Opportunity is the Key at Any Age

Yesterday, I turned 40 years old. My family, friends, and coworkers have made it a wonderful week of celebration for me. Aside from the many comments about me now being “over the hill,” I have also had several people ask me: “Are you where you expected to be at 40?”

As a teenager and young adult, I had no desire whatsoever to work at a social-service organization. I certainly knew about poverty, but it was not one of “my causes.”

I came to work at CANI thirteen years ago because I couldn’t find employment in the field I thought I wanted to work in. I needed a job, so I took one here. I continued to look for a position elsewhere over my first several months at CANI. But what I know now that I didn't know then is that I got exactly the job I was meant to have. Life is funny that way, isn't it?

CANI has provided me with more than I could ever have imagined. I found a career at CANI, for sure. I also met my wife at CANI, and I would not trade our relationship, or our children, for anything else in the world.

But what I have really found at CANI is a cause that I believe in. I have never lived in poverty myself, but I was fortunate to have worked as a case manager in my first nine months at CANI. I worked with families very closely and I saw the issues they faced and how hard they worked to improve their lives and their children’s lives. Their stories, as well as the stories of the thousands of families we have served since then, continue to fuel me today.

When I think about where I am today, I think about the opportunities that have been provided to me that have helped me get here. Two incredible parents who provided for me at great sacrifice to themselves, and who shaped me into the adult I am today. A wife who has supported me every single step of the way and is my most important partner in life. An excellent education, from pre-school all the way through graduate school. Military service that truly changed me from a boy into a man. Friends and coworkers who have supported me throughout my life.

How we take advantage of opportunities is what defines us as individuals. But you have to have opportunities first. That's what we are providing here at CANI: Opportunities for communities, families, and individuals to build brighter futures. And I couldn't be prouder than to work for an organization that does that.

After the Storm

I spend a lot of my time talking to people about CANI’s mission. I love our mission for many reasons.  Among them, I love that it states that we address both the “causes and conditions of poverty”. Few would argue that we would much rather address causes than conditions. We would much rather “teach people to fish” than “give them a fish”. At CANI, we spend the bulk of our resources “teaching people to fish”, but I was personally reminded two weeks ago why we cannot ignore the conditions either.

Like so many others in northeast Indiana, my family was without power for an extended period of time after the storm on Friday, June 29^th. It is amazing how much we take electricity for granted. Without electricity, we lose light; we lose the ability to store and cook food; we lose the ability to wash our clothes. Most importantly, for many of us we lose the ability to heat or cool our home. And if you have well water, like we do, we lose the ability to get water into our homes.

My family spent four days without power at my home. I thought about CANI’s mission many times over this period. I spent those four days completely focused on meeting my family’s basic needs. We are fortunate to have a generator, which we connected to our freezer and our sump pump to keep our basement from flooding. However, the generator sprung a fuel line leak, and after spending several hours trying to fix it, I spent several more hours trying to purchase a new one.

Without water, there was no way for us to wash clothes, take showers, or flush toilets as we normally do. We were fortunate to have a small pool already filled with water for our three young kids to swim in, and so at least we could fill a bucket of water each time someone needed to use the bathroom. We were also fortunate that my wife could take several hours to travel to her parents and do laundry on Saturday night.

It also happened to be quite hot over those four days. We were exceptionally uncomfortable and spent a great deal of time just trying to keep everyone cool (setting up the basement to sleep in, taking drives in our air conditioned van, sitting in our dwindling 3-foot pool). And as uncomfortable as I was, I was worried about the health of my parents in the heat, who were also without power.

Food was also a chore. I already mentioned keeping generators going to keep our food from spoiling. But without an oven, we took a lot of trips to restaurants, and when we did eat at home, it meant disconnecting the freezer from the generator so we could microwave our food.

On Monday morning, when I woke up after three days of no power and my mood was not good. I was angry and generally not at all pleasant to be around. I was this way for several hours, until my wife finally told me to get out and go for a drive on my own. I drove through Monroeville, initially to see if there were any signs that power might be coming back soon. But as I drove through town I was reminded that others’ homes and businesses were in much worse shape than mine. Suddenly, my attitude began to shift. I certainly had no right to be angry or feel sorry for myself when other people were suffering worse than I!

