Ending poverty - as in, ending the poverty we allow from racism and class discrimination:
The millions of people in our American underclass -- yes, we have an underclass, and it's growing swiftly -- don't know how to get out of their poverty. The children their certainly don't. The irmothers, often young, often not much more than children themselves, or children themselves, don't know the way out of poverty, for themselves and their daughters and sons. The fathers,,, there are far too few fathers around, for a range of reasons. Jail plays a part. Going into jail, leaving behind children, fracturing families, on and on. Then eventually dying from jail, from the ins and outs of it.

So once upon a time one mother and one father had three sons...

..and the mother and father both died. They died from the streets. It's hard on the streets. And the brothers, the older brothers, did everything they knew, when they were really still children themselves, to help the family. That's what brothers do. That's love. That's devotion. That's loyalty, and from their perspective, learning to be a man. Before any child should be trying to be a man. But the older brothers wanted everyone in their home to have milk in the refrigerator. To have bread and tuna fish on the shelves. To have some money for clothes, school supplies. To be able to go to the movies once in a while. To not say "no" all the time.

But as I said, people in poverty don't know the way out. If you think they do, then you're looking from far away.

And looking from far away doesn't help, at all. It might make you a famous radio or talk show host. But it doesn't end poverty. To end poverty, you have to get close. You have to reach in and grab a child's hand, perhaps grab a handful of hands and start pulling people out.

IT HELPS TO:

1. Think about "family" in a new way. In a broader, fuller, deeper way. We are family, together. Us people. Then...

2. Work with a kid. Whether WHEDCo, Big Brothers Big Sisters, an inner city or another disadvantaged area with a Little League or Soccer club... Start formally. Do good things there.

3. And let a kid into your life. Let a kid know you are there, on the other end of a phone, in a once or week or three times a week or every day setting, you are there. You're holding hands across the divide and you are NOT going to let go.

4. Then be there. Unconditionally there. Keep holding on. Because if you let go, that kid will fall.

5. Read together. Then read more. And when you're both tired of reading, when you're all tired of reading, start reading again. The next day or the next meeting or the next week, read again.

6. Focus on Education:
"How are you doing in school?
"Good."
"How are your grades?"
"Good."
It only took us YEARS to know these conversations were really just talking about the weather, NOT about school.
Insist on the importance of graduating high school.
Make sure high school gets done! And if that can't be, make sure a GED is finished. Which means meetings and tutoring and being there.
Being there.
This isn't lip service, this isn't good intent, this is ending poverty.

7. College !!
Community College? - Yes, it's perfectly fine and probably often the only way more times than not. But you have to stay on top of things. College degrees... the traditional difference in earnings between a college graduate and not-a-college graduate have been enough to plant oneself in the middle class.

or.... a Trade. Trade School. A real, true trade, a craft. Same thing as the above.

Janet Mills gave me the grace of her time. She suggested, or at least I understood she suggested, that I think about what we all can do to end poverty. So I will work on this list.... Things that we all can do, that will end poverty. Because a child is too precious to throw away. If we honestly care about life, it goes farther than from conception to delivery. Much farther.

And if we care, it can lead to here...

That's Kindu and Elaine - "Saint Elaine," to me.

Kindu graduated college !!! Farmingdale Stage College. I have a photo album of graduation photos on my Facebook Fan Page for What Else But Home.