2011 Kids Count Report released for Maine

The Annie E Casey Foundation has released a new Kids Count Report for the state of Maine. The report says that child poverty in the state went up slightly by one percent.

From this Associated Press article that we found at the Bangor Daily News, we learn more on what is contained in the report.

The Kids Count report being released Thursday says Maine’s child poverty rate was 17.5 percent in 2009, the latest year for which figures are available. That was 1 percentage point higher than the rate the previous year for children under age 18.

The report also says the median income for families with children slipped between the same two years, from $54,800 to $52,700.
...

The percentage of Maine children without health insurance was 5 percent, according to the study, well below the national average of 11 percent. The 5 percent figure means there were 15,000 children who did not have health insurance.

A new Kids Count report for Maine

A new Kids Count report for the state of Maine finds an increase in the number of children living in poverty. The report from the Maine Children's Alliance also found an increase in children smoking tobacco cigarettes.

From Maine Public Broadcasting, this Associated Press story gives us the new statistics.

The percentage of Maine kids living in poverty rose to nearly 22 percent in 2008, up from 19.4 percent the year before. That's according to the latest annual "Kids Count" report released today at a State House news conference by the Maine Children's Alliance. Moreover, the Alliance says, 38 percent of all Maine children are living in low-income households.

The Alliance's President Dean Crocker says that's a major cause for concern. "Childhood poverty is strongly associated with many problems in later life, including low achievement in school, chronic health problems, and arrests for criminal offenses," he says in a statement.

The report also found that there are about 17,000 children in Maine without health insurance, though the state's 6 percent uninsured rate for kids is still half the national rate of 12 percent.

Poverty numbers up in Maine

A new study from the University of Maine shows the percentage of people in poverty rising in that state as well. The increase mirrors the trend nationwide, and is similar to what was reported in Wisconsin this morning.

From this Associated Press story found at WMTW, we look further into Maine's numbers.

The Bangor Daily News reports that the 12.2 percent figure is about 1 percentage point lower than the national average and compares to Maine's 2000-01 poverty rate of 10.1 percent.

Researcher Ann Atcheson said traditionally, when a recession ends, poverty rates continue to rise.

Broken out by counties, Washington County was the highest with a poverty rate of 20.1 percent, while York County was lowest at 8.2 percent.

The poverty line in the report is defined as $20,650 for a family of four.

Food pantries in Maine

from the Ellsworth American

This profiles two leaders of a network of food pantries in the state of Maine

Written by Carrie Jones,

Last week Jackie Thurber perched on a chair at a long, narrow table. Political officials and candidates, activists and bureaucrats surrounded her. She talked. She laughed. She listened, but mostly she pressed upon them the importance of her passion: feeding the hungry.

Thurber is a coordinator of Loaves and Fishes, which is the food pantry based in Ellsworth. It serves much of Hancock County. She and her compatriot, Nancy Hunt, of the Emmaus Center, are my heroes.

Why?

Because they’re making a difference.

Between 2004 and 2005 the rate of children in poverty rose 16.5 percent in Hancock County. It rose 13.9 percent throughout the state. Between 2002 and 2005 food stamp participation increased to 60.1 percent. More and more people are using assistance programs. Food pantry workers say more and more people need help.

You have to wonder why.

According to a presentation by the Food Pantry Network of Hancock County there are a lot of factors. It costs more to live in a home. There is seasonal unemployment. Food costs more. Gas costs more. Medicine costs more. There’s a lack of access to fresh food for people on the islands. Even people who qualify for food assistance (food stamps) aren’t getting all the food they need.

Jackie and Nancy know that.

They know all about that need. They see it every day. They see it and they keep working, keep hoping, keep trying to make it better. That’s why they and the other volunteers at the food pantries across Hancock County are heroes.

There are 12 food pantries in our county and they serve about 3,090 people, which is about 6 percent of the population.

The scariest number are these: 18 % of Hancock County children are on food stamps. 40 % are on Maine Care.

Those are the numbers, Jackie and Nancy, and dozens of volunteers know more than the numbers. They know the faces. They know the stories.

A 63-year-old lady from Northeast Harbor told them, “I live on $787 a month and out of that I have to pay rent, two insurances – one life, one car – phone and I do have basic cable, which is only $17,95, so that’s not too extravagant. But then I have a drugstore bill, which is exorbitant because I take about $2,000 worth of medicine a month. So, it’s a struggle.”

How much of a struggle? Sometimes her meal is a can of tuna without the mayonnaise.

“I can’t afford that either,” she told a team of interviewers from Healthy Acadia.

