{"id":26091,"date":"2024-09-23T15:30:03","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T15:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-news\/?p=26091"},"modified":"2026-03-17T21:04:39","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T21:04:39","slug":"a-path-out-of-poverty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/2024\/09\/a-path-out-of-poverty\/","title":{"rendered":"A Path Out of Poverty"},"content":{"rendered":"

A unique community partnership aims to uplift families in St. Paul\u2019s historic Rondo neighborhood.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind every eviction notice, there\u2019s a story. In St. Paul\u2019s Rondo neighborhood, <\/span>Mack Williams \u201926<\/b> has been working with families facing poverty through a unique community partnership.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last September, Macalester joined forces with Thomson Reuters and the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center to launch the Poverty Elimination Project, a one-year initiative aimed at helping families transition out of poverty toward sustainable lives.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharon Sayles Belton \u201973<\/b>, former Minneapolis mayor and Thomson Reuters executive, helped bring the partners together. Her connection to Rondo runs deep\u2014she regularly volunteered to bring local children to Macalester\u2019s athletic facilities in the summer of 1970.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a wonderful opportunity to apply service-learning principles and give back to the community where I grew up,\u201d she said. \u201cI am delighted that Thomson Reuters and Macalester are leveraging their shared interest in improving the quality of life for people in the historic Rondo neighborhood.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sedric McClure, co-director of Macalester\u2019s Community Engagement Center, introduced Williams to the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center, an institution with nearly a century of service to the Rondo community. This historic Black neighborhood was physically divided due to the construction of I-94 in the 1960s.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany families have ties to the center that go back generations,\u201d Williams said. \u201cWhat attracted me was the opportunity to learn about the experience of working Black people outside Macalester, and about social work in a historic location.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams worked closely with Hallie Q. Brown staff to support four families facing significant challenges. One family on the brink of eviction was able to stay in their home, and another, a single parent juggling multiple part-time jobs, secured full-time employment with childcare, allowing them to buy a reliable car and build savings.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInterviewing our client families was the most interesting aspect of the project, and a role I had to grow into,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone I spoke to was open and honest, which helped me understand how people live and view the world.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The work also deepened his understanding of the complexities of poverty. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTransportation was an afterthought for me before I started the job, but I quickly realized that employment, childcare, and food access often depend on having a working car,\u201d he said. \u201cThis job was a reminder of the real challenges people face. There is always another unexpected expense when someone\u2019s trying to get back on their feet. It\u2019s never about laziness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams hopes the Poverty Elimination Project can serve as a model for future collaborations between the school, community institutions, and funders. He sees a common initiative among Black students at Macalester to support their communities beyond the academy.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s important to remember, says McClure, that this work has to be a collaborative approach to addressing the factors that contribute to  poverty. “It’s a complex social issue in our community and takes all of us to fix it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A unique community partnership aims to uplift families in St. Paul\u2019s historic Rondo neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":26093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[122,58],"class_list":["post-26091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-engagement","tag-human-rights-and-humanitarianism","tag-sociology","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"Alexandra McLaughlin \u201916","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26091"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31769,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26091\/revisions\/31769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}