By random chance, we were born into privileged families, and this privilege has kept us from hunger, homelessness, and financial insecurity. However, we believe this privilege is not an excuse to turn a blind eye to the vastly different circumstances that one in five Memphians live under. We don’t want food security, financial security, and a home to be priceless; we want them to be givens.
Here in Germantown, the median household income is $159,000 a year. We have vibrant, well funded schools, personal transportation for almost everyone, and a poverty rate one fifth of the national average. However, just twenty miles north, the citizens of Frayser earn wages in the second percentile nationwide, with seventy four percent of children living in poverty. Our privilege can amplify voices like these. We can not afford to stand idle.
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FoundersJude Downing and Sophia Overstreet are the co-founders of Stop Poverty With Policy and are seniors at Houston High School in Memphis, Tennessee.
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