Archive for the ‘Poverty’ Category
Secret Santa spreads joy, disbelief in Kansas City
by the Associated Press
Source: Yahoo
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Secret Santa II hit the streets Tuesday in a long-standing Kansas City tradition of handing out $100 bills — sometimes several at a time — to unsuspecting strangers in thrift stores, food pantries and shelters.
Some people gasped in surprise. Some wanted to know if the $100 bill the tall man in the red cap offered was fake. Others wept.
Secret Santa II has seen a lot of reactions since taking over where his mentor, Kansas City’s original Secret Santa, Larry Stewart, left off when he died in 2007 at age 58. Like Stewart, who gave away more than $1 million to strangers each December in mostly $100 bills, this Secret Santa prefers to stay anonymous.
A fake white beard taped to his face, Secret Santa II handed out about $10,000 in total Tuesday. Recipients included a police officer with terminal cancer, a homeless man pushing a rickety old shopping cart, an 81-year-old woman who had recently told her 27 grandchildren she wouldn’t be able to afford any Christmas gifts, and Bernadette Turner, a 32-year-old unemployed mother of two.
“It’s hard to come by,” Turner said looking in disbelief at the $200 Secret Santa had given her.
Then one of Santa’s “elves”, another tall man in a red cap, sidled up to next to Turner, asked a few questions, and handed her an additional $100. Turner, whose children are 3 and 8, was overcome.
“I can only afford one gift for each child. But now ….” she said, wiping tears from her cheeks and reaching out for a hug.
“Do you believe in Santa Claus?” Capt. Ray Wynn of the Kansas City, Mo., Fire Department, asked from a few feet away. Wynn had followed Stewart on many “sleigh rides” around the country and now follows this Secret Santa, providing stories, memories and amusing sound effects.
“I do now,” Turner said. “I do now.”
Secret Santa II took over from Stewart about the time the recession hit and the economy went into a tailspin. Like Stewart, this Secret Santa doesn’t talk about his own finances, where those $100 bills come from and if — like for so many people now — they’ve been harder to come by.
Come December, he just fills his pockets with money, dons his red cap and heads out looking for people to make really happy.
He will likely hand out about $40,000 this December. He says he’ll go “till the money runs out.”
“The recession, unemployment. This is the time you don’t want to stop. You don’t want to back off,” he said.
He walked up to Peggy Potter, 59, of Kansas City, Kan., who was looking at some framed prints at a thrift store. He made some small talk, put his arm around her and within minutes she was crying. Her son died about a year and a half ago. Her husband died in July and her daughter died soon after that.
“I’m just … today’s been a rough day for me, just thinking about my loved ones,” she said. “I’ve been having a hard time paying for all the funerals.”
Santa gave her $200, listened more, hugged her, and told her the poster she was holding had special meaning. It was a photo of two hands, one large, one small. Words printed at the bottom could have been written by Secret Santa, the original or the current one.
It said: “Kindness in giving creates love.”
A Mother’s Love Overcomes Poverty’s Effect on Health
By Jenifer Goodwin
A mother’s love can make scrapes feel better and soothe hurt feelings. Now, new research shows that a warm, caring mother can also shield against the ill health effects of growing up poor — protection that can last well into adulthood.
Studies have shown that being poor is associated with a higher risk for heart disease and other mental and physical illnesses throughout the life span. It’s believed that the stress and deprivation of low socioeconomic status causes the immune system to go into overdrive, activating genes and releasing proteins that can cause inflammation throughout the body.
Inflammation is implicated in many diseases, including asthma, depression and cardiovascular disease, according to background information in the study.
However, the new study shows that having a caring mom can halt some of those pro-inflammatory processes.
In the study, researchers analyzed key aspects of the immune systems of 53 people, ages 25 to 40, who were raised in poor families during the first five years of life. Participants were also asked about their relationships with their mothers based on a standard measurement called the Parent Bonding Inventory. That information was also corroborated by information from the mothers.
Researchers then isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells, a component of the immune system.
The 26 adults who described their mothers as warm and loving had lower gene expression in genes that promote inflammation than those with more distant moms.
Those with warm moms also secreted less interleukin 6, a protein also linked to inflammation.
