Please join Central Missouri Community Action (CMCA) for a first annual, break-out fundraising event on the Katy Trail on April 25, 2009. Riding Out Poverty in Mid-Missouri is a unique fundraising event that will highlight five beautiful stops along the Katy Trail and celebrates the efforts CMCA has undergone to eliminate poverty in Mid-Missouri.
CMCA will utilize funds raised from Riding Out Poverty to support its Transformational Plan. This plan seeks to eliminate economic insecurity in our communities. We serve eight counties that make up mid-Missouri, and are engaging each community within our service area to develop resources that prevent poverty and transform our services into a system that helps people move beyond tomorrow, living within the confines of financial crisis, to a future where life has the endless potential of prosperity.
- 1 in 7 Missourians live with incomes below the federal poverty guideline. 38,818 of them live in mid-Missouri.
- This means for a family of four, less than $20,605 is available to support their needs.
- In order to meet the basic needs of housing, food, transportation, education, and medical, a family of four needs $37,334 per year.
- Many mid-Missourians have to decide whether to have food in their pantries, medication for their illnesses, or utilities in their homes; they can't afford it all.
CMCA is committed to moving people beyond coping with poverty to eliminating it completely. In order to do this, we need to change the way we perceive poverty and assure that there are opportunities available for people to reach their full potential. We have four strategic commitments to accomplish this:
- Engage the community to assure that all people have their basic needs met.
- Enhance the community to assure that all individuals have lifelong learning opportunities.
- Build community capacity to enhance economic and community assets.
- Build relationships across race and class lines.
Achieving these commitments will require collaboration in our communities and stepping outside the bounds of our current programs and services. Because federal and state support is geared toward direct services to participants and alleviating the immediate crisis of poverty, we need sustainable funding in the form of donations in order to shift our approach to address the more systemic barriers that lead to poverty.