Those are the kind of things Jackie and Nancy see and hear all the time. They hear and see that and they are still cheerful. They don’t grouse about insurmountable odds. They just keep chugging along, feeding one elderly person, one child, one family at a time, working and working to make it a little bit better. They go to meetings. They create networks. They think of strategies to get more food and better, healthier food to the people who need it.

That’s why they are heroes. They’re heroes because they are making a difference. We all need to be heroes like that.

Link to full article. May expire in future.

Paris Elementary staff collects food to give to students

from the Lewiston Sun Journal

By Leslie H. Dixon

PARIS - When Mary Newcomb filled 10 grocery carts with food at a local supermarket, she got strange looks.

But the elementary school guidance counselor was on a serious mission to feed students over the summer. Sixty-three percent of Paris Elementary School students come from families whose income falls below the federal poverty line, according to school records.

In some cases, free or reduced school lunches are the only meals children get, according to school staff.

So what happens when summer comes and school is closed?

"Our staff is very concerned," Principal Jane Fahey told school directors Monday night. The rising cost of fuel, energy and food, and the loss of local jobs all factor into a family's ability to keep food on the table.

Several months ago the staff began talking about escalating prices and decided they had to do something. With the help of donations from Wal-Mart, Hannaford, the school staff charity Cents for Kids and others, $1,400 was raised to buy food for local families.

On Wednesday from 1 to 7 p.m., school doors will be open to Paris Elementary families who want to pick up a bag or two of food. No questions asked.

"Any person who has children in school is welcome to come," Newcomb said Tuesday as she and students organized hundreds of boxes of cereal, macaroni, pancake mix, cans of soups, peanut butter and other foods on the school stage.

Food Services Director Martha O'Leary said the problem is not unique to Paris Elementary School.

The rate of children needing free or reduced lunch and breakfast is at least 50 percent districtwide and it tends to increase as the school year goes on, O'Leary said.

In West Paris, 66 percent of the elementary school children receive free or reduced lunch and breakfast. At Hebron Station School it's 30 percent.

O'Leary, who has served as director for the past five years, said she has seen a significant increase in the number of children needing help over the past few years, particularly with the closing of several large employers such as Burlington Homes and Oxford Homes, both in Oxford.

In Maine, a losing battle for health

from the Boston Globe

Struggling county poses harsh reality for women

By Jenna Russell,

STEUBEN, Maine - Thelma MacLean doesn't know what caused the chronic respiratory illness that has sucked away her mobility, peace of mind and resilience. Maybe it was the cigarettes she smoked for 30 years, or the woodsmoke she inhaled from neighbors' stoves, or the home permanents she gladly gave her friends. Maybe it was all those things - "not just smoking, but your way of living," as her doctor said.

The consequences, though, the 66-year-old knows well: The oxygen tube she depends on, always looped under her nose. The constant fear that she might catch a cold. The shortness of breath that keeps her inside her Route 1 home, where a miniature lighthouse decorates the lawn.

Like other women in Washington County, Maine, on the state's poor, rural, eastern edge, MacLean has struggled to hang on to her health. It is a fight many women here are losing, according to disturbing new research published last month. Stunning findings in a national survey of life expectancy revealed a downward slide more often associated with developing nations: From 1983 to 1999, as most Americans were living longer, the projected lifespans of Washington County women grew shorter, along with those of women in 3 percent of all US counties, mostly in the South and West, according to researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Washington.

To women who have spent their lives in remote eastern Maine, making ends meet by toiling in factories or raking blueberries or clamming, the study confirmed a harshness they already felt.

"It is another bit of unfairness, and there is so much unfairness," said MacLean, the daughter of a Jonesport lobsterman, as she sat at her kitchen table one morning last week, watching hummingbirds hover at a feeder outside the window. "Washington County is a hard county."

Sprawling down the rocky coast from Steuben, beyond Bar Harbor, to the Canadian border, and stretching north over miles of inland lakes and thick pine forests, Washington County is twice as big as Rhode Island. It is also rural and remote, uncrossed by major highways and sparsely populated. After years of economic stagnation and slow outmigration, fewer than 33,000 people remain.

For those who do, good-paying jobs are few. More than 11 percent of county residents are unemployed, twice as many as the state average. Work that can be found, like digging clams and worms, is often physically grueling, with low pay and no health insurance. Nineteen percent of residents live below the poverty line, more than in any other Maine county, according to the 2000 Census. Sixteen percent have no health insurance.

"It's one of the richest counties and one of the poorest," said Dr. Dora Anne Mills, Maine's public health director. "It has rich traditions and culture, ocean and freshwater fishing, blueberries and a beautiful landscape, but it's been plagued by poverty for decades, and poverty is one of the biggest factors in health and longevity."

