Oregon Center for Christian Values hosts poverty activism
By Danielle Bruno
The sound of my mother's voice is courage. It is selflessness. It is dropping out of college and abandoning her dream of becoming a schoolteacher to care for the child in her womb. It is sprinting from one minimum wage job to the next so her children could have a new outfit every school year from the corner consignment store. It is squeezing into her twin bed with my brother and sister when the train tracks in our backyard whispered nightmares of strangers lurking beneath the window. It is the strength to persevere as a single mother for the three lives she loved before they even began.The sound of my mother's voice whispered in my head as I sat in Northeast Portland's Mosaic Church on Feb. 7. Surrounded by members of the congregation, the Portland community and fellow UP Moreau Center students and staff, I found myself silently reflecting on my family's story as we discussed strategies for tackling poverty in Oregon.Hosted by The Oregon Center for Christian Values, the Vote Out Poverty workshop trained those in attendance how to become political advocates for food, housing and health care legislation. In conjunction with my own past and the stories told by others, I left the workshop with two parcels of knowledge: First, poverty is real and present in my life. Second, my actions have powerful potential.Poverty is not a far away issue. It's not a tragedy that only affects people on the other side of town or the other side of the world. It's not "someone else's problem."Poverty is here. Poverty is now. It is in my life; it is in our lives. All too often we associate hot button issues with vast concepts and statistics that attempt to describe the topic in a national or global sense. But poverty is not statistics. The need for food, healthcare and affordable housing goes beyond numbers and into names. The degree to which we experience these needs may vary, but our stories and the stories of those we love link us together.As Christians and as members of the human race, we are called to act on these stories. The OCCV event did an incredible job of facilitating an action-planning session. The organization gave each participant specific tips on how to approach their two Oregon state representatives. We were told that a hand written letter, a phone call or even a meeting in person can make all the difference in passing important pieces of legislation.Initially I found myself thinking, what if I do not feel well versed or informed enough to be persuasive? Who am I to schedule an appointment with a legislator? But OCCV reminded me of the potential power I hold in my hands. It does not matter how much I know. What matters is that I have a narrative to share and a faith in human dignity strong enough to want to share it. Put simply into some of the only terms I remember from grade school physics, it's about transferring the power of my energy from potential to kinetic.The Vote Out Poverty workshop inspired me to use the sound of my mother's voice as a reminder of where I came from. More importantly, it empowered me to compose the sound of my own voice as I transform my past into a resource for action.
