For over a year, I have been working for a non-profit organization fighting local poverty as an Americorp volunteer. Americorps volunteers are not "volunteers" by the strictest of definitions. They receive a bi-weekly cash stipend, a minimal health insurance plan, and an optional education award - just to name few of the eligible benefits. Of course, Americorps members earn significantly less than they would with "gainful employment" and this fosters a sense of duty and service to the community. A minute stipend is not implemented without reason. Set just above the local poverty-level, the cash stipend is designed to educate the traditionally more affluent Americorps members about the realities of poverty and how it will affect any attempt to improve the capacity and sustainability of services to the community. The education does not simply come in the size of the paycheck, but in what it takes to receive even that much.

The non-profit that I currently serve is blessed with good people who assist families going through emergency crises everyday. The work can present the most harrowing of situations - single mothers who have been evicted from their homes, battered spouses and their children looking to escape, a parent and child trapped in an apartment rampant with drug use - but our case managers are there doing all they can, even if they cannot help all who come. Many families who have come looking for help have tried very hard to avoid being in the situation of asking for it. Multiple jobs compounded with a lack of medical insurance and childcare services strain the efforts of dedicated mothers and fathers to the breaking point. These are the parents my co-workers see everyday. They try, but the realities of living-costs and earned income just become too much.  

It is in talking to our case managers that I realized the value of having Americorps volunteers work for a relatively low stipend. By working long hours with little pay, one can begin to grasp the narrow avenues that the people who walk into our office travel. The practice of accumulating the costs of basic necessities - tracking the price of bread, milk, and poultry over an extended period of time, discovering the price of dental services, learning of the prescription prices of medicine - can shed light on this daily struggle. A .20 cent hike in gas, an increase in rent, now multiply that by the number of children and one can begin to grasp just how impoverished families work for basic amenities.

We all rely on support. Friends, family, co-workers, and others have all supported and carried us to where we are now and for the most being, we do not feel ashamed about this or lack a sense of self worth. But many impoverished families do feel this sense of shame while being neglected the necessary support structures needed during difficult times. The belief in hard work being rewarded disappears. What arises is the realization that hope and opportunity are lacking. That access is limited. The question that leaves is what to do to create hope and opportunity so others do not have to see hard work and sacrifice fail them?