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SEEING POTENTIAL, NOT POVERTY
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We are thankful for your commitment to Kootenai County as we work together to promote the human flourishing of our neighbors. Here's a peak into what we've been up to:
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Charity Reimagined Partners with
Pathways to Prosperity
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Many of the clients we work with attend fantastic financial literacy programs and workshops. But North Idaho College's (NIC) Center for New Directions
(CND) noticed a gap: single parents seeking to get a college education to attain better paying jobs
have specific challenges to maintaining financial freedom.
These people have often learned about budgeting, saving, and paying bills through other programs. But as they go through the college education process, they still end up under stress and reverting back to previous financial hardships. What causes this relapse in financial behavior?
CND recognized that most financial literacy programs don't address the underlying scarcity mindset that affects all of life, finances included.
The scarcity mindset can be defined as a pattern of thinking that focuses on what you don't have and the underlying belief that you're not ever going to have the things that you want. Without this foundational mindset reoriented, individuals won't be set up for enduring success
.
With Salvation Army Kroc Center
's partnership, CND launched their Pathways to Prosperity Program
to meet this need, and Charity Reimagined is supporting the women attending.
In this program, they use an evidence-based financial literacy program that uses SMART goals and is easy to adapt to single parents that are trying to get an education in order to secure a more sustainable and meaningful job to support themselves and their kids.
The 8 domains of wellness are integrated into the curriculum: emotional, physical, occupational, social, intellectual, spiritual, environmental, and financial wellness. This equips participants to understand their finances holistically, as something that is affected by
and affects
every other part of life.
All of this was presented through the lens of scarcity mindset theory, so participants could see how their financial decisions were intricately connected to overall wellbeing.
One of the most helpful tools is the social wellness piece: clients learn about this with other single parents who are experiencing the same financial hardship. It is empowering for them to recognize the patterns they have around finances that are attached to the stressors in their life. They are then able to make connections with each other and come up with creative ways of responding to their financial decisions.
One Pathways to Prosperity participant shared:
"It helps me to think outside of the box on my finances while it also helps me see how my overall wellness is so interconnected to my financial wellness. The eight domains of wellness that we integrate into our financial literacy are like the eight legs that are holding up the table of my life!"
We are thrilled to see this work come alive in our community, and it is a joy to partner with CND to support the women attending this program!
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Knowing Mimi's story, there is a long list of things you could imagine she might need, but Mimi has worked hard for most of the things in her life, and the one simple request she had to Christmas for All Year
was for a bed to help with her neck and back pain.
We were overjoyed to meet this simple request with the partnership of Comfort City
. While her request was simple, Mimi's life has been anything but that.
Mimi has experienced deep trauma from entering the foster system at a young age to eventually being sex trafficked. She has been in and out of the court system since she was 7 and has been a single mom for 21 years. After years of trauma, she fell into alcoholism but fought to gain sobriety 16 years ago.
Due to the trauma and stress in her childhood, Mimi dropped out of school in the 2nd grade. After a long history of being taken advantage of by men, Mimi is now a full-time college student, graduating this spring, and she has started her own organic carpet cleaning business
. Her dream is to start a business to provide employment for women leaving prison.
North Idaho College
's (NIC) Center for New Direction
's Louisa Rogers commented on how she and other staff have watched Mimi flourish:
"I've witnessed such growth in this woman. She has intense trauma...but since enrolling in school, her life has really begun to transform. Other faculty and staff will comment to me about the growth we have all witnessed during her time at NIC... This woman is driven and dedicated to her future
."
Mimi now owns a new bed for the first time in her life, a small piece of the story SHE is creating for herself. Helping her have less pain as she works hard to finish her education, starts a business, and navigates medical costs is an honor.
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DOING BENEVOLENCE BETTER
(with dignity)
Reimagining charity is about digging into how we help the needy:
Not just loving with our hearts and hands but loving with our minds, too.
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We are picking up with part one of four in our overview of
True Charity
's Mental Illness & Poverty
course
. In part 1, Restoration Counseling
's Brian Fidler discusses how:
“Research consistently shows that poverty and mental health are correlated." "
When you have one, you have a greater likelihood of having the other.”
Why is this?
First, Brian underscores that those in poverty have greater stressors in their lives: ”That’s obvious but also important because" "all of us, just as human beings, have some level of ability to kind of navigate and negotiate our lives and stressors that happen up to a certain point
.” ” Too many stressors" 'in a short amount of time will overwhelm any of us.” And that often results in mental illness.
Imagine the worst thing that could happen to you. Now the second worst. Now combine them. Usually, that's enough to overwhelm someone. Alternately, these combined stressors can be the environment within which someone was raised or spends their time, creating a backdrop of stress. For all of us, it requires mental energy and resources to navigate our stress
.
For those in poverty, another stressor is usually a lack of resources to handle challenges
. There can be a lack of internal resources (such as not feeling empowered or able to make decisions) or a lack of external resources (not aware of options, fewer social supports, or just knowing we’re not alone in the world).
Brian challenges us to engage our hearts by asking: if I were in their shoes, would I respond the same way?
Next month, we'll discuss part 2 where Brian outlines some helpful tools for informally evaluating the person before you to determine where they are at with their mental health.
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REFERRING PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
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Coordinated Services of Idaho
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Coordinated Services of Idaho
provides Targeted Service Coordination and Residential Habilitation (ResHab) Services in Post Falls, Hayden and Coeur d’ Alene area. They are committed to assisting adults with developmental disabilities, offering a comprehensive range of services including Adult DD Waiver assistance, housing, transportation, vocational support, social activities, medical equipment, and a plethora of other essential needs. Their staff assists participants in reaching long term goals, such as developing health and safety practices, obtaining driver’s licenses, or taking art classes. They are committed to promoting independence and helping individuals with disabilities achieve their goals.”
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Referring Partners are the boots on the ground, our community's Unsung Heroes, serving the poor who refer their clients to Charity Reimagined for specific assistance tailored to our work.
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BUSINESS PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
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At Comfort City
, their goal is to create a comfortable, no-pressure buying experience. Their staff is trained to listen, not to talk over you. They want to find out what is important to you so they can help you buy the mattress you need, not the one that other mattress stores are promoting.
Dan and Kimberly had a dream to open their own mattress store. As a result, they took Dan’s 25 years of knowledge and experience working in the mattress and furniture industry and alongside their daughter, opened Comfort City Super Sleep Centers in Coeur D’ Alene.
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Business Partners offer their services at a discount in order to meet the needs of those rising out of hardship. They give clients the dignity of interacting in the business world for their needs, not just receiving handouts. The role played by these partners cannot be overstated!
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Donor's Corner: Why We Give
"It is an honor to support an amazing organization doing so much for so many in our community. Thank you, Charity Reimagined! "
-Stephany Manning
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If you're new or would like to learn more, we'd love to grab coffee with you and get connected. Your partnership makes effective charity in Kootenai County possible.
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OUR VISION
No matter how big or small, no single church, charity, or “helping” organization can meet all needs. But, by all of us working together through communication and collaboration to identify categories of care and responding appropriately, pride can replace shame, hope can replace despair, and lives can be changed.
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