By Patricia Jones, Alliance Community Task Force: Creating Opportunity
A few weeks ago Earl and I had the pleasure of cooking in our Dutch ovens at Dobby's Fall Festival. We've been participating in the Fall Festival for over thirty years! It's always fun to explain what we are doing and how Dutch ovens work. Kids come by to peel apples, and every year a few stay to help mix up great desserts like apple crisps, coffee cakes, and brownies. Old friends come by to say hello.
This year several people stopped to say how much they've enjoyed my Getting Ahead column, how much they've learned from it, how much it has challenged attitudes. I can't tell you how much I appreciated the kind comments. I had to admit to them that, after five and a half years, I've decided to stop writing.
February, 2020. I was an active member of the Alliance Poverty Task Force, and we had decided to bring a Bridges Out of Poverty program to Alliance. Tim Stadem, the chairman, asked a few of us to write weekly columns about poverty until June, when the program was scheduled. We interviewed people who lived in poverty. We talked to directors of agencies who served low-income people and those who lived in poverty. I wrote up our notes and submitted them to be published in the Alliance Times-Herald, the Hemingford Ledger, Panhandle Post, and in a group list-serve.
Then in March Covid hit. Businesses shut down, and so did our schools and churches. People weren't working or traveling or spending time with friends. We all knew people who were sick or who had died from this new virus. Many lost their jobs. We were scared, angry, confused.
Who had even heard of Zoom before Covid? Suddenly all our meetings were online. Schools set up online learning options. Families met regularly through their computers where they could see each other.
The government set up new programs to help businesses and households. Members of our Poverty Task Force, most of whom represented agencies, wrote lots of grants for the assistance being offered. Not only did the world change, but so did the column. My job was to explain these programs and how people could take advantage.
Community Table handed out three hundred meals a day. Families with children could drive to the school and take home meals. Boxes of produce, milk, and meat, once meant for restaurants, were given out. Companies could get grants to continue paying workers. Programs like SNAP expanded.
A new group of people was in situational (temporary) poverty. I had a Bridges Out of Poverty book that I pored over. Articles summarized key lessons from that book, explaining the challenges so many were suddenly facing.
Of course, we had to delay our first Bridges program for a year to June, 2021. Two hundred people came to the Alliance High School Performing Arts Center to learn about poverty and how we could help people find a way forward. Alliance and Scottsbluff have hosted four more Bridges programs since then. I've taken two additional classes through Educational Service Unit 13, where I serve on the Board. Several people with our agencies are now trained to offer Bridges programs.
The Getting Ahead column has primarily been about understanding poverty. I taught for years at Alliance High School, and some of you probably recognized lessons from Economics, Business Law, or Personal Finance classes. I spent hours every week researching topics, often related to current news, so I could understand what was happening and share my thoughts with you.
It is time for me to step back and act like I'm really retired. I have been invited to submit columns for publication any time I think I have something more to say, so you may hear from me again... Many thanks to those of you who have been loyal readers! I wish you all the best.