Catholics asked to help break cycle of poverty

By Ambria Hammel, The Catholic Sun
November 16, 2006

More than 37 million Americans — about one in eight people — are affected by poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The American bishops established the Catholic Campaign for Human Development more than three decades ago in an effort to lower that number. Most of the campaign’s funds come from churchgoers during its annual second collection, which local Catholics will be asked to give to at all parishes this weekend.

“We have to see ourselves as transforming agents,” said Tricia Hoyt, director of the Office of Peace and Justice at Catholic Charities, the local campaign affiliate.

The program is among the largest backers of community-centered, self-help groups working to break the cycle of poverty. Nationwide, Catholics raised more than $14 million.

Each diocese is allowed to retain 25 percent of the funds raised during the collection, with the remainder going directly to the national CCHD office. The campaign then disperses those funds to areas most in need throughout the country.

The CCHD awarded Phoenix $140,000 from last year’s funds, more than 65 percent of what the diocese raised.

Grant recipients included a Phoenix- and Mesa-based association of community organizations. The Phoenix group worked to increase the state’s minimum wage, which Arizona voters passed last week.

Two interfaith groups, including one covering Sedona, Prescott, Flagstaff and Verde Valley, also received CCHD funds. Hoyt said their efforts got the Sedona city council to form a commission to address affordable housing needs in the region.

Another CCHD grant will continue efforts to develop public transportation between Prescott and Prescott Valley.

A day labor center in Phoenix also received a grant. The workers use rotating peer leadership skills to run the center and find employment.

“Instead of being the objects, we want them to become the subjects,” said Salvador Reza, coordinator of the center.

That is exactly the intended use of campaign funds. Recipients become the agents who create institutional change to break themselves and their families out of the cycle of poverty.

“It goes so far beyond charity because it goes so deep,” Hoyt said. She added that any campaign-funded initiative has to have a board consisting of at least half of the recipients.

“The people that live in poverty have to be the ones that make the decisions about the piece that’s being funded,” Hoyt said.

Hoyt hopes to raise $350,000 in this year’s collection.