“It’s really remarkable that, 30 years later, you can see these kinds of signals in their gene expression and immune response that can be related back to socioeconomic status and maternal life in the first five years of life early life,” said study co-author Michael Kobor, a professor of medical genetics at University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “Mothers can have a profound influence that you can see on a molecular level.”
The study is published May 18 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.
Dr. Julio Licinio, editor of the journal and director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research at Australian National University, said he believed it’s the first study to show, at a molecular level, the influence of what many have believed to be true — that good moms can make a difference in a child’s life.
“It’s the first time that I know of that researchers have shown good parenting has a biological effect,” Licinio said. “What they showed here is the level of activation is smaller in people with higher maternal warmth.”
Sheila Smith, director of early childhood at the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, said the study reinforced what child development research has shown — that maternal warmth can have lifelong benefits.
“Maternal warmth is a very important predictor of good outcomes, both short-term and long-term, for children,” Smith said. “When I read that on top of all of that, it may help reduce rates of conditions such as cardiovascular disease, that makes me think we should be doing even more to help parents provide that type of support to young children.”
However, poverty can make it difficult for families to be able to provide the most basic needs, such as food and housing for their families, West said. “Some parents who are experiencing economic hardship and stress have difficulty providing the type of warmth that’s needed,” West said. “It tells us we need to do certain things to make sure parents can respond with warmth.”
Those measures include screening for depression, more assistance for families struggling to meet basic needs and programs that offer social support from other parents, she added.
While the study didn’t look at the role of dads, other studies have shown the responsibility shouldn’t fall all on moms. Fathers, stepparents, other relatives and even friends can help offer kids the warmth and engagement they need, West said.
Source: US News & World Report
As Decade’s End Nears, 20% More American Children Live in Poverty
As the end of the decade nears 20 percent more American children are living in poverty than in 2000, and the South leads the nation in the number of children living in lowincome and poor families, according to researchers at the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), part of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
NCCP says that 44 percent of children in the South – 12.2 million – live in low-income families; compared to 41 percent of children in the West; 38 percent of children in the Midwest; and 34 percent of children in the Northeast.
“These are challenging economic times for America’s families. Low- and moderate-income workers are seeing their wages stagnate or decline, while the cost of basic necessities continues to rise,” says NCCP’s Vanessa Wight, PhD, who co-authored the report with research analyst Michelle Chau. “We are particularly concerned about the profound effect economic hardship can have on children. We found that children’s poverty rates vary greatly, depending on where people live.”
The U.S. federal poverty level (FPL) for 2009 is $22,050 for a family of four; low-income is considered anything below two times FPL. The findings are detailed in “Basic Facts About Low-income Children,” NCCP’s multi-part annual collection of analyses on low-income families, available free online at http://www.nccp.org/publications/pub_892.html.
While children make up a quarter of America’s population, they account for more than 40 percent of the overall low-income population, explains Wight. NCCP analyzed a variety of factors that distinguish low-income and poor children from their less disadvantaged counterparts. In addition to geographic location, other factors contribute significantly to a child’s experiences with economic insecurity. Among them:
Race:
- 27 percent of white children – 11.2 million – live in low-income families.
- 61 percent of black children – 6.4 million – live in low-income families.
- 31 percent of Asian children – one million – live in low-income families.
- 57 percent of American Indian children – 0.3 million – live in low-income families.
- 42 percent of children of some other race – 0.9 million – live in low-income families.
- 62 percent of Hispanic children – 10.1 million – live in low-income families.
Health insurance:
- 16 percent of children living in low-income families – 4.9 million – are uninsured.
- 32 percent of children living in low-income families – 9.5 million – are covered by private insurers.
- 49 percent of children living in low-income families – 14.6 million – are covered by Medicaid.
- 22 percent of children living in low-income families – 6.5 million – are covered by their state’s Children Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
Parental education:
- 25 percent of children with at least one parent who has some college or more education – 11.9 million – live in low-income families.
- 85 percent of children with parents who have less than a high-school degree – 7.2 million – live in low-income families.
- 60 percent of children with parents who have no more than a high school degree – 10.7 million – live in low-income families.
Source: The National Center for Children in Poverty
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