The new face of poverty is often a child's

[rug]

October 13, 2011

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald.

OAKTOWN, Ind. (RNS) Eleven-year-old Sarai Camacho of Donna, Texas, tears up when she tells why her mother let go the baby sitter for her and her younger sister this summer. It’s the same reason her father brought the family to Indiana so he could work the melon fields for a season.

“Last December, my mom didn’t get paid for one month, and we started having problems,” said Sarai, at Oaktown First Christian Church, which hosted free classes for children of migrant workers. “My mom said for us to come here (to the church) so she doesn’t have to give money to the baby sitter because we’re running out of it.”

For churches, it’s become an all-too-familiar sight: working families that aren’t able to make ends meet. As household resources get tapped out, churches are often the first to see the changing face of poverty—and it’s often a young one.

“We’re seeing younger families come in,” said Ken Campbell, food coordinator for Lazarus House, a Christian ministry to help the needy in Lawrence, Mass. “They’re coming forward because one member in the household got laid off or had their hours cut, and now they’re just barely making it.”

http://www.religionnews.com/index.php?/rnstext/the_face_of_american_poverty_is_often_a_childs/

[jwirr]

1. And ten to one the baby sitter is also a child - an older teen who is

working to add income to another poor family. Welfare programs have alway had more children than the world wants to admit to.

[rrneck]

2. Where was government?

Depending on churches for social services is a Grover Norquist wet dream.

[NMMNG]

3. Shameful

It shouldn't be like this in a first-world nation.