August 3, 2021
Black Women's Equal Pay Day
July 23, 2021
Don't Live Within Your Means
- Write your big dreams and read them daily
- Create a vision board with images that coincide with your dreams
- Review, envision, and mediate daily of you achieving your dreams
- Surround yourself with people who have what you desire
- Strive for purpose and not security
- Live by faith and not fear
June 9, 2017
Allow People to Grow
- Mortgage their homes to prevent a loved one from going to jail.
- Expend their retirement to prevent foreclosure or pay for college.
- Become a custodian to their abandoned or neglected grandchildren.
- Decrease their savings to pay their children’s expenses to keep their lives afloat.
July 19, 2016
Poverty is Colorblind
Poverty is more than having more bills at the end of the month than money. It's extreme, situational, institutional, or generational; making it difficult to create pathways to economic independence, wealth, and stability.
When we seek support or investment in our work to decrease the trend of poverty amongst women throughout the Washington region, we often receive a plethora of reasons of why we shouldn't help them because their level of poverty isn't as severe as women experiencing poverty in other countries. A local pastor stated, You haven't seen poverty until you've been to a country where people have to drink and bathe in dirty water. Now, that's poverty. What we have here (i.e., in the U.S.), isn't poverty. Does this mean we should negate our efforts to help women and children experiencing poverty in the U.S. if they have access to clean water?
When our lives are threatened by a disease, we collaborate our energy and resources to find a cure, or a way to stop it from spreading. We don't assess if one disease deserves more attention than the other because of the impact the disease may have on all humanity.
Ignoring the plight of poverty will not eradicate it, but heighten it because poverty affects all ethnicities and nationalities.
December 2, 2014
Invest in yourself
"If my company wants me to stay, they should pay for my training."
"As soon as I get my MBA, I’m out of here!"
"I only enroll in workshops or classes that are free."
If your company pays for training, who’s investing in your professional development, you or your company? If your company pays, what do they get in return? If you pay, what’s the ROI (Return on Investment) for your growth and development?
Imagine hiring a contracting company that specializes in home renovations showing up at your doorstep without the skills, tools, or resources to perform the job. Would you pay for the training and resources the contracting company needs to complete the job? Or, would you hire another contracting company equipped with resources and expertise to meet your requirements and deadline to renovate?
Corporations are discovering better ways to yield returns on their resources and investments. And unfortunately, this doesn’t include ‘human’ capital because too many corporations have witnessed and experienced their education and training investments walk out the door.
If your career has come to a screeching halt, evaluate where you invest most of your time and money. If you plan to excel in your current or future place of employment, you have to transition to self-directed and life-long learners. The library is replete with ‘free’ resources for professional or career development and some organizations are replete with ‘fee-based’ resources. The resource you choose would be based on what you’re trying to achieve and why?
Education has been recognized as an integral path to economic empowerment and wealth. Not designer bags, shoes, or acrylic nails. If you’ve been blessed with these things great! But, if you invest more in these things than yourself, evaluate how these things have positioned you to create the foundation to your financial independence and stability?
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated, “We buy what we want and beg for what we need”. Education is a needed commodity to evolve and thrive in today’s society and your growth will be measured by what you endow to yourself.
October 28, 2014
Skeptics of The Poor
- Why were they evicted?
- Are they tithing members of a church?
- They must be irresponsible women to be evicted from a shelter.
- Why can't they move to another shelter?
- I don't believe in giving my money to people that don't want to help themselves.
- Why can't they go and stay with relatives?
October 23, 2014
We Plunged
We’ve supported Zumbathon® events to benefit heart disease and ovarian cancer. And one-year later we’re hosting our own to benefit women experiencing poverty in the Washington region.
The Zumba® Corporate Office approved our Zumbathon® Charity Event within two-hours of submission - a process that normally takes two-business days, and within four-weeks, only 10% of our desired participants have registered.
Lesson learned, we’re doing something we’ve never done before and its success can’t be measured solely on who showed up; but, on our commitment to work and move the weight of poverty off the shoulders of women who live with it daily right in our backyard.
Not achieving the desired results from this plunge will not stop us from doing it again. Poverty is growing, and we do not have time to be stagnated by fear, skepticism, or resistance.
If you want to experience growth and enthusiasm click here - this can result from trying something new.
