Fierce Love...Unplanned?

A few weeks before she passed away, my Great Aunt Mil contributed to one of our Benevolent recipients. She chose to help someone who has seven children living at home with her. Aunt Mil was glad to give and glad to help, but as she did so, she said (in her 95-year-old pithy way): “Seven kids. I don’t see how she’ll ever get ahead.”

When we hear or read about the allegorical welfare mom (or welfare queen, depending on your source), she often has a great number of children – a brood, if you will. She is, of course, hyperbole, as are her numerous children. This Mother’s Day weekend, however, I found myself thinking about this allegorical figure in a different light.

On Mother’s Day I got to sleep in, celebrate with my kids and all that. Later that day I sat down to write for today’s blog and my mind kept going back to a piece of research I read recently and some trends we’re seeing among the recipients on the Benevolent site.

We launched the Benevolent site only this past December, but as early as March, I started to see a thread of connection I hadn’t anticipated. It seemed to me that of the women who posted their needs to the Benevolent site, those who described having fled and survived domestic violence had more children than those who did not report a history of domestic violence.  

Of course as we seek to help the mother who has escaped and overcome domestic violence to thrive, we do not and should not ask whether the number of children she has a connection to victimization. This started me wondering, though - was this a real trend, and if so, why?  I started looking for research to help me understand what I thought I might be seeing.

I found some articles and papers that described the ways in which abusers undermine a woman’s control over her fertility choices. These included interference with contraception (making holes in condoms, discarding a woman’s contraceptive pills or devices), sexual assault, and more. (Black, 2011) But this article posed no quantitative analysis to indicate how prevalent this was.

Another article summed up the scholarly research on the connections between unintended pregnancy and domestic violence. This one told me more. I discovered that in one U.S. study, “almost 70% of women reporting physical violence had unwanted and/or mistimed pregnancies,” and women with unwanted pregnancies were 4.1 times more likely to have been physically abused “than women with intended pregnancies before adjusting for other variables.” (Gazmararian et al., 1995)

Again, not clear causality, but certainly an arresting correlation. The author of this article explained: “The association between intimate partner violence and unintended pregnancy implies an intergenerational cycle in which unintended childbearing in abusive households can lead to repeated cycles of violence and unintended pregnancy.” (Pallitto et al, 2005)

What is clear is that the more children a mother has, the harder it will be for her to protect them, provide for them, and promote their education, simply by virtue of numbers.

Aunt Mil had a point. If there is any causality – whether widespread or even sporadic – between intimate violence and unintended pregnancy, then I want to take this moment – this Mother’s Day moment – to express my immense respect for those women who fiercely love, protect, support, and nurture children whose existence they had not planned or intended.

As a mother who held complete control over when and how I would choose to try to conceive, I concede all maternal kudos today and award them all to those mothers who protected their children, brought them to safety, fought to rebuild and thrive, and fight on today as they raise children they pray will never repeat the violence of their mutual past.

-  megan kashner, founder & ceo

   Benevolent - www.benevolent.net 

The Power of Women

Does this sound like your life or the life of a woman you know?

“I have to get my kids to school at different times. On Wednesdays my daughter does basketball in a whole other building, and my son does Boy Scouts way up North.”

This was shared by Jenny whose need is posted to the Benevolent site. In honor of Women’s History Month, this post is dedicated to the power of women to support, persevere, and thrive.

Jenny, her sister and her mother are forces to be reckoned with. They take care of one another, take each other in when necessary, and catch each other when they fall. All the while, keeping everyone around them focused on accomplishing goals and pursuing education.

All this sounds like a rosy picture. Until, that is, we hear the back-story. Jenny survived and stood up against abuse, ran from her abuser, was fired from a job one month before her due date, and found security and help from her sister when she needed it most.

Just facing the realities of everyday life and parenting is a Herculean task. When you add domestic violence and gender discrimination to the mix, it’s a challenge worthy of a superhero. This challenge, of course, is what millions of women around the world face every day. Jenny is one and in my mind’s eye, she is, indeed, a superhero -- deflecting danger and zooming around any obstacle that clutters her path.