A couple hours later, our power was restored. Moods immediately brightened, the home started to cool, the kids jumped on the Wii (and stopped driving us crazy), and we cooked a nice lunch. Our lives returned to normal, even while others continued to live without power until later.

As I reflect on those four days, it is a reminder to me about why meeting basic needs is so crucial to CANI’s mission. Even with resources to draw upon – such as working vehicles, money to buy gas for generators and food at restaurants, and family to help us – my wife and I spent four days fully focused on meeting our family’s basic needs. Work, aside from concern over how coworkers were doing, was an afterthought. No doubt, if I was still in school that would have been an afterthought as well. We spent no time reading to our kids and certainly didn’t think about how they were developing as children. Heck, even my relationship with my wife and kids was an afterthought especially by that Monday morning when I just had a bad attitude.

While I was in school, I often came across Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in my studies. The theory essentially states that people must meet a certain level of need before they will have the ability to move on to another level. I have been fortunate in my life that I have rarely had to worry about the most basic needs in Maslow’s Hierarchy, which includes things like food, shelter, safety, and so forth.

My family spent only four days focused on our basic needs. Many of the families CANI serves are not so fortunate. They struggle daily with providing the basic needs for their families, and with fewer resources than my family had to work with over the power outage. If we ever want to truly help these families leave poverty behind forever, to acquire new knowledge and skills and better jobs, we must help them first meet the basic needs of their families. At CANI, the strategy is not whether “to teach them to fish” or “give them fish”, but actually to do both.

May is National Community Action Month

May is a pretty special month for CANI, as it is officially National Community Action month. During this month we spend a little extra time and effort as a national network raising awareness about poverty, the issues low-income families face, and the work that Community Action Agencies do in their communities to combat these issues.

Awareness is a critical tool for us, now more than ever. While some have started to feel positive outcomes from the improving economy, there are still thousands of people in our community struggling to recover themselves. They face unemployment and struggles keeping their family housed and utilities paid, many for the first time in their lives.

Yet at the same time the demands for our programs are higher than normal, social service organizations face a struggle themselves. Federal budget cuts and tougher-to-come-by charitable donations have meant decreasing budgets and programming locally, at just the time when we need to be expanding. For these reasons, it’s as important as ever to raise awareness about poverty in northeast Indiana, and resources to fight that poverty.

During May, and even a little into June, CANI will pump up our own efforts to raise awareness and provide opportunities for people to get engaged. On May 17^th we will be conducting our signature event – our Poverty Simulation. This is simply an excellent opportunity for people to participate in a fun and engaging activity, that provides a taste of the issues that low-income families face. Past participants have reported that it was a moving, eye-opening experience for them. And so our goal is to conduct these simulations as often as we can, and May 17^th is the next opportunity for you to participate. More information can be found here.

On May 21^st, join us from noon – 2pm as we celebrate the grand opening of Hopewell Pointe – a 35-home affordable housing subdivision in Waynedale. These wonderful new homes are providing a life-changing opportunity to the families who are now living here. The development has also been a valuable economic investment in this southwest Fort Wayne community.

On June 7^th we will host our annual golf outing at Noble Hawk Golf Links in Kendallville. CANI Golf is one of our top fundraising events of the year and is a great way to support our fight against poverty while having a great time as well. We still have openings for teams and sponsorships. Participants routinely state this is one of the best outings of the year!

Besides events, we hope that you will see and hear more of us in other ways as well. Check out our recently launched, new and improved web site – www.canihelp.org. And our 2011 Annual Report should be in your hands by mid-May. The Annual Report highlights stories of individuals and families who have fought poverty in their own lives and have achieved great successes.

The purpose of all this activity is to put poverty front of mind in our community just a little bit more. If we can mobilize people to support our cause, advocate for the issues, and give of their time and financial resources, together we can fight poverty and build hope in our neighborhoods, communities, and northeast Indiana.