During this Thanksgiving week, I'm thankful for…Sharing Hope! Recently, the Family and Children First Council of Fairfield County presented Sharing Hope with a Firefly award for it's work in helping to eliminate local poverty. Sharing Hope began this past Spring. It's mission is to eliminate local poverty through the building of relationships among people of a variety of economic levels.
Training is provided to help people understand the culture of poverty. Dinner meetings are held twice a month which includes large group training and break out sessions. It's one of the few programs where people who live in poverty and people who are have stable financial environments are able to build relationships and learn from each other. Most programs seek to do something for the poor. This is a program that does something with the poor.
Those who are living in poverty have greatly benefited from the program. They have experienced an increase in their monthly incomes and they no longer rely on cash assistance. One of the participants has been able to get a driver's license and another person is making plans to return to school. More people will be participating in 2014.
Our church hosts the meetings at our Crossroads facility and several of our members are involved in the program. Thank you, Lancaster: First United Methodist Church for being an important community partner in helping to eliminate local poverty one family at a time.
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