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Every follower of our work knows by now how much we value the voices of low-income families, both to inform our work at Springboard To Opportunities and also in larger conversations that have the potential to shape public policy on local, state, and national levels. So when the opportunity presented itself to take two of our Springboard moms with me to the 8th Annual Ounce Policy Exchange: Unite with Children and Families in Chicago last month, I did not hesitate to say yes.

The conference focused on policy approaches to improve outcomes for young children and their families, but we, and the conveners of the conference, knew those conversations would be incomplete if the real, lived experiences of low-income families were not heard.  During the conference, Val and Ebony were given the opportunity to share with policymakers, foundation managers, and nonprofit leaders from across the country their experience of living in affordable housing and the barriers that they face daily in trying to reach their goals and create more opportunities for their families. It was a chance to take a narrative that even the most well-meaning among us often lace with assumptions and stereotypes and recenter it on the realities low-income families experience every day.

Val described watching the expressions on people’s faces change as she shared her daily experience as a single mother in low-income housing and said she felt, “we were finally being heard and taken seriously.” After their panel, Val commented that people continued to come up to her asking about issues and policy concerns that affect her family on a day-to-day basis. For Val, it was affirmation not only that her story matters, but that her opinions, experiences, and knowledge are essential to the process of making strong public policy that actually has the power to break cycles of poverty.

For Ebony, this was one of the first times where she felt not only invited to, but actually included in the conversation that was happening. “No one ever wants to hear our voice,” she said. “They just tell us what to do. They set the rules and don’t care about the impact that it has on us as families, as individuals, and as the community. It is detrimental when [policymakers and leaders] don’t hear our voices.” But this experience was different for Ebony. No one made her feel small or just “like another girl from the projects.” Instead, she found that many of the other participants were parents, just like her and wanted to create more opportunities and a prosperous future for their children, and her experience and knowledge as a mother was just as important in reaching that goal as the knowledge and experience of everyone else in the room.

Both Ebony and Val left the meeting with renewed energy and passion and both expressed a desire to continue speaking up and advocating for their communities in any way they can. I hope that more national partners will see the value of bringing the voices of families to these larger conversations, as The Ounce of Prevention Fund did, and that all the participants who were there will go back to their respective homes remembering what they heard and doing what they can to integrate those ideas and experiences into their work. And I hope Val and Ebony and all the mothers we work with on a daily basis will be reminded of the importance and value of their voices and ideas in shaping communities where all people have the ability and opportunity to flourish.

Summer is once again upon us and we are gearing up for a busy couple of months at Springboard. Super Summer Camp has already started in our Mississippi and Alabama communities, and as the kids finish up their last few days of school in Maryland, they are preparing for a summer of fun and learning within their communities, too. 

But even with all the excitement and energy surrounding the programs for our elementary school kids, we know there is another group that often gets left behind: middle school students. We often refer to this time in school as The Critical Middle. Academically, middle school can be a time where students’ progress can begin to slow and achievement gaps can widen, causing some children to be unprepared for high school, which can lead to higher drop out rates and low college readiness. Not to mention, middle school is a critical time for social and emotional development for students as they begin to discover who they are, grow more independent, and begin thinking about future goals and dreams for their lives.

That’s why we’re committed to making sure our middle school students are not forgotten this summer. In Maryland, our LitClub girls have been actively working on their Community Action Plan to revitalize Windsor Valley’s community garden that they created during the HerStory Summit this past fall. This past Saturday, they hosted their first ever Story Summit, a gathering of all the LitClubs within the area, to plant their garden and kick off the growing season.

Throughout the summer, they will be working with Springboard staff to maintain the garden and recruit volunteers to help care for the garden through weeding, watering, and picking vegetables as they start to grow. At the end of the summer, they will host a harvest party, celebrating their accomplishments and helping to cook some delicious food from the vegetables they grew. Not only is this project providing activities to help keep the middle school students active and engaged this summer, it is also helping them develop their leadership and critical thinking skills as they plan and run the events.

