Become an Ally to Success!

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Congratulations to Sarah Santora, Foodshare's Community Involvement Manager, for her work coordinating our first Getting Ahead program which ended with a graduation ceremony last week!

Getting Ahead is a program designed to help people who are living in poverty create a path for making a stable, secure life for themselves and their families. The sixteen people in the program met twice a week for nine weeks using a framework that is designed to give them insight into economic class and to help them create a “future story” for how they would like to better their own lives. The personal testimonies from two of the graduates were very moving, and it was clear that the program had a huge impact on all of the participants.

Foodshare is piloting this program this year (a second class will be held in the Fall) to evaluate it as a tool for helping to meet our goal of increasing the self-sufficiency of people in need. While we don’t know yet what the long term impact on the participants' lives will be, Sarah has identified and trained several “allies” – people who will meet one on one with program participants to help them move forward on the specific goals they have set for themselves. I’m sure we will learn more over the coming months and will use the information to evaluate if Foodshare will commit resources to continuing the program in the future. We will keep you posted!

Getting Ahead graduates have set goals for advancement and now they need your help. Only half of our current graduating class have an Ally to talk them through their ‘future stories.’ Allies meet monthly for 6 months to help the graduate carry out success plans. Qualifications include listening to their challenges, helping them work through solutions and being a resource for questions and information about succeeding in the workplace and other interactions with those in the middle class or in wealth. If you would be willing to meet with one of them and be an Ally to their success, please contact Sarah Santora directly at 860 286-9999 x105.

Beautiful, Useful Furniture with a Purpose

Grace Lutheran Church is our partner for the Bridges Out of Poverty Getting Ahead workshops. Another great project at Grace is their Fresh Start Pallet initiative.

Old wood pallets are recycled to build useful, sturdy and relatively inexpensive benches, tables and other furniture. The project provides employment and real job training to local area residents who are currently unemployed.

The Hartford Courant recently ran an article with video about the project. Consider buying one of these one of a kind treasures today! Call Grace Lutheran Church for details at 860-527-7792.

Issues of class

It was interesting to come home from Foodshare's inter-faith event last night, where we had been discussing issues of class, and see Regina Barrecca's latest blog post on this very issue.

Our discussion had been about the "mental models" work that underlies our Bridges Out of Poverty pilot.  And language is part of the mental model.  Regina is right, though, as important as they are, language skills alone will not solve the problems of poverty.

Learn more about what Foodshare is doing with this program here.

Bridges Out of Poverty recipe for success

Foodshare staff member Jill Nulsen is volunteering as an "ally" or mentor in the Bridges out of Poverty/Getting Ahead program.  She sent me this message recently about working with the "Investigator" or program participant recently:

"I met with the 'Investigator' that I am paired with this last Saturday for our regular meeting, and it was so exciting to see HER excited at how things are beginning to come together for her! She mentioned Foodshare staffer, Jim’s name in the conversation, having been at an event that he was at in the prior week, had several flyers that she shared with me, and most importantly, a solid plan that she was putting into action.  So, here's what struck me about how this program works!"

A Recipe for Success!

Ingredients:

1.       Bridges Out of Poverty/Getting Ahead graduate with a small business idea

2.       Hunger Action Team staffer, Jim Palma, affecting her at an event at the Hartford Public Library

3.       Community incentives  and opportunities that she comes across at the library, her church and in the community

4.       Bridges Out of Poverty/Getting Ahead ally that is her accountability partner and encourager

The ingredients are not always mixed together in the same order or at the same rate, but the outcome is a woman who feels empowered to start her own business out of her home and garners support from the community, possibly with start-up funding, and works toward specific, attainable goals. Foodshare is a critical link for this woman and she looks to us for direction and support, through staffers she has met along the way.

For these graduates, Foodshare is a food source and an opportunity source as we work together with others in the community, from HAT members to Allies to government programs that have the potential to radically improve her life and the future of her granddaughter.

