HOISINGTON — Brian Wilborn of Hoisington hosted the Oct. 4 Chamber Coffee, and introduced community corrections director Amy Boxberger, health department administrator Shelly Schneider and   pastor Steve Hopkins. 

“These three have been instrumental in bringing a program to our county, and to Hoisington, that will help people work their way out of poverty,” he said.  

Steve Hopkins is the COO of Youth Core Ministries of Greensburg.  The organization has a 20-year history as a non-profit in Kansas and has been working with Circles for a little over five years he said.  In that time,  29 percent of families who started in the program are out of poverty, at least 200 percent above the federal poverty line, and able to stop requiring assistance from the government.  

“This gives them hope,” he said. “They have room to follow dreams.”

Poverty linked to health

Shelly Schneider is the administrator of the Barton County Health Department.  She spoke about how she and Boxberger their introduction to Circles in February, 2017. It wasn’t long before they agreed they needed to bring the program to Barton County, and encourage its start in every community in the county.  The Great Bend program was established that year, and in September of 2018, it graduated its second class. 

Schneider is from Hoisington, and is excited to get the program started close to home now.  

“One thing that I found really awkward when we first started talking about this was the fact that people in poverty do not speak middle class language,” she said.  

The concept was one she’d never before considered. 

“When you think about it, we really don’t (speak the same language), That’s why we’re always bumping up against poverty, people living in poverty and people trying to get out of poverty.”

As she continued learning and training, she realized that language barrier had allowed her to become “judgey,” she said, and overlook the underlying reasons that visitors to the clinic were presenting with easily preventable health concerns. It turned out, there was more of a class divide than she realized.

“I’d never had to worry about if my lights were on or not,” she said.  “I never had to worry if I was hungry or not.”

Her parents read to her, she added, and she didn’t worry about things like bills left in the door by the mailman. She was sheltered from all of that, unlike children growing up in poverty.   

“A lot of the kids that me and Amy see from the schools and in the clinic, they know when the electric bill is due and who the landlord is,” she said. 

One of the other great outcomes of Circles besides just getting out of poverty is that people who have had to deal with adverse effects and trauma are now getting a voice, and people like Schneider and Boxberger are sitting up and taking notes.  The education is both ways, Schneider said.  They are learning ground level realities the poor face, like how rents that may seem inexpensive are still inaccessible to the poor.

“They can’t pay $800 a month rent when they are receiving a $650 a month wage,” she said.  

She spoke of her respect for the resourcefulness of the poor, who are experts at finding resources, and doing without and getting things done. 

Bringing Circles to communities in the county is a natural outreach for Schneider.  

 “We know that people living in poverty have a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes,” she said.   “We know that a zip code can take 20 years off a person’s life — and that’s not just places like New York City — that’s in Kansas.” 

Breaking cycles

Amy Boxberger is the director of Central Kansas Community Corrections, which serves adult probationers sentenced through the court for felony probation.  

“That’s not the population everyone wants to hug on,” she said. “But, they’ve got kids.  We all see their names in the paper.  It’s not too often we’re shocked when we do.  We have to figure out how we change the trajectory for their family and their kids, so if they were to get into some problems, it would be a shock.” 

Going in, she assumed the poor that Circles worked with included the homeless — those living by the river or couch surfing.  What she found was eye opening. 

“That’s not who Circles was trying to serve,” she said. “We’re trying to serve our paras, our CNA’s, our food service workers, who don’t have insurance, and they’re one illness away from losing their job, and there’s a trickle down effect to all of that.” 

She also thought the program would be a how-to out of poverty, with classes on money management, but that wasn’t the case either.  

“My biggest take away was that most of the problems we experience has a lot to do with what we were born into,” she said.  “We learn about not only the money, but also social capital and knowledge of hidden rules.”

Learning how both the poor and the middle classes operate is a two-way street, and it all starts with a 20-week class called Getting Ahead in a Just Getting By World.  Boxberger helped facilitate for the second Great Bend class of Circles participants. They meet weekly, and start with a family meal, and provide childcare and for those outside of the city, gas cards, all in an effort to break down barriers that would keep them from making the commitment and getting there every week.  After graduating, the weekly meetings continue, but the participants direct their middle class allies in the direction they need to go. 

There are two rules going in.  Allies do not give participants money, and they don’t give them a place to stay.  

“It’s not a hand out, it’s a hand up,” Schneider said.