Overall across the country, life expectancy increased more than seven years for men and six years for women between 1960 and 2000. But when researchers combed through mortality data for individual counties, they found startling inequalities: Four percent of men and 19 percent of women live in counties where life expectancy has stayed the same or declined since the 1980s.

"No question, it's a pretty shocking number," said one of the researchers, Ari Friedman, a fellow at the Harvard Initiative for Global Health.

Three percent of all counties - 180 in 22 states - showed a statistically significant drop in life expectancy. The worst deterioration was seen across the South, in Appalachia and in parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Texas, and Wyoming.

In the Northeast, Washington County was the only place where life expectancy dropped, after making steady gains in the 1960s and 1970s. The decline was seen only for women. Between 1983 and 1999, the most recent data available, their projected lifespan fell from almost 79 to 77.6, a loss of more than a year, while nationwide, women gained about the same amount of time, achieving life expectancy of 79.6.

Men in Washington County added 2.3 years to their lives, on average, in the same period, though their projected lifespan was still several years shorter than that of women, a nationwide trend. Researchers say it is hard to pinpoint why women saw more decline than men, but one reason is smoking rates for women that took time to catch up to men, setting up later-peaking rates of lung disease. In Maine, specialists and residents suggested another, subtler factor. "Sometimes women are so busy taking care of others, they don't take care of themselves," said Mills.

The study found more women in the worst-hit counties died from lung cancer, chronic lung disease and diabetes, diseases linked to obesity and smoking. Those risk factors are alarmingly widespread in Washington County. In 2006, almost one-third of residents, 31 percent, were obese, compared with 23 percent statewide, and 29 percent smoked, compared with 21 percent in the state.

Twelve percent of residents have diabetes, and the death rate from the disease doubled from 2001 to 2006, to twice the state average, according to a study by the Center for Health Policy, Planning and Research at the University of New England in Portland.

"People don't get good treatment for these conditions," said Ronald Deprez, the center's director. "There aren't enough primary care physicians or adequate patient self-management. People don't have transportation or money for medications."

In a tiny red house beside Route 1 in Milbridge, Dolly Jordan matter-of-factly described a lifetime of poverty - swiping her former husband's pocket change to buy food for her five children; making macaroni-and-ketchup suppers when tomato sauce cost too much. These days, the 61-year-old is obese, with high blood pressure and diabetes. Badly hurt when her car was hit by a drunk driver 16 years ago, she said, she is dependent on a wheelchair and in chronic pain.

Jordan sees her doctor less often than she should, because it's hard for her to get out, she said, and she doesn't exercise because she can barely stand. With $97 in monthly food stamps, she stocks up on hot dogs, hamburger, and chicken, hunting through the freezers for the cheapest packages.

County health professionals say the region's problems are compounded by its lack of public transportation and the difficulty of recruiting doctors to an isolated place where winters are long and private insurance is rare. The Harrington Family Health Center, perched like a big white farmhouse next to Route 1, with 20,000 patient visits per year, has been searching for a dentist to hire for four years.

To encourage good habits, the health center built a walking track in an adjacent field two years ago. Staff members say they have been amazed and encouraged by its popularity, even in the dead of winter. On a sunny afternoon last week, the narrow oval teemed with walkers.

Elsewhere, though, people are stymied by hopelessness, said state Representative Anne Perry, a nurse practitioner in Calais, at the far eastern end of the county, and the chairman of the Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee. The county's economic aspirations have been shaken, she said, by the defeat of three casino proposals and the collapse of a planned ecotourism center.

Poverty in Maine Update Report Released

from Penquis

Here is a link to a newsletter that updates the conditions of poverty in the state of Maine. This issue features the struggles on getting heat and food when poor.

Survey: 1 in 5 Mainers under 5 in poverty

from the Kennebec Journal

BY SUSAN M. COVER

AUGUSTA -- A report released Thursday shows one in five Maine children under the age of five live in poverty, a problem made worse by a lack of federal money, child advocates said.

Maine Kids Count, an annual report funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, identifies poverty and health insurance as an areas needing immediate attention.

The report, which relies on 2005 census data, shows 20 percent of children under age 5, and 17 percent of children under 18, living in poverty. For a family of three, an income of $17,000 a year or lower is considered poverty level.

On the the health care front, 10 percent of low income children are without health insurance even though they are eligible for Medicaid, according to the report.

At a Statehouse press conference, an unusually passionate Gov. John Baldacci linked the need to do more for children with his efforts to cut administrative costs in schools and to consolidate four state natural resource agencies.

Consolidation in those areas would free up more money for children, he said. "I'd like the people of Maine to know, while I'd like to make my superintendent happy, I'd like to make my four commissioners of natural resources happy, and I'd like to be able to make all of the people who work in the Augusta area happy, if I truly want to do my job the way it's supposed to be done, I have to put kids first and make sure they have the resources to be successful," he said.

