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Communities should come together

Improving people’s lives a bipartisan goal

A recent letter to the editor in the Waupaca County Post caught my eye, because it mentioned an organization that is helping people who are poor and unemployed in Milwaukee. I wanted to learn more and did some research online.

This organization is the Joseph Project, which connected Pastor Jerome Smith Jr., his staff at the Greater Praise Church of God in Christ, and the Sheboygan Economic Development Corporation with support from Sen. Ron Johnson. After a week of interview training, the unemployed individuals are taken to businesses in Sheboygan and, if employed, they are transported in a van daily, back and forth to their jobs.

Years ago in Pennsylvania, I had a businessman friend who told me about a similar program of vans transporting employees to work. My friend also introduced me to this model of organizing, because he was colleague of Saul Alinsky and had seen it work.

This type of community organizing is also similar to what President Obama did in Chicago after graduating from Harvard, though his opponents saw little value in it.

Wouldn’t it be better for our communities if we could agree to come together and improve the lives of all our citizens?

After all, it takes a village and a few people with influence to bring about change.

Suzanne Snell deBeers
Waupaca

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