start the conversation. start the change.
A grassroots awareness campaign to expose child poverty as a national emergency. Before we can create change, we need people to care about child poverty.
One of the leading causes of child abuse in the United States is poverty. Twenty percent of children in this country live in poverty who are nine times more likely to experience abuse. Black Americans are twice as likely to experience child poverty.
Child poverty in the United States is an injustice to the millions of children trapped in the endless cycle of marginalization and adversity. Growing up in poverty can cause long-term damage and developmental problems and has been strongly linked to many negative life outcomes, including poor academic achievement, increased exposure to violence, neglect, hunger, parental incarceration, substance addiction, mental illness, and even a shorter life expectancy. Black Americans are twice as likely to experience child poverty than white Americans.
Child poverty is a public health crisis that no one is talking about. This needs to change. Our goals are to:
- Develop and launch an awareness campaign that includes the first National Child Poverty Awareness Day on February 24, 2025, as well as educational workshops and resources for stakeholders, decision makers, and clinicians. We also plan to create a podcast mini-series (end eventually a book) that shares stores of child poverty called "HaveNot."
- Organize a Child Poverty Symposium with national stakeholders to strategize efforts to alleviate child poverty and its adverse effects on children.
This project is largely inspired by the groundbreaking book "The Other America" by Michael Harrington.
Bad things happen in poverty
Get involved in the first National Child Poverty Awareness Day on February on 24 2025 because child poverty is not equality!
Child Poverty Symposium
Stay tuned for more information on this unprecedented event.
Meet the founder, Terrance lee
Terrance knew something was wrong...
...the drunk and cranked-out mom, the abusive men that came around, the overdoses, the frequent police visits, the flea and rat infestations, the dangerous neighborhood, the gunshots, the slum lord, the hiding bruises at school. As a child, Terrance saw early on that his world was different than most of the children he knew, and it was unsafe.
Growing up, it was confusing why his world was so different, but it was upsetting that no one seemed to care or intervene. Everyone just seemed to pretend that Terrance and his shameful existence weren’t there. He was invisible.
Confusion and anger continued into adulthood until Terrance started to learn about child poverty in the United States. It wasn’t until he read Michael Harrington's The Other America that everything started to make sense. As a child, Terrance had been living in the disconnected, ignored, and impoverished "Other America”.
That’s when anger turned into advocacy for the most disadvantaged and disenfranchised demographic in the country—children living in poverty.