Baldacci, who proposed reducing the number of school districts from 290 to 26 last year, expressed frustration with those who have opposed the effort. Ultimately, the Legislature modified the plan to require consolidation to about 80 districts and some efforts continue this year to further weaken the plan.

He's also faced resistance to his proposal to consolidate four natural resources agencies into one or two, eliminating high level administrators and consolidating services.

"These structures don't work," he said. "Their resistance to change those structures leave us in a situation where you're not making anybody happy. And that's completely unacceptable."

When it comes to poverty -- which the Maine Children's Alliance identified as the most troubling finding in the report -- a loss of funding from the federal government and state budget woes have made it hard to address the problem, said alliance president Elinor Goldberg.

The effects of poverty follow children all their lives, she said. "They're more likely to not be healthy," she said. "They are more likely not to be doing well in school. They're more likely to get into trouble as teenagers."

And while poverty remains a chronic issue, there was good news to report on the habits of teenagers, she said.

A 2007 survey shows in the last 10 years, teen smoking in Maine has dropped from 39 percent to 14 percent, alcohol use declined from 51 percent to 39 percent, and marijuana use was down from 30 percent to 22 percent.

House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland, said an emphasis on the well being of children even before they are born will help secure a more stable future for them and for society.

A former high school teacher and college professor, Cummings said it's a bad idea to cut money from children's programs to help balance the state budget.

He said efforts to pass laws to get toxic chemicals out of toys, strengthen lead paint regulations and work toward clean air and clean water are ways the Legislature is trying to help children.

Barely Getting By and Facing a Cold Maine Winter

from the New York Times

By ERIK ECKHOLM

MILBRIDGE, Me. — They have worked since their teens in backbreaking seasonal jobs, extracting resources from the sea and the forest. Their yards are filled with peeling boats and broken lobster traps.

In sagging wood homes and aged trailers scattered across Washington County, many of Maine’s poorest and oldest shiver too much in the winter, eat far more biscuits and beans than meat and cannot afford the weekly bingo game at the V.F.W. hall.

In this long-depressed “down east” region, where the wild blueberry patches have turned a brilliant crimson, thousands of elderly residents live on crushingly meager incomes. This winter promises to be especially chilling, with fuel oil prices rising and fuel assistance expected to decline. But many assume that others are worse off than themselves and are too proud to ask for assistance, according to groups that run meal programs and provide aid for heating and weatherizing.

“One of our biggest problems is convincing people to take help,” said Eleanor West, director of services for the Washington Hancock Community Agency, a federally chartered nonprofit group. “I tell them, ‘You worked hard all your life and paid taxes and are getting back a little of what you paid in.’”

Over the last half century, Social Security, Medicare and private pensions have lifted most of the nation’s elderly. In 1960, one in three lived below the poverty line; now fewer than one in 10 do. But in Washington County, the poverty rate among those 65 and older is nearly one in five and many more live only a little above the federal subsistence standard in 2007 of $10,200 for a single person and $13,690 for two.

For thousands on fixed incomes, fuel assistance may decline while Social Security checks are scarcely rising.

Viola Brooks, 81, worked in fish and blueberry factories while her husband worked in textile and logging jobs. Now widowed, she gets $588 a month from Social Security, supplemented by $112 in food stamps and one-time fuel aid of more than $500 for the winter.

But this year, that fuel aid will not fill a single tank. The average house cost $1,800 to heat last year, and minimal comfort this winter may require closer to $3,000; trailers will require somewhat less. Electricity and rent already take up most of Ms. Brooks’s income.

“I’m broke every month, and the trailer needs storm windows,” she said. “I cook a lot of pea soup and baked beans and buy flour to make biscuits.”

“Some day I’d like to go to a hairdresser,” Ms. Brooks said of a dream deferred. Still she says she enjoys her lovebirds and cats, and points out that “some people have it worse.”

Jobs for the elderly, a growing trend nationwide, are virtually nonexistent in these hamlets. Many people survive with help from a range of programs including food stamps, Medicaid, disability and energy assistance; others suffer silently, long used to hardship and fiercely independent.

In a pattern still common, older people here often held a series of seasonal jobs, usually without benefits. They worked on lobster boats and dug clams or bloodworms (to sell for bait) from spring to fall, raked wild blueberries in August, harvested potatoes and then made Christmas wreaths for mail-order companies to mid-December. Wives often worked in sardine canneries or in blueberry processing.

