2009 Child Watch Summary

On Friday, May 8th, about 70 community members participated in the 13th Annual Child Watch Tour, a partnership of Children First/Communities In Schools and the Junior League of Asheville. The tour invites participants to “spend a day in a child’s shoes.” This field trip explores an issue impacting children in Buncombe County and inspires attendees to take action.

This year’s tour examined poverty’s impact on our children. Child poverty affects us all. Recent estimates indicate that the social and economic cost of child poverty totals a half a trillion dollars each year. A new First Focus report shows that children who fall into poverty during a recession fare worse into adulthood than their peers who avoided poverty. Specifically, children in poverty earn less, achieve lower levels of education, and are less likely to be gainfully employed over their lifetimes than those who avoided poverty.

On the half-day tour, our group heard from school counselors, nurses, and social workers; parents; and staff of both Weed and Seed and MANNA FoodBank. We learned that: one out of five children in Buncombe County live in poverty; NC children rank among the highest for food insecurity (meaning they often go hungry); poor children are more likely to drop out of school and score low on achievement tests than their wealthier peers; and poor children live across the county whether in rural, suburban, or urban areas.

The half day tour gave an overview to the complexities of child poverty and some local initiatives to reduce poverty’s impacts, such as: school support staff to address health and social issues; a community garden in Pisgah View Apartments building greater self-sufficiency and improving nutrition; church, school, and community collaborations assisting with food and emergency needs; government funded programs like child care subsidies and WorkFirst; and MANNApack to provide weekend nutrition for children. Private, public, and religious partnerships along with volunteers and self-empowerment of poor families were the key ingredients to these efforts.

But the need exceeds our current capacity. Beyond adding more services, we must examine poverty’s root causes and advocate for change to reduce both the impacts of child poverty and its occurrence. Tour participants were asked to advocate to their elected officials on three issues related to child poverty: state investments in early childhood education and care; supporting a living wage for city contract workers; and ensuring passage of the federal Child Nutrition Reauthorization to reduce childhood hunger.

We left the tour with new knowledge, new stories, and new connections to people we had not met before. After such an experience, we cannot remain silent bystanders to our child poverty epidemic. At the tour’s conclusion Children First/CIS announced their initiative to focus our community’s attention on this issue and build a movement for reducing the impact and incidence of child poverty in Buncombe County. We invite you to learn more about the issue and consider a way to play your part.