celebration, featuring a visit from a clown, and a pumpkin for every student. At Charles Hart Middle School, a family lost their medical coverage during a government shutdown, and one child could not receive her life-saving kidney medication. Children Incorporated stepped in and made it possible, and after several sleepless nights from worry, her mother wept with relief, knowing Callie* would be alright.

“At Cardozo Education Campus, a bright student could not read the board, and her grades were suffering. Her mother was struggling to make sense of the system that would allow her to get eyeglasses. The coordinator worked with the teacher and nurse to clarify the extent of the vision impairment, and through Children Incorporated, the coordinator was able to get Maxine* a proper eye exam and a pair of glasses.

“So many children are impacted in such positive ways by the sponsors in their lives. I cannot overstate the tremendous impact of Children Incorporated on our work, and most importantly on our students. Thank you so much, to the amazing sponsors and donors who make this possible!”

– Jennifer, Washington, D.C.

*Names changed for children’s protection.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD WITH CHILDREN INCORPORATED?

You can sponsor a child with Children Incorporated 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 donation portal, create an account, and search for a child that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | En Español

At Children Incorporated, we think a lot about the basic needs that children living in poverty are going without. Providing kids with items like food, shoes, school supplies, toiletries, and clothing are at the forefront of our mission as a child sponsorship organization. Sometimes, however, when we think about ensuring that children have appropriate clothes to wear, we don’t think about how important pajamas are for kids while growing up.

“Every child has the right to a good night. Yet, thousands of children across the United States will go to sleep tonight and their bedtime will be missing something.”

Introducing the Pajama Program

The Pajama Program was founded in 2001 by Genevieve Pitturro, who discovered while volunteering to read to children at a shelter that the kids there were going to bed wearing the same clothes that they had been wearing all day, and that they didn’t have comfortable pajamas to change into. This discovery prompted Genevieve to return to the shelter with bags of new pajamas and storybooks to share with the children so that she could help ensure that they would enjoy a good night with a caring adult to tuck them in. After that, Genevieve decided to expand her project to reach children all over the United States, because she strongly believes that loving bedtimes lead to good days for children.

Pajamas help keep children warm and night as well as secure in bed.

According to the Pajama Program website, “Every child has the right to a good night. Yet, thousands of children across the United States will go to sleep tonight and their bedtime will be missing something. They may be feeling alone and afraid, in a bed that isn’t theirs, in a shelter that isn’t a home or with families who wish they could give them more. Nightly bedtime rituals like fresh pajamas and a storybook offer a consistent, reassuring ‘comfort zone’ at the end of each day.”

Offering comfort to our kids
Children Incorporated is honored to be a distribution partner for the Pajama Program, because their mission and goal to help children obtain basic needs align perfectly with ours. What’s more, because we are a pajama distributor, we are able to work with amazing community members who want help children as well!

This past year, during the holiday season, the Richmond, Virginia Chapter of the Women’s Association of Verizon Employees (WAVE) held a pajama and book drive in conjunction with the Pajama Program; and as a result of their generous efforts, we were able to provide new pajamas to both sponsored and unsponsored children enrolled in our program in Richmond, Virginia. We are so grateful for all those involved in helping provide kids with pajamas so that they can have a good, comfortable night’s sleep – every night.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA?

You can sponsor a child in Richmond 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 | En Español

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world — both geographically and in terms of population. It is truly massive, sharing borders with every other country in South America except for Ecuador and Chile. The Amazon rainforest – recognized for having the greatest biological diversity on the planet — sprawls over the country’s northern half, and there are rugged mountains to the south. Despite its wealth of natural resources and beauty, Brazil suffers from staggering poverty, rising inflation, unemployment, and a lack of social development.

Growing vegetables provides food and a new skill sets for children and adults.