“By their 50s, their bodies start breaking down,” said Tim King, director of the community agency at its headquarters in Milbridge, adding that high rates of smoking, obesity and diabetes also contributed to early aging. The aid programs define those as 60 and over as elderly.

Because of their irregular careers and payments into the system, many people get Social Security benefits far below the national average of more than $1,000 a month.

Velma L. Harmon, a 79-year-old widow, receives only $220 a month from Social Security and has a grand total of $85 to live on each month after she pays her subsidized rent and utilities at her apartment complex in Machias, one of a growing number of such federally aided facilities for the elderly.

She is grateful for free lunches provided by the Eastern Agency on Aging, another government-financed group, but too proud to apply for food stamps that would give her a bit more spending money. “Trying to buy Christmas presents, that’s the hardest thing,” said Ms. Harmon, who has a mangled finger from her years of snipping sardine heads in a canning factory.

The preoccupation right now is soaring fuel prices: cheaper natural gas is unavailable in this region, and wood heat is often impractical or insufficient. But because of limited federal money, average fuel assistance for the 46,000 low-income Maine families expected to apply will probably decline to $579 this year, from $688 last year, said Jo-Ann Choate of the Maine State Housing Agency.

“Low-income people aren’t even going to be able to fill up a single tank of fuel oil,” Ms. Choate said. “They already wrap themselves up in blankets during the winter. This year they’ll be colder.”

The disabled, and there are many, may have it hardest. Dolly Jordan of Milbridge has a history of two bad marriages, a bone-crushing auto accident and poor health, and looks and feels older than 61. With osteoporosis, arthritis, diabetes and obesity, she spends most of the day in a wheelchair and uses a combination of a gripper, a broom and a cane to make her bed or hang her laundry.

Come winter, she hangs a blanket over the front door of her little red wooden house, where she has lived alone the last 10 years and which sits on concrete blocks with no foundation. She turns the heat off at night to save fuel.

Her disability payment is $623 a month, plus she gets just $10 from the state and $74 in food stamps. After paying the housing tax and her utility bills, she said, she must watch every remaining penny. A daughter drives her to the distant town of Ellsworth for cheaper shopping.

Like many, she keeps a police scanner on as a diversion and, unable to afford cable, she watches the same videos over and over — her favorite is “On Golden Pond.”

“I wish for bedtime to come,” she said. “The days are so long.”

Easing down a ramp to her mailbox is a perilous 15-minute ordeal. Still, she said, “I wait for Fridays.”

“That’s junk-mail day, and I read all the ads. That’s my best day.”

She added, “There’s always older people out there who have it harder.”

Frederick and Kathleen Call, in Harrington, are in their 60s and live in a 1970s trailer with buckling walls. They live on his disability check — he has had six heart attacks — and food stamps and fuel assistance. Like many others in the region, they buy all their clothes at a church-run thrift shop. They spend their days playing board games and rummy and watching squirrels on their porch.

“We used to go to the food pantry for a free box,” Ms. Call said, “but I saw an old woman who looked like she really needed it. She was thin and cold. I gave her a blanket. We haven’t gone for free food for years.”

Some people here seem to have sunny outlooks no matter what. In the fishing village of Jonesport, Elizabeth Emerson, 87, is hard of hearing and has a titanium knee but is spry and irrepressively cheerful.

She lives in the tiny house her husband, a trucker, built in 1949, and has a view of the gravestone where her name is already etched next to his. Having a daughter nearby, and a total of 52 grand-, great-grand and great-great-grandchildren, whose pictures fill the walls and the refrigerator door, helps in ways practical and emotional.

Ms. Emerson said she “thoroughly enjoyed” the 25 years she spent working as an aide in a nursing home, and she demonstrated the yodeling she used to perform on command for one patient.

Each day she walks with her dog, Sabrina, down to the stony beach where her family once swam. “I saw moose tracks the other day,” she exulted. “Here is where I used to pick heather.”

With her Social Security payment of $683 a month, she refuses to feel impoverished.

Working women key to reducing world's poverty

from The Sun Journal

By Carol Coultas , Business Writer

LEWISTON - Most businesspeople can cite the factors for smart economic growth: access to money, reasonable interest rates, sensible government policies.

Andrew Morrison, a senior economist with the World Bank, adds another: gender equity.

"Gender equity matters because it's a matter of intrinsic fairness," said Morrison, brother of Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce President Chip, who did the introductions at this month's Great Falls Forum. "A second argument ... is that it is not only unfair, it's inefficient. The converse to gender inequality is smart economics."

Morrison, who previously taught at Tulane and the University of New Mexico, spends his days trying to help developing nations solve gender equity and violence issues. He came up from Washington, D.C., to address the public policy forum at the Lewiston library and tout the World Bank's mission, which is to reduce poverty in developing nations through loans, grants and policy-making efforts.

