Investing in ingenuity this National Poverty in America Awareness Month
Photo credit: Kyo Morishima Photography
Noelia began baking sweets and selling them to her family members to earn extra cash during tough economic times. Word got around that Noelia’s creations were better than any bakery’s. She started getting requests from other moms for custom-order cakes for birthday parties. With limited resources, though, her business could grow only so much.
Noelia’s story illustrates something we know deeply at The Child Center of NY: that talent, ability, and drive are equally distributed among populations, but opportunity is not. January is National Poverty in America Awareness Month, and it’s an important reminder of the ongoing struggle that millions of people face across the country—and right in our own communities. It’s also a reminder that poverty is not something that is inevitable or intractable; it’s something we all can change.
That’s why The Child Center launched Cash+Community Works (C+C) in 2022. C+C is a movement grounded in the concept of peer-driven change and defined by direct investment in under-resourced families, trusting them with power, and connecting them with peers to uplift whole communities. It works on the premise that families are the experts on what they need to break the cycle of poverty and achieve their goals; our job is to act as investors, advocates, and partners. Through C+C, we invested in Noelia’s obvious talent and hard work—and it paid off not only for Noelia, but also her entire community as she pays it forward.
In addition to her general participation in C+C, Noelia also took the initiative to apply for additional grants that C+C awards for particularly promising projects. Today, Noelia receives—and fills—orders for 50 cakes a week through her business, Noelia’s Sweet Delights. She has expanded her inventory to offer desserts at large events, including weddings, and increased her inventory to include offerings such as sweets for a Viennese table. C+C also enabled Noelia to take courses on food handling and sanitation.
One look at this Photo of the Month and it’s clear that Noelia’s abilities are worth the investment!
