it's complicated.
A Walk for Awareness
Join us as we take a walk along the trail at the Caine Halter YMCA, listening to powerful stories to expand our empathy, and broaden our understanding of the complicated issues of: Youth Development, Housing Instability, Mass Incarceration, and Food Insecurity.
Youth Development
If we’re going to see justice roll down and renewal spring forth, we need to elevate leaders from our most vulnerable communities. Unfortunately, the disenfranchisement and marginalization that have been happening for generations have created a leadership vacuum where we need it most. That doesn’t mean we don’t have excellent leaders who have grown up in poor and marginalized communities. It simply means that while we have routinely created pipelines for leadership development in affluent communities, we have placed countless barriers to leadership in communities of color. And we’ve been doing this for hundreds of years. Consequently, the leaders we need most right now have few opportunities to grow and even fewer opportunities to be discovered and elevated. This trend needs to change.
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Housing Instability
"The roots of homelessness are complex and involve both personal and societal barriers to obtaining a residence. Tackling homelessness truly requires a united front of individuals, congregations, nonprofit organizations, foundations, and public initiatives."
- United Ministries, Greenville SC
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Mass Incarceration
"There are 2 million people in the nation’s prisons and jails—a 500% increase over the last 40 years. Changes in sentencing law and policy, not changes in crime rates, explain most of this increase. These trends have resulted in prison overcrowding and fiscal burdens on states to accommodate a rapidly expanding penal system, despite increasing evidence that large-scale incarceration is not an effective means of achieving public safety."
- The Sentencing Project
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"Renewed behavior springs from renewed identities. And renewed identities come through grace. Period. If we want to see cycles broken and people restored, it’s time we take a closer look at grace." - Reach (A Ministry of Lead Collective)
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Food Insecurity
"Food insecurity is defined by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life (USDA, 2020). Since 2011, the number of families in the United States experiencing food insecurity has fallen steadily. However, it still remains a significant issue with around 10.5% of US households experiencing food insecurity in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the United States (USDA, 2020)."
The food insecurity index indicates that the following tracts are the most at risk of food insecurity:
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Nicholtown
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Mauldin
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City View
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Gantt
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Conestee