June 10, 2013
Everyone has had a free ride at least once
Free riders are from different ethnic and economic backgrounds. They’re people who cheat on their taxes or avoid paying taxes due to tax shelters buried under complicated tax codes. They’re people who can afford to pay for healthcare, but choose not to; passing their expenses to the shoulders of people strapped with the high cost of health insurance. They're executives who receive government bailouts and bonuses, in spite of their misuse or ill investments of hard working citizens who lost their life savings. They’re also celebrities indulged with expensive gifts they can afford and may not want.
What about the poor? Are they simply sitting and waiting for a free ride or an opportunity to transform their lives? Not all of them. Why are the poor viewed differently when they’re provided with free opportunities or resources to improve their lives? Is it because the benefits to help the poor haven't been deemed a great investment?
Helping people transform their lives to become financial contributors to society can benefit us all. We just have to slow down enough to give others the same ride many of us were granted for free.
March 17, 2013
Should the Government Accumulate Debt for the Poor?
The Israelites were instructed by God to help the poor when they arrived to possess the Promised Land to serve as a reminder of God's gift of freedom after their enslavement in Egypt.
Some believe people that are poor brought it on themselves, and this belief makes it easy to close our hearts and hands towards them. Helping the poor demonstrates our faith in God and our country. Ignoring to care for the poor for any reason forfeits our humanitarian duty to care for our fellow citizens during their greatest time of need. The battle between Congress and the President on strategies to serve the poor isn’t simply about the rising debt, but the different attitudes towards poverty. Not extending unemployment benefits or decreasing government entitlement programs may decrease the National debt, but it will not prevent the poor from sinking deeper into an oppressive state. When the hearts of more American citizens become like God’s, we will give more without passing judgment or making excuses. If God can look beyond our faults to meet our needs, we should do the same. The government shouldn’t accumulate debt to help the poor, but it should build a compassionate approach to handle it.
August 21, 2012
The Least Factor
At least I have a man – even though he’s married with children.
At least I know dynamic, elitist people - but don’t have authentic connections.
At least I go to church – but don’t have a spiritual connection to God.
At least I’m liked – but you yearn for unconditional love and encouragement.
At least I have a GED – but was born with potential beyond a general education. Energy exhausted striving for the least is a fast race to the bottom. If you’re going to run, strive for the top (i.e., your best). No one spends time practicing to enter a race with the intention to lose or end at the bottom.
April 3, 2012
Got Power?
- Housing $203.8 billion
- Food $65.2 billion
- Cars/Trucks $29.1 billion
- Clothing $29.3 billion
- Health Care $23.6 billion
It appears the Buying Power of Blacks is generating economic stability and wealth outside of their communities. Yep! It's helping other Ethnic groups establish businesses in socially and economically disadvantaged communities (i.e., underserved Black Communities) for members of their group. And, this buying power depletes the vitality of Black Communities because their money seldom returns.
If Black Buying Power isn't creating long-lasting, positive impacts within the Black Community; this Black Buying Power isn't powerful at all.
August 16, 2011
American Poverty Tour
American poverty as defined by the Census Bureau looks rich compared to impoverished countries. Is it shameful for Americans to be classified as poor in a country replete with resources? Absolutely! But when immigrants come to this country with different barriers (language being one of them) and succeed, why can't members of the African American communities do likewise?
The current budget cuts aren't pretty, and the cuts are creating deeper wounds. Should the wounded go to the President and Congress, wave bloody bandages to make them stop the bleeding? Or should African Americans look within their communities, find doctors and surgeons to stitch and close the wounds and start healing?
Members of this current administration know poverty exists. Trying to get them to recite the word 'poverty' as an acknowledgement of its existence or a means to change its current 'poverty' policies is like a husband with a nagging wife who wants him to acknowledge, accept, and repent of his sins when he doesn't believe he's a sinner.
Let the war on poverty amongst African Americans be an internal communal war by recruiting soldiers willing to fight (e.g., establish banks, jobs, community health centers, technology centers, and community think tanks), to eradicate it. Not spectators sitting on the sideline critiquing others for not throwing the right punches.
Another economic storm is coming. Waiting for the government to distribute umbrellas will not prevent the poor or middle-class from getting wet or drowning if they can't swim. The face of poverty has drastically changed in America, and African Americans must look within to modify their strategies to solve it.