Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 1

I choose to connect with the advocate in our area to help prevent poverty.  Ms. Holmes deals with a many low income families or homeless families on a day to day basis.  She is responsible for placement, health care, and therapy.  I live in a middle class suburb; the twenty- two years that I have lived there I never knew that was an issue.  After talking to her there was a place that I passed day to day since I moved here and now found out that was a shelter for homeless woman and their children while the county tries to find them placement and proper healthcare for their children.

I also talked to a woman who works in the Philadelphia Public School system.  She told me that she experience's poverty daily, many of the children come to school with the same clothes which usually are dirty, no book bags or the school supplies to even complete the work, and no lunch money.  So at her particular school they have programs were people can come and donate slightly used uniforms, and supplies to help the families.  When it comes to lunch the school does provide something for the children to eat since this could be there last meal of the day.  She said it hurts her heart that some of the children do not have the basic needs to receive the best possible education.