These issues are especially pronounced in cities like Lages, located in southern Brazil. Lages’ population — about 150,000 — has been increasing steadily as poor families from the countryside move to the city in search of employment and better lives. Their situations, however, usually do not improve; many families are forced to live in urban developments like Novo Milênio, which lack electricity, drinking water, and even sewage services. Job opportunities there are extremely limited, and area public schools are ill-equipped to provide a quality education to the ever-increasing number of students. Children roam the streets — sad, neglected, and vulnerable to threats of crime, drug abuse, and worse.

A center helping families

The families eat, share, and trade the vegetables with other families — and sometimes they sell them at a low cost to make a small profit.

The plight of these children aroused the compassion of the CARITAS – Novo Milênio Center, a nonprofit organization run by the Catholic Church. One of our affiliated projects in Brazil, CARITAS, was established to help these children and community members rise above the difficult socioeconomic circumstances from which they come.

One of the ways in which the center is helping children and their families, thanks to the support they receive from Children Incorporated, is by establishing vegetable gardens at the children’s houses in nearby neighborhoods! The families, along with their children, tend to the gardens, which teaches them all gardening skills, and helps the parents become more self-sufficient when it comes to feeding their family. The families eat, share, and trade the vegetables with other families — and sometimes they sell them at a low cost to make a small profit!

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN BRAZIL?

You can sponsor a child in Brazil in one of two ways: call our office at 1-800-538-5381 and speak with one of our staff members; or go online to our donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in Brazil that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | En Español

Not long ago, we received a letter from our volunteer coordinator at our affiliated project CADI (Centro de Assistência e Desenvolvimento Integral) in Brazil about one of our sponsored children, Celia*. Celia, an avid rugby player at her high school, was invited to play professionally, and was in need of support to purchase a new uniform, proper shoes, and to cover her travel expenses to and from matches. Her coordinator asked Children Incorporated if we could help, and we were happy to do so, knowing that this was the opportunity of a lifetime for Celia to pursue her dreams.

Getting to know CADI

Celia has been playing rugby since 2014.

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world – both geographically and in terms of population. It is truly massive, sharing borders with every other country in South America except for Ecuador and Chile. The Amazon rainforest – recognized for having the greatest biological diversity on the planet – sprawls over the country’s northern half, and there are rugged mountains to the south. Despite its wealth of natural resources and beauty, Brazil suffers from staggering poverty, rising inflation, unemployment, and a lack of social development. These issues are especially pronounced in Fazenda Rio Grande, a town in the outskirts of Curitiba in southern Brazil.

There, many families struggle to afford even the most basic necessities – including their children’s education-related expenses. What began in 1994 as a soccer school to motivate and assist the children of these low-income families has now become CADI – a national nonprofit organization that maintains a center for holistic development in Fazenda Rio Grande. CADI’s mission is to motivate and equip these deserving children to rise above the difficult socioeconomic circumstances from which they come, thus helping them to break the cycle of poverty. Thanks to CADI’s support, as well as that of her sponsor, Celia has been able to attend school, and to find her passion for the sport of rugby.

A letter to her sponsor

We are very proud of Celia for her accomplishments, and we wish her all the best as she continues to work hard both in school and on the rugby field.

Upon finding out that she had been asked to play on a professional rugby team, Celia wrote a letter to her sponsor explaining how she first got started playing the sport years ago.

“Dear Sponsor,

“It’s been six years since I started attending CADI, and during these years, I have participated in various activities and classes. I started playing rugby in 2014. I started playing just for fun with a friend of mine, even when many people say that it is a sport for boys. Who would have guessed that two tough girls would make history for our team? Our team keeps winning at festivals and in competitions.”

We are very proud of Celia for her accomplishments, and we wish her all the best as she continues to work hard both in school and on the rugby field.

*Name changed for child’s protection.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN BRAZIL?

You can sponsor a child in Brazil 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 donation portal, create an account, and search for a child in Brazil that is available for sponsorship.

