My HOPE for individuals and families in 2022

My HOPE for individuals and families in 2022

My HOPE for individuals and families in 2022

mowing grass with dad

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

— Margaret Mead

 

As we reflect on 2021 and think about what we want for the new year ahead, I thought that it would be beneficial to share what I see families are missing, and might consider starting now and continuing into 2022.

Care for ourselves and others. Let’s all agree that we should move from being a spectator to being an active player. Recent headlines reflect our youth need us to show up for them unfortunately some of us are missing the boat. Begin by taking care of yourself. You can start with simple tasks like walking and/or drinking more water. 

We need to care for others by volunteering within our own neighborhoods.  It’s been my personal experience many public libraries need volunteers, or maybe you can donate to your local food bank. We need everyone to be involved in changing the landscape of what is around us.

The Success Sequence provides an outline of how to reverse the cycle of poverty in our communities. GCO uses this as a framework for much of our work.

Community makes us stronger

Community. When our family relationships are stronger our community is better and our state is better. Change always starts with us. 

For example, have you ever noticed when people first move into a new neighborhood they make the effort to keep their lawns manicured?  But then, it never fails there is THAT one house whose yard is in disarray. That house can make the value of all the other homes lower because it is not well kept. However, instead of complaining about the neighbor’s inadequacies, see how you can help. Is there a young person who can mow the lawn?  This is beneficial because you are teaching a child how to help others and the neighbor gets their lawn mowed. Now the neighbor and teen are connected into the community. Plus, the neighborhood is more aesthetically pleasing to the eye, which brings home values back to where they should be. Everyone wins! Being a part of a community makes us feel as though we are a part of something greater than ourselves. 

Collaboration. Think about how you can add value to a local organization utilizing your gifts and talents. Believe it or not, this is why you were given your gifts!

At Georgia Center for Opportunity, we collaborate with a community of folks in the areas of education, employment, and family. Read more about our work and how its Not for self but for others” at foropportunity.org.

 

Cost of Thanksgiving Dinner Expected To Hurt Those In Need

Cost of Thanksgiving Dinner Expected To Hurt Those In Need

Cost of Thanksgiving Dinner Expected To Hurt Those In Need

turkey

The Farm Bureau Released A Report That The Cost of Thanksgiving Dinner Was Going Up Significantly.

 What is happening
  • Many people are gathering for the first time in nearly 2 years for Thanksgiving.
  • A recent Farm Bureau report shows the impact of Inflation and other factors that are leading to a 14% increase in the cost of Thanksgiving dinner.
  • GCO’s work in our community is shedding a light on the impact higher prices is having on many communities and social support efforts.
Why it matters
  • The hardest hit will be those already facing food insecurity.
  • Inflation impacts those already living in the margins far more than it hurts many of the decision-makers
  • Family is a vital component to a flourishing life and can be undermined by creating a financial burden for family gatherings.

My family and I are headed home to the mid-west this Thanksgiving to see my extended family and 95-year-old mother. The pandemic kept us away from each other, and my children are really looking forward to catching up with mom and their cousins. We have a lot to be thankful for and I am extremely grateful for my parents and siblings and the love we have for each other.  Family matters so much and the Eckstein’s are blessed in abundance. 

I note a Farm Bureau report this week that estimates the cost of that Thanksgiving dinner to again be on the rise—up 14% from last year. Of course, last year we were in the heart of the pandemic and we hadn’t yet felt the supply chain crush brought on by lockdowns and the employment market. As a result, demand and prices were low. 

The Success Sequence provides an outline of how to reverse the cycle of poverty in our communities. GCO uses this as a framework for much of our work.

Given our families blessings, we don’t feel the impact of these swings as much as some of the people we work with at GCO. We work in coalitions with partners focusing on food security, housing, and mental health. We bring our expertise in employment, education, and family relationships to make those within the partnership more effective, allowing them to have greater impact. We see a lot of families that would be impacted by even a small increase in price. It can seem hard sometimes for those blessed like us to believe that the Farm Bureau’s estimate of just under $6 for a group of 10 to eat that Thanksgiving dinner is unaffordable to some. But we can assure you that is the case. Inflation impacts the poor disproportionately and we are witnessing its devastating impacts on families daily.

Our prayer for those families—and for you and your family— is that this holiday will be a time of peace, an opportunity to be grateful for all families big and small and the communities they live in.

Q&A with Curtis and Tonika on their experience in the Elevate class

Q&A with Curtis and Tonika on their experience in the Elevate class

Q&A with Curtis and Tonika on their experience in the Elevate class

The COVID-19 pandemic has put stress and strain on peoples’ relationships like few other times. In this challenging environment, the Georgia Center for Opportunity has stepped up to be involved in a new series of relationship enrichment classes called Elevate for Couples.

Below is a Q&A with Curtis and Tonika, two graduates of the Elevate class who share their experiences and takeaways.