-Bridges Out of Poverty Ally and Foodshare Staffer, Jill Nulsen

A frontline report from Bridges Out of Poverty

Foodshare staffer Jill is a volunteer ally with the pilot of Bridges Out of Poverty in Hartford.  She sent me this e-mail about a recent experience:

"The Bridges Out of Poverty framework and “Getting Ahead” is about self-discovery, goal-setting and utilizing networking to facilitate working toward the goal of overcoming circumstances that keep a person in poverty. Recently, the “Investigator” (recent graduate of the Getting Ahead program) that I work with (I am her “Ally”, or mentor) had some questions regarding help for her struggling adult granddaughter. My primary networking is through Foodshare (I am a relatively new Connecticut resident), so I emailed two of our board members who have a background that could be helpful. Within a short time, both of these board members emailed me back with detailed information regarding my questions, contact information and other resources I could tap into. My role (and their role, by extension) is not to solve my Investigator’s challenges, but to direct her to resources or contacts that can lead to needed answers. Thank you, thank you, thank, for helping this Investigator to move forward!"

Bridges Out of Poverty/Getting Ahead

Foodshare is pleased to be partnering with Chrysalis Center, the University of Connecticut, and the Junior League to extend our program at Freshplace in a new direction, which has two parts.

The Bridges Out of Poverty seminar provides community members with mental models for understanding economic class and key lessons in working with individuals from poverty. Topics include increasing awareness of the differences in economic cultures and how those differences affect opportunities for success. This seminar is based on the book Bridges Out of Poverty: Strategies for Professionals and Communities, a collaboration between Ruby K. Payne, Phillip DeVol, and Terie Dreussi Smith. This seminar is designed for businesses, community organizations, law enforcement, counselors, health care and social service providers.

“Getting Ahead” is a workshop for people in poverty that teaches how to use the hidden rules of class to build up financial, emotional, social, and other resources. Understanding the social rules of the middle class and wealth, and choosing to use them, can open doors to new relationships, new jobs, and higher resources. Working in a group with a facilitator, people who use this workbook will develop a series of mental models to examine their own lives and create new goals for improved futures. In 18 sessions over 9 weeks, the participants (who are called “investigators”) explore the impact that poverty has had on them, investigate economic realities, complete a self assessment of their own resources, make plans to build those resources, and develop a mental model of community prosperity. “Getting Ahead” does not provide answers to the investigators on how to establish economic stability nor does it make the argument for change. Instead, motivation, insight, and plans come from the investigators themselves. Upon completing “Getting Ahead”, investigators will have a self-developed plan and the motivation to achieve it.

In order to support Getting Ahead graduates in their journey to build resources and create their future story, we are recruiting people who can serve as Allies. The role of an Ally is to listen, support the goals set by the graduate, build relationships, provide networking and social capital opportunities, and meet regularly with the graduate. Allies should make a 6 month commitment to meet about twice per month with a graduate, and to participate in monthly conference calls with other Allies and a larger Steering Committee.

Allies serve an important role in helping to create a “bridge” for people who have attended the Getting Ahead workshops and are building resources to improve their lives. In order to support Getting Ahead graduates, middle and upper income volunteers, "Allies," are matched with a graduate who is ready to get out of poverty. The Allies provide coaching, networking and support to help families achieve their self-sufficiency goals. The premise of Bridges out of Poverty is that people in poverty are problem-solvers. Therefore, the role of an Ally is not to solve or fix problems for graduates, but rather to support the graduates in determining strategies for helping themselves and to build relationships of mutual respect. 

Getting Ahead graduates have participated in 18 workshop sessions to investigate:

·         their strengths and deficits in terms of 11 resources

·         how they spend their time

·         their concrete goals for getting ahead

·         key relationships in their lives and whether they are helping or hurting their growth

Graduates have drafted concrete plans for building resources, and have begun to take steps to work on these goals. One of the first activities for Allies should be to review the workbook with the graduate and to learn about their goals for their future story.

Time Commitment for Allies:

1.    Meet twice per month with Getting Ahead graduates in a public place such as the library.

2.    Participate in a monthly conference call with an Ally Steering Committee to discuss problems, successes, suggestions.

3.    Make a 6 month commitment to serve as an Ally. Relationships take time to build, and it is important to build trust over time.

The first meeting will be a social “meet and greet” to get to know one another and to match Allies with graduates. This will take place on a Wednesday afternoon at the Albany Avenue library in Hartford.  Once matched, Allies and graduates will meet every other Wednesday at the library.  This will allow for graduates to have peer support from each other (bonding social capital) as well as support from their Allies (bridging social capital).  Once a relationship is developed, Allies and graduates can discuss alternative times and places (still in a public setting) to suit their schedules. 

The role of the Ally is to support the graduate. It is NOT to serve as their financial or emotional savior.  Boundaries are important to maintain safety, and to set realistic expectations from the onset. All meetings will be held in public settings and never in one’s home or in private.