By JESSICA KUNZ
Carmen Crespo was born in Puerto Rico and raised in North Philadelphia, PA. She is a mother of three who moved to Erie, PA from Camden, NJ in 1992 to give her daughters better opportunities.
Carmen remains active in her community to show her daughters a better way of life and demonstrate that it is important to know what’s going on in their community. Read the rest of this entry »
By JESSICA KUNZ
The Trinity Center in Erie, PA’s “Little Italy” neighborhood is a community wide resource that offers programming, services and opportunities for youth and families. This includes a Kids Cafe, which provides meals to children in need.
Kids Cafes are a recent development in combating child hunger. In 1989, two brothers were discovered looking for food one night in the kitchen of their housing project’s community center. This sparked a response and led to the first Kids Cafe in Savannah, Georgia. Read the rest of this entry »
By JESSICA KUNZ
Poverty is a struggle that takes many forms and does not exclude race, gender or ethnicity. However, the idea that poverty is reserved specifically for those without an income is false.
Dutch artist Willem de Kooning once said, “The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.”
Wondering constantly where will my next meal come from? Will I be able to pay my bills? What does it mean, then, to have a job but still struggle? To have a source of income but still fight to make ends meet? These are issues of the working poor, an ever growing group of people who seem to fly under the radar because it is not readily understood that jobs do not always equal stability, let alone luxury.
The current needs of American citizens are at the forefront of American politics, the Occupy Movements, and media reports on the economy.
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WORKING POOR AMERICA 