Q: Please introduce yourselves—your background, current work, and family life?

Tonika: We are a mixed family of five children. We’ve been married for two years in June and we dated for three and a half years. We met through a mutual friend, my son’s barber. When I met my husband, he had custody of his four children from a previous marriage. So he brought four to the team and I brought one. It took me a while to get over the whole shenanigans of the kids, but we were friends.

What won me over was just watching him with his children just take care of the spiritual, education, just everything. I watched him do this effortlessly. He has a heart of gold, because most people would run away.

For work, I’ve actually been a nurse practitioner for about two years. I’ve been a nurse for 16 years. We recently moved to the Atlanta area about almost two years ago now. We come from middle Georgia in Macon and Milledgeville.

Curtis: I did accounting for 15 years and then I transitioned about three years ago into chaplaincy. So I’m a chaplain for a hospice company here in Atlanta.

Q: Heading into the Elevate class, what were some of the most significant challenges and stressors in your relationship?

Curtis: For me, the biggest thing was striving to navigate through a blended family. I was hoping to gain some insights on how to navigate that in a healthy way. That was really, really important to me. The class did offer me some insights that I was able to extract. Marriage within itself is a challenge, coupled with children is another challenge. But in a blended family, they don’t teach you that in school.

Tonika and I are similar in our love for Christ, in our career aspirations, and things of that nature. But our biggest struggle is the blended family component when it comes to the children.

Q: What parts of the Elevate class did you find most useful?

Curtis: What was most useful for me was the opportunity to reflect upon myself—just the place and space that I am in as an individual. That matters a lot. Because at the end of the day, I have no control over what comes out of somebody else’s mouth or the actions that they choose to display. But I do have complete control over how I respond and the things I choose to do. So each session afforded me the opportunity to just reflect—what are my growing areas? What am I missing? What are my blind spots?

Q: Of the seven core relationship skills and qualities for success, which one did you find most impactful for your own relationship?

Tonika: For me it was “engage.” It’s easy to forget about engagement with a busy day-to-day life. For me, it helped remind me of what’s most important. You have to make it a priority or it’ll just be on the list.

Q: Overall, how did Elevate improve your relationship?

Curtis: It afforded me a better understanding of Tonika. Just pausing enough to even consider her perspective. I think that was big for me. I honestly try to do that and she’ll be the first one to tell you I get it wrong a lot. I can make my mind up about something really fast. I’m very flexible, I’m very optimistic. One of my excuses is that I don’t make excuses, I make adjustments. I make it work. That’s just how I’ve been raised. But I can’t automatically project that onto Tonika. I have done that in the past, and it’s 100% wrong of me. Now, I consider her thoughts, her framework, and her narrative.

Q: What are your future goals and plans?

Tonika: I want us to continue to build, to continue to grow, continue to understand each other. Just grow individually and collectively in marriage. Always seek to better ourselves and our marriage. There is no cap to that—we’ll never get it right all the time. You always need to be building upon that.

Curtis: Balance and then a healthy life. I definitely want to continue to see personal growth. I often tell my kids that the only person I’m in competition with is striving to be a better person than who I was yesterday. I also want balance. I’m at that place where everything can’t be a priority. A lot of things that used to matter to me don’t really matter anymore.

The Elevate program is being provided to couples across Georgia thanks to a federal grant received by the Fostering Relationship and Economic Enrichment Project (Project F.R.E.E.).

Project F.R.E.E. is a collaboration between the University of Georgia Extension System and community partners across Georgia. Our aim is to create communities where children are safe and thrive. To do this, our campus-community partnership initiative is mobilizing a network of organizations who connect, learn and collaborate to integrate healthy marriage and relationship education into existing community-based services across Georgia.

 

Taking Your Relationship To The Next Level!

Empower Yourself: Empower your relationship through empowering yourself
Lay the Foundation: Intentionally committing effort to lay the foundation for a lasting relationship
Enlighten: Sharing intimate information with your partner to enlighten each other about your relationship
Value: Value and respect the positive aspects of your partner and your relationship
Attach: Cultivating and maintaining friendship with your partner                                                     Tame: Cultivate strategies to manage your differences in healthy and safe ways                           Engage (and Wrap Up): Engaging social support, community ties, and sources of meaning

 

 

Taking it to the Next Level

Taking it to the Next Level

Taking it to the Next Level

 It was a rainy Thursday night in Georgia, but that didn’t stop couples from gathering for a night of food and fun, and strengthening couples and marriages in their relationships.  #ElevateCouples Pop-up Event was hosted by GCO’s Family team (formerly Healthy Families Initiative) as a time to emphasize the importance of romantic relationships and keeping them thriving. Over a meal, couples were engaged in a course appetizer for the Elevate: Taking Your Relationship To The Next Level! Workshop. 