It's a daunting task. The bank's Millennium Development Goals focus on reducing the number of people who live on $1 or less per day from 45 million in 1990 to a little over 20 million by 2015.

"We're nowhere near the goal," he said, as charts depicting mortality rates, educational attainment and disease rates flashed on a screen behind him.

Key to improving the world's prosperity is getting more women into the labor force and removing barriers to female entrepreneurs.

Simple things - like changing land title documents to have space for the husband's and wife's names - have significant impact. In many developing countries, the only collateral people have for loans is their property. If a woman's name isn't on the title, she has no access to financing.

When women do have opportunities, they get things done. One Vietnamese woman took the money she received from a micro loan and bought a pig, which had three litters. Now she has a thriving pork business, which she uses to augment her family income and their diet.

In Mexico, a woman trained to use a forklift was able to buy a house because her salary qualified her for a mortgage. In Egypt, where fewer than 50 percent of businesses employ women, the World Bank is offering training to companies to recruit and train female employees.

"We anticipate that the firms that do it will have better work atmospheres and productivity," Morrison said.

But more women in the workplace has impact beyond the business world. Educational goals and literacy rates get a boost when women work, Morrison said.

Data evaluated by the World Bank shows a direct correlation between women working and better health within a family. One study showed an increase in children's height between 11 and 15 percent when mothers provide household income.

"Women's power changes the composition of spending in the household," he said. "The more assets a woman brings to a marriage, the more a household will spend on education and nutrition, which leads immediately to better outcomes in reducing poverty."

And there are lessons Americans can learn from some of the World Bank programs, all of which are targeted for the developing world.

In Brazil and Mexico, World Bank programs pay poor people a stipend every month to get kids vaccinated and attend school. There is a much higher success rate when the money is channeled through the mother, rather than the father. The model is being considered for some urban school districts in the United States, Morrison said.

Ultimately, leveling the worldwide playing field for women transcends simple fairness to fostering change.

Group: Fighting child poverty a constant battle

from The Central Maine Morning Sentinel

By SUSAN M. COVER

AUGUSTA -- In Kennebec County, one out of every eight children lives in poverty.

What does that mean?

If you're one of those children, it means your sore throat won't get treated as quickly, day care is less professional, and your peers know you're different. For a family of four, it means less than $18,000 a year in income.

It means it's harder to get out of the bed in the morning because chances are, things won't go your way, said Elinor Goldberg, president of the Maine Children's Alliance, an Augusta-based organization that lobbies for policies to help children, teens and families.

"A day in the life of a poor kid is tough," she said. "It's not getting the quality of care you deserve in a country where there's plenty to go around."

For the 13th year, Goldberg's organization has published a report that details state and county-level information about the lives of children.

The book shows that Kennebec County is average in a number of categories -- from children in poverty, to the number of children receiving a subsidized school lunch to the median household income.

It stands out, in a good way, in one area.

In 2005, 92 percent of Kennebec County students graduated from high school, second only to Aroostook County.

DOMESTIC ASSAULTS

In another area, Kennebec County is notable for the rate of domestic assaults reported to police. It's higher than the state average, and has been growing steadily since 1998, according to the children's alliance.

That doesn't necessarily mean there's more abuse, said Kate Faragher Houghton, community educator for the Family Violence Project, which serves Kennebec and Somerset counties.

"Generally, we don't make an assumption that an increase in the number of reports means an increase in the number of assaults," she said.

The group, which runs a 24-hour crisis hot line (1-877-890-7788) and provides other services, helped 1,634 people in 2006, which is higher than in recent years. Faragher Houghton said she believes a coordinated community response that involves doctors, clergy, law enforcement, friends and co-workers is helping more people get the services they need.

And though the public sometimes assumes that poverty plays a role in domestic violence, studies show that it doesn't, she said.

"We know it happens in every type of family," she said.

THE POVERTY PROBLEM

The problem of child poverty is statewide and vexes politicians who've tried to provide programs to pay for needed services. Most people are working, with unemployment at 5 percent in Kennebec County in 2005.

It's frustrating that more progress hasn't been made, said Senate President Beth Edmonds, D-Freeport.

"The rate of child poverty in Maine remains stubbornly high, despite many years of prosperity in the nation and a good economy here in Maine," she said.

Edmonds said children's issues need to become a higher priority at the Statehouse. A librarian, Edmonds said she is mindful of her responsibility to help children live better lives.

"We can tell ourselves this isn't as bad as it is in other states, and that's true," she said. "But none of us can take comfort in the fact that too many of our children don't get adequate nutrition; may not have a warm, safe place to live; and don't start school with the advantages of many of their peers."