SPONSOR A CHILD

Shelley Callahan | En Español

Dzilth Community Grant School is located in Bloomfield, New Mexico near one of the four sacred mountains of the Navajo Nation. The school was built in the late 1960s by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and then it was converted to community grant status in 2005. The Navajo name of the school, Dzilth-Na-O-Hle, translates to “The Mesa that Turns” in English; it refers to a nearby mesa – an isolated flat-topped hill with steep sides — which seems to turn as the observer walks around it. The campus has a dormitory for the kids who live too far away to go home every afternoon. About half of the students who attend the school, which serves grades kindergarten through eighth, board there each week.

Dzilth Community Grant School is one of our most successful projects in New Mexico, and has been for quite some time now. Dzilth is blessed with two outstanding coordinators, Phyllis and Karen.

Unlike many of the areas in New Mexico in which our affiliated schools are located, this region of the state has more work opportunities for parents who have an education, certain skills, and transportation to get to and from jobs. Some commute to work in farms around Bloomfield, or at an oil field project in nearby Bisti. Other parents make and sell beaded jewelry during the summer tourist season, and then pick potatoes in Durango, Colorado during the harvest season.

Although there are job opportunities, many of our sponsored and unsponsored children’s parents lack the education or skills needed to successfully compete in the job market. There are also many older grandparents who are raising their grandchildren. For these reasons, many of the families of children enrolled in our program are living in poverty, and struggle every day to make ends meet — so support from the Children Incorporated program means so much to them.

A successful project

Dzilth Community Grant School is one of our most successful projects in New Mexico, and has been for quite some time now. Dzilth is blessed with two outstanding coordinators, Phyllis and Karen. They are managing 87 children in our sponsorship program, and the school comprises one of our largest projects in the state. When our Director of U.S. Programs, Renée Kube, and U.S. Projects Specialist, Shelley Oxenham, arrived at the school, Phyllis and Karen told them that the principal had said that they could meet with all the children enrolled in the Children Incorporated program in the library. A rare occurrence at projects in our U.S. Division, due to strict rules in school systems, Renée and Shelley were very grateful for the principal’s permission to pull the students out of class for a brief gathering.

Children at Dzilth Community Grant School are fortunate to have two wonderful volunteer coordinators to support them.

Renée addressed the group of children by thanking them for cooperating with their coordinators for updated pictures and progress reports, and especially for writing letters to their sponsors. She stressed how much the letters mean to sponsors, and asked the children to keep up their good work.

After meeting with the kids, Renée and Shelley had a meeting with Phyllis and Karen. Phyllis is an administrative assistant, and Karen is a data technician. They told Renée and Shelley that sponsorship funds are primarily utilized for the purchase of shoes and clothing, and then school supplies and hygiene items. They are also used to purchase food, when needed.

Phyllis and Karen also expressed a need for eyeglasses for children at the school. Dzilth Community Grant School used to have a partnership with the Helen Keller Foundation, which provided occasional mini grants for eyeglasses; but that partnership is no longer what it used to be. Renée said that she would look into seeing if our Hope In Action Fund could provide some assistance for this special need.

High hopes for Michelle

After the school visit, Phyllis and Karen took Renée and Shelley to the home of one of Children Incorporated’s sponsored children. They traveled quite a few miles away from the school, until they arrived at a muddy lane on which Michelle* lives, in a small neat and tidy house with her mother and grandmother. The mom works as an office assistant; the grandmother was once employed, but is now older and retired. Both women expressed their appreciation for Children Incorporated and Michelle’s sponsor.

While they chatted in the kitchen, Michelle’s mother and grandmother talked about how proud they are of her. She is an excellent student whose favorite subject is math. Michelle is also athletic; she loves basketball, and is very good at playing it.

They have high hopes for Michelle and her future. They dream that she will graduate from high school, and go on to college. Michelle has a special fondness for animals, and says she wants to be a veterinarian. Her mother and grandmother believe this dream can come true; and here at Children Incorporated, we believe it can, too.

*Name changed for child’s protection.

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HOW DO I SPONSOR A CHILD IN New Mexico?

You can sponsor a child in New Mexico 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