Elevate is offered to Georgia couples free of charge (as part of a partnership with University of Georgia and Project F.R.E.E.) as a time to invest in their marriage and relationships. The course is an eight week commitment from couples to discover ways to elevate their relationship to the next level. The course is offered in-person and virtually, and during this time couples are not in counseling, but lead through exercises to learn how to manage stress inside and outside of their relationship, conflict resolution, dealing with differences, and most importantly finding ways to connect to each other. It’s designed for couples of all ages (18 years old and up) who are in committed relationships and/or married. 

The pop-up event allowed couples a VIP look at what the course has to offer and how they can benefit from it both emotionally and physically. The group was able to hear one of the facilitators talk about highlights of the program and the best part of the course which is seeing couples grow. It didn’t stop there; attendees also watched a recorded testimony from previous workshop participants who explained the teachings of Elevate, and how it had a ripple effect in their family. What they learned went beyond their own marriage, but allowed for a trickle down of knowledge and modeling behavior for their grandchildren to see an example of a healthy relationship. 

To learn more about how you and your honey can Elevate, click here

 

 

 

 

Working-class Americans’ Views on Family Policy | GLOBE NEWSWIRE

Working-class Americans’ Views on Family Policy | GLOBE NEWSWIRE

In The News

Working-class Americans’ Views on Family Policy | GLOBE NEWSWIRE

A  new report  on the work and family policy preferences of black, Hispanic, and white working-class parents reveals that their opinions often cut against the agenda of Washington, D.C., insiders on both the right and left.   The report,  Working-Class Americans’ Views on Family Policy, is written by Ethics and Public Policy Center fellow Patrick T. Brown and co-sponsored by the Institute for Family Studies, Braver Angels, the Georgia Center for Opportunity, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation. The findings are based on three different focus groups comprised of about a dozen parents each, representing different slices of life in working-class America: white parents in southwest Ohio, black parents in the Atlanta region, and Hispanic parents around the San Antonio area.    

Inflation’s Growing Problem: A warning shot for Congress

Inflation’s Growing Problem: A warning shot for Congress

Inflation’s Growing Problem: A warning shot for Congress

poor child in America inflation

The inflation rate in July—as measured by the seasonally-adjusted Consumer Price Index (CPI)—abated somewhat from June’s rate, increasing at 0.5% instead of 0.9%. But don’t cheer too much yet.

This is known by economists as disinflation, not deflation. The rate came down, but prices are still continuing to climb.

Annualized, the monthly inflation rates calculate to 5.8% for July and 11.4% for June. Both rates continue to exceed the Federal Reserve’s target of 2% annual inflation. Of course, as I discussed in this blog, the Fed’s 2% target rate is too high and compromises Congress’s original goal of promoting purchasing power that would benefit everyone.

Prices are Ratcheting Upwards

When the CPI inflation rate is viewed by its increase from the same month of the prior year, the trend is not good. 

Although the increase over the prior year held steady for July, prices were also increasing last year. That is, prices are still 5.3% higher than a year ago when prices were also increasing. The problem is compounding, and prices are ratcheting upwards.

Inflation not a problem?

Perhaps not surprisingly but definitely unfortunately, the Fed’s economists appear to have been caught off guard. When Fed Chairman Jerome Powell testified before Congress last month, he admitted as much as inflation has spiked higher than they anticipated. However, he still maintained that the inflation is based on temporary factors that will abate with time.

Mr. Powell’s comments may have been just for the inflation rate, and he may be overly optimistic. In the meantime, we must brace ourselves for an increase in the price level. 

To think that the price level may come down is probably unrealistic. That has not happened ever since we gave the Fed the responsibility to maintain purchasing power in 1946 that was dumbed down in 1978 to the weaker goal of “reasonable price stability.” Of course, this policy change happened during the complete failure of federal policymakers in both the Fed and Congress when the nation was suffering from double-digit inflation combined with stagnant economic growth.

Why does promoting purchasing power matter? 

Inflation hurts practically everyone. If your wages do not keep up, your purchasing power is eroding. 

This is truest for those in poverty, low-income families, and low-skilled labor. They will slip further behind, making income disparity worse and possibly causing Congress and state governments to spend more on safety-net programs that will only fuel inflation higher when Congress funds the increases with even more debt.

Businesses—who need predictability to make good entrepreneurial decisions—generally will also suffer, slowing down economic activity. 

Workers will have a harder time keeping up with rising prices and will demand higher wages, only fueling inflation further.  

More Cautious Approach to Government Spending is Needed

A likely major cause of the climbing price level is all the governmental debt-based spending to address the pandemic. Further debt-based spending will not ameliorate the problem but exacerbate it. 

Congress needs to exercise more restraint and caution now as it considers the expansive spending bills that appear likely to pass. It is very likely that they are setting up the nation for unpleasant economic times, hurting the poorest among us the worst. The growth in the Consumer Price Index is an omen for Congress to take a step back and trim those bills.

 

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