Nationally, the percentage of children living in poverty is 18 percent. In Maine, it's 14 percent and in Kennebec County, it's 15 percent.

Among New England states, New Hampshire has the fewest children in poverty and Rhode Island has the most, according to the census bureau.

Children who grow up in poverty can and do succeed, Goldberg said. Maine stands out nationally for its efforts to provide health care for poor children, with 92 percent of them getting coverage.

That still leaves 21,000 children without health insurance.

Aside from basic health concerns, there's also the stigma of being poor. In school, clothing can set students apart.

"There's a certain amount of class consciousness in society," Goldberg said. "They tend to be more shunned."

To try to address some of the issues surrounding poverty, particularly as it affects children under 5, several House Democrats are sponsoring 29 bills this legislative session. Some seek to cut taxes, others allow for more generous tax breaks, and others strive to improve child care.

Maine's Congressional delegation, led by Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, continues to fight for more money to help Maine families pay for child care, Goldberg said. The welfare reform of the 1990s added work requirements, but there's never been enough money to help working parents pay for quality child care, she said.

Families in poverty qualify for federal earned income tax credits and the state provides a similar tax break. The combination of encouraging work while providing tax breaks is most effective in helping people get out of poverty, Goldberg said.

GOOD NEWS

The number of children being arrested has dropped by 8 percent, according to the report.

"Our kids are more law-abiding than they were 10 years ago, not less abiding," said House Speaker Glenn Cummings, D-Portland. "That goes against the major stereotypes of what we think about our teenagers."

Susan Cover -- 623-1056

Report: Poverty greatest threat to kids' welfare

from The Bangor Daily News

By Meg Haskell

Of all the children living in Washington County in 2004, 23 percent lived in households with an annual income at or below the federal poverty level of $15,205 for a family of three — the greatest percentage of any county in the state. At 10.6 percent, Cumberland County had the smallest percentage. Statewide, 14.3 percent of children live below FPL; the national average is 17.8 percent.

Androscoggin County claimed the highest rate of arrests of Maine teenagers in 2005, while Waldo County boasted the lowest. Statewide, teen arrests declined almost 8 percent from 2004.

Pregnant women in Knox County were the most likely in the state to receive recommended prenatal care in 2004; those in Piscataquis, the least. The state average of 88 percent of all pregnant women getting timely care is higher than the national average of 83.9 percent.

High schools in Aroostook County graduated the highest percentage of students in the class of 2005, while Hancock County had the highest dropout rate. In 2005, 7 percent of Maine teens ages 16 to 19 were neither attending school nor working.

These and other facts pertaining to the well-being of Maine’s children and teens are contained in the most recent edition of the Maine Kids Count Data Book, scheduled for official release at a legislative breakfast this morning.

Ellie Goldberg, executive director of the Maine Children’s Alliance, which has compiled the annual report since 1994, said Monday that Kids Count serves as an important reference and a chronicle of Maine’s success in protecting the interests of its youngest citizens.

"When it comes to the welfare of children, people want to do the right thing," Goldberg said in an interview. "Public officials who use this data to guide their debates, reporters who use it in stories, and parents who wonder how their county measures up against others in the state know they can rely on Kids Count."

Data for the publication is the most current available and drawn from a variety of sources, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the state and federal departments of Health and Human Services, the Maine Health Data Organization, surveys of teens and adolescents, and many other sources.

The 46-page report is divided into three broad categories: physical and mental health, social and economic status, and education and learning.

A separate section compares the data county by county, making it easy to see where counties excel and where they fall down.

Goldberg said it’s clear from this year’s report that poverty remains the greatest overall risk to Maine children.

The challenges to a child’s mental and physical health, the likelihood of graduating from high school and going on to college, and future earning potential are all linked to family finances, she said — and with 37 percent of Maine children under 18 living in households with incomes below 200 percent of FPL, there’s plenty of room for improvement.

"The single best public policy is to reduce poverty," Goldberg said, adding that poverty in childhood is the greatest predictor of dysfunction in adults.

In addition to children’s economic outlook, Goldberg said there are other red flags in this year’s Kids Count.

The parents of more than a third of Maine children younger than 6 express concern about learning, development or behavior, she said. The good news on that front is that pediatric visits to community mental health services have increased recently, indicating that parents are taking better advantage of available services.

The state’s teen suicide rate, which had declined since 2000, rose slightly in 2004 to 6.6 deaths per 100,000 Maine children. The rate is significantly higher than the national average of 4.3 suicide deaths per 100,000 children.

The decreasing teen arrest rate, and an increasing percentage of high school graduates planning to attend college — from 69.2 percent in 2004 to 72.5 percent in 2005 — are reasons to celebrate, Goldberg said.

