Use your note-taking skills to help end poverty
University of St. Thomas students are invited to help with an ecumenical program aimed at ending poverty.
About 200 Minnesota civic leaders and policymakers are expected for “Focus on Poverty: Strategies for Ending Poverty by 2020,” a program convened by the Most Rev. Harry Flynn, archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis, and Bishop Peter Rogness of the St. Paul Area Synod of the Evangelical Church in America, from 2 to 5 p.m. Friday, March 17, at Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church, 1669 N. Arcade St., St. Paul.
The program for the afternoon will include discussions that follow remarks by Flynn, Rogness, Project for Pride in Living executive director Steve Cramer, activist Julia Dinsmore, former Sen. David Durenberger, Baptist minister Rev. Albert Gallmon Jr. and former St. Paul Public Schools superintendent Dr. Patricia Harvey.
This is the second annual “Focus on Poverty” event organized to help put a face on those living in poverty and to recast public conversation about public policy. An analysis of the last legislative session by the Star Tribune suggested that the 2005 Focus on Poverty event was one reason the legislature chose not to make more drastic cuts in spending on anti-poverty programs.
The program’s organizers have asked if 10 St. Thomas students would be willing to assist them. Note-takers are needed to record and synthesize discussions at each table of participants. The summary discussion remarks will be distributed in event follow-up documents and reports.
Can you help? If so, contact Dennis McGrath in the archdiocesan communications office, (651) 291-4412, or e-mail mcgrathd@archspm.org.
