Tell
the Story Through Numbers
Localize, localize! Poverty may not exist on your block, but
chances are good that someone in your neighborhood or
community is struggling just to make ends meet. The U.S.
Census Bureau publishes an extensive collection of
population and income data that makes an excellent starting
point for your story, and the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services offers numerous reports on poverty and such
related issues as lack of child care or medical care. The
lack of basic necessities, like medical care, costs
communities thousands -- even millions -- of dollars each
year. Make the business case for investing in poor families.
Use a local school or employer to make your case: one in six
children living in poverty translates to 50 of your
community's 300 elementary school students.
- Talk with a local business about their views on paying living wages
to low-income workers.
- Contact your town's welfare services office or
department of health for local data on the cost of
providing health care, job training or other services to
people living in poverty.
- Ask your local hospital(s) to talk about their charity
care programs.
- Talk to local principals about how poverty is
affecting your schools. Find out how many free or
reduced-price lunches the school serves, how many
student sick days could be prevented with proper medical
care or what else the school is doing to help low-income
students catch up.
- Contact the CCHD
director in your local Catholic diocese to find people to
interview or search for a full list of current CCHD-funded
projects in your area.
Project Highlight: The
Butte (Montana) Emergency Food Bank was formed in 1981 in response
to high unemployment hardships created by the closing of mining operations
in the region.
CCHD is funding a request that will help create a strategic
plan for expanding the service provided by the Food Bank into a commercial
kitchen that will offer low-income families entrepreneurial training
for commercial food service businesses and move them into small business
ownership. To learn more about this or other CCHD-funded economic
development projects, contact Barbara Stephenson, CCHD director of
communications,
cchdmedia@usccb.org .
Top
of Page
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press
releases...
story
ideas...
CCHD
news room...
poverty
facts...
Use
this collection of facts about
the state of poverty in America to enhance your story, including
the Top Ten Poverty Rates of U.S. cities, counties
and states.
profiles...
About
CCHD
Bio:
Father Robert J. Vitillo
2004 PSA numbers...
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TV:
240 stations in 46 states |
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Radio:
504 outlets in 50 states |
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Print: 1,274 insertions in newspapers and magazines
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PSA
Campaign Numbers Soar
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media
contacts...
For
more information about the state of poverty in America, Poverty
in America Awareness Month or the Catholic Campaign for Human
Development, contact:
Barbara
Stephenson
Director of Communications
Catholic Campaign for Human Development
(202) 541-3364 or
(email)
Or
visit the Catholic
Campaign for Human Development web site.
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