Goldberg said her organization supports current efforts by the Baldacci administration to pare down out-of-class school spending, raise taxes on tobacco and restructure the delivery of mental health services.

The Kids Count breakfast is expected to be attended by many Democratic lawmakers, with comments from first lady Karen Baldacci, Senate President Beth Edmunds, D-Freeport, and House Speaker Glen Cummings, D-Portland.

On Monday evening, Senate Minority Leader Carol Weston, R-Montville, said she had been invited to the event but that along with many of her Republican colleagues she would be tied up in meetings this morning. Weston, who served two terms in the House and is now serving her third term in the Senate, said she keeps a stack of Kids Count Data Books in her office.

"I like to make comparisons from year to year," she said. "I do find it useful."

The data compiled by MCA is straightforward and can usually be taken at face value, Weston said, regardless of party affiliation.

The Kids Count Data
Book 2007 can viewed on the Web site of the Maine Children’s Alliance: www.mekids.org.

Colby students teach at school for poor

from The Kennebec Journal

By COLIN HICKEY

WATERVILLE -- Jordan Levinson left her New York City home three years ago to study anthropology at Colby College.

Last month she took a much longer trip in pursuit of education: She left her Colby College dorm for Kalimpong, India -- more than 7,000 miles away -- for what turned out to be an extraordinary intercultural lesson.

Levinson was one of 27 students who spent nearly three weeks at Gandhi Ashram, a K-8 school for about 250 impoverished Indians tucked in the Himalayan region between Nepal and Bhutan.

During that time they worked as teachers, but the truth is they learned far more than they taught, and came away from the experience with an appreciation for another culture that a textbook could never duplicate.

"Many of us have traveled before," Levinson said. "This (trip) sort of reinforced that desire to travel and connect with other people in other parts of the world."

Colby music professor Steven Nuss, one of the organizers of the trip, said establishing that connection, of going beyond the Mayflower Hill campus to build bridges with other communities, both near and far, has become a core objective at Colby led by the college's Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement.

Nuss is certain the bridge between Colby and Gandhi Ashram is of sturdy construction.

"We are all left, I think, with an urge to keep a focus on India," he said. "I'm struck by how none of the students I've talked to since we returned has been able to just go back to their lives."

Colby students did more than interact with people on the other side of the world. They also got a glimpse into a segment of society they seldom encounter: people who live at a subsistence level, most without running water or electric power.

The students at Gandhi Ashram, Nuss said, were chosen based on their poverty -- the poorer their families, the more likely they would gain enrollment. The school, established by a Catholic priest from Canada, was an effort to give such children an opportunity to escape poverty through education.

Colby students understood the nature of the school before they arrived. Yet once they got to know the schoolchildren and their families, they discovered that poverty did not define the people of the Kalimpong area.

"They were very poor," Colby senior Joel Biron said, "but at the same time, there was a lot of dignity."

Nuss said students learned that poverty does not describe a person in full, that a person may be poor monetarily, but rich in community.

"It had a totally different feel in this community," Nuss said of poverty, "although from our standpoint, they were desperately poor."

Poverty in one sense is a lack of opportunity. That is the case for most of the impoverished in India, especially when it comes to school. Students must achieve certain scores on standardized tests in order to pursue a higher education.

For the children of subsistence farmers, the odds of achieving such scores are minimal.

But not at Gandhi Ashram, a school that equips every student with a violin and makes music a fundamental part of the curriculum.

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is one of the many media outlets that have visited the school to report on the remarkable nature of its mission -- the PBS report aired Aug. 19, 2005.

The late Rev. Thomas Edward McGuire, founder of Gandhi Ashram, knew music was an integral part of the local culture and seized on that to establish a connection, as well as a means of making his students stand apart from other schoolchildren.

PBS noted that 31 students have gone on to earn scholarships to attend "mainstream" schools to further their education. McGuire told PBS that his students face a social challenge fitting in at these schools, but that their violins help them, giving them confidence that they can succeed.

The Colby contingent, about a third of them music majors, felt at home in Gandhi Ashram's musical environment. The violins in this respect helped break down barriers.

Breaking down barriers is an integral part, if not a byproduct, of the civic engagement that Colby encourages. Related to that is an emphasis on interdisciplinary learning. Nuss partnered with English professor Anindyo Roy for the Gandhi Ashram project, which was open to Colby students in all disciplines.

Students received academic credit for their time in Kalimpong, but more importantly, Nuss said, they gained a greater appreciation for the struggles of fellow human beings, as well as a realization that they have the power to make a difference in the lives of those people.

"It forces you, when you get back," he said, "to ask yourself what you should do to deal with issues of poverty here."