“Will you join with us—and with your communities: plan anti-poverty programs; search out the causes of poverty; devise new ways to enlist the conscience of the American people; take an active role in the quest for the dignity of man?”
Our Quote of the Week encourages us to step up and find ways to address the economic hardship that some of our neighbors face. It is a message with particular urgency today as the ongoing impasse at the heart of the government shutdown threatens the welfare of more and more Americans.
In his 1965 Address to the Council of Protestant Colleges and Universities, Sargent Shriver gives concrete examples of how the resources, training, and education that the War on Poverty programs provide, can offer “poverty proofing” for low-income people of all ages. But even though the results of the poverty programs can be demonstrated and quantified, argues Sargent Shriver, there is something more fundamental that makes the programs important:
“What is important is that the poverty program is the product of an aroused national conscience. And that conscience, that commitment, that determination constitutes a tide which nothing can withstand.”
With this, Shriver makes a vigorous appeal to the conscience of the audience, asking them to join the War on Poverty efforts:
“We need you:
- to help us recruit volunteers, for VISTA, the domestic Peace Corps
- to help design and administer Job Corps Centers
- to help communities design comprehensive anti-poverty programs
- to devise new methods of combating illiteracy among adults
- to teach your students and this nation about poverty, not from books, but from life.”
We take Sargent Shriver’s message to heart today as the ongoing government shutdown leaves hundreds of thousands of federal workers unemployed, and hundreds of thousands more working without pay; as the funding for programs like SNAP and Head Start runs dry; and as the partisan impasse over health care subsidies threatens the health care of millions of people. In these moments, we must determine how we can take an active role in supporting members of our community who are struggling. From donating goods, money, or time to local organizations, to seeking out mutual aid or Buy Nothing groups in our neighborhoods, to stocking community fridges or simply checking in on neighbors we know are struggling ... there are concrete ways to serve our communities during this particularly challenging moment.
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