In other communities, we will be implementing our third year of PLAAY, a youth development program that uses sports as a platform to help minority youth utilize mindfulness practices and emotional honesty to deal with stressful or traumatic experiences in their own lives that can easily escalate into hostile and aggressive situations. The curriculum keeps the students academically engaged through writing prompts and discussions, while also helping students sort through social emotional development that comes during middle school and can often be even more intense for students from low-income families and students of color.

We are so excited to watch our middle school students continue to learn and develop this summer and cannot wait to share their stories and pictures with you. We are so proud of the young people they are becoming and believe they will make it through The Critical Middle years prepared and ready to achieve all of their wildest dreams.

As I stood at the start line of our 5th Annual 5K Run for Our Community, I was blown away thinking about the evolution of this event. What started as a small fundraising idea from some of our middle school students to raise money for on-site educational supplies has become a full-on race that now provides those same kids (plus 350 other Springboard kids!) with savings for higher education in their own Children’s Savings Accounts (CSA).

This year, we raised over $27,000, allowing us to seed and provide incentives for over 100 new accounts. We’ve said this so many times before, but it bears repeating that a child with anywhere from $1-$499 in a CSA is 3 times more likely to attend college and 4 times more likely to graduate. In other words, thanks to your support, over 100 new, low-income students are now a part of that promising statistic. We cannot thank you enough.

Over 200 people joined us on Saturday, March 30th for the race and the block party, and I think the pictures speak for themselves in showing how much fun we had! Every time we have this event I am reminded of the magic that can happen when a whole community comes together to encourage one another. Springboard residents, community partners and leaders, local supporters, property developers, board members, and others joined with one another at the start line and spent the rest of the morning celebrating at our block party. Relationships were formed, connections were made, and collectively, we walked alongside children and families on their journey toward higher education.

This race, though, was our final 5K as an organization. Over the last five years, you all have helped us raise over $100,000 that has gone directly to support the educational needs of children in low-income communities. We could not be more grateful. And we promise this will not be the last Springboard event! Stay tuned, because we already have some exciting ideas for new ways to  engage our residents and community as we support families on their paths toward their goals. 

But before we bring this chapter to a close, we wanted to take space to ensure we say thank you to all of you–for coming to the race, for making a donation, spreading the word on social media, and doing what you could to help make our 5K such a success for five years in a row!  We hope you’ll spend some time looking through our 5K Facebook album and remembering that morning, and the last five years, with as much joy as I do!

At this point, we are all pretty familiar with the most immediate consequences of the government shutdown–furloughed employees, long lines at airport security, national parks without any staff, food inspections not happening. But as the shutdown continues to drag on, the consequences for some of the most vulnerable people in our country are becoming visible. 

An estimated 38 million people rely on SNAP benefits for their food and nutrition needs, including the majority of Springboard families. These families just received the final payment of SNAP benefits available until the government reopens. Additionally, other food assistance programs like free and reduced lunch programs in schools and federal programs that help supply food pantries and other food assistance programs are at risk of running out of funding if the shut down continues. There is also concern that come February, HUD funding that provides the additional rent subsidy for our residents will no longer be available due to lapsed contracts, threatening millions of families, and particularly elderly and disabled residents on a fixed income, with the possibility of eviction.

In short, families who are already living under the daily stress of just trying to make ends meet, now have to worry that even their most basic needs will no longer be met.

While it’s easy to say that families should be prepared for an emergency, it ignores the reality of living paycheck to paycheck for many low-wage workers and the fact that 63% of Americans, across all income brackets, do not have enough savings to cover even a $500 emergency. We have written here many times before that our punitive welfare system provides little to no breathing room for low-income Americans, making it nearly impossible for families to start build savings, let alone have enough put away for months without food and housing subsidies.

While the President continues to claim that this shutdown is about the safety of Americans, the reality is that the stability and well-being of millions of Americans is being compromised every day this shut down drags on. We are deeply disturbed by the inability of our leaders to see the importance of reopening our government for the sake of an ideological symbol. But until that happens, Springboard will continue to provide whatever assistance we can to both meet immediate needs and continue to propel residents toward their long-term success.

Thank you for your support and partnering with us on this journey.