These dangers – domestic violence, assault, discrimination, and more – still so seemingly commonplace in our country-- are at the core of this story. Jenny is so much like so many other women – women who survive and persevere, women who take care of everyone around them, rising up from whatever knocks them down. At a time when a woman’s position in politics and public discourse is at a low point, we cannot avoid this all-too-apparent truth – that women’s circumstances continue to be marked by gender-related challenges and obstacles.

As Jenny’s story continues to unfold, we find that it is now Jenny’s sister who needs help. Jenny’s sister has cancer and is on dialysis; Jenny provides transportation to her chemo appointments, dialysis, and work. On top of all that, Jenny is single-handedly raising her kids and preparing to go back to school. I find myself becoming exhausted simply by reading about Jenny’s life and challenges.

”I bring the kids to school, I go to work, I take my sister to work and to her doctor’s appointments and her dialysis appointments, and I will be starting school…”

Jenny is asking for help getting her car repaired so she can continue to drive, get everyone where they need to go and keep them all on track.

I’ve got two kids and they’re active and involved, like Jenny’s. It’s hard for me to fathom how I would ever accomplish what Jenny does each day were I not able to use my car. Helping this superhero woman, who has overcome so much, get her car fixed will mean the difference between whether she and her loved ones can continue to pursue their life goals, or whether they will face an impasse.

There are so many Jennys out there – running from dawn until late into the night, keeping themselves and their family members on track, repelling abuse and assault when it pops into their lives. During this year’s Women’s History Month, I’ll be paying homage to them, feeling grateful for the progress we’ve made for women in this country and around the world, and daunted by what we have yet to achieve.

- megan kashner, founder & ceo

The Seasonal University

Lauren’s glasses were stolen three years ago and she’s gone without ever since. Lauren had multi-vision lenses - like I just got - and I can tell you, I don’t know how she’s functioning without them. She tells us she can’t drive or read to her kids without glasses and asks for our help in replacing them.

What strikes me about Lauren’s story, in addition to her important need, is a small statement in her narrative. She tells us “I work at a university in food service. It’s seasonal work, but consistent. I am laid off now for the holidays but will start working again when the next term starts.”

Read that again – Lauren tells us that her work in food service for a university is “seasonal” and that she’s “laid off” for the holidays.

I’ve got friends who work for universities - some as professors, some in facilities management, and others in administration. None of them would consider their work to be “seasonal” and none of them is ever laid off over the holidays or summer break. It’s not the way a university would retain its faculty, staff, and maintenance professionals.

Yet the university for which Lauren works – or the food service contractor they employ - treats her as disposable, laying her off when they don’t need her and rehiring her on their terms. Lauren tells us that the work is “consistent,” which I can only take to mean that she knows her job will be there when the winter or summer break is over. This means that her employer knows she’ll be there, even though they’ve done nothing to earn her loyalty.

There are many who would look at Lauren’s case and wonder why she hasn’t got health insurance or hasn’t saved up for the glasses she needs. Some might think she’s not a good financial planner in managing her resources. I would say that the university and its food service contractor are doing a poor job in managing their resources. If they deal with employees as disposable units, providing neither job security, benefits, nor health insurance, then they’re creating many of the problems we see across the social sector.

Let me be clear, I realize that there are, indeed, fields in which contract labor and seasonal employment make a world of sense. I can find no explanation for why food service workers, whose labor is needed whenever school is in session, should be treated as contract workers and actually laid off over winter break. It’s not as if the university or food service company are unsure whether or not there will be a need for food service come January. The students are coming back and they’ll need to eat – every January, every year.

Our city’s subsidized housing resources, social service resources, and now private donor dollars will go to help Lauren – and I hope they, and we, will help her. But why is the help necessary? Because Lauren is being treated as a food service device rather than as a member of the community of workers, teachers, and administration that makes her university hum.

It’s easy to fault low-income adults for decisions we perceive they may have made. In Lauren’s case, the fault for her inability to access the health resources she needs for her vision care lies not with her, but with the system that employs her as disposable and keeps her in limbo between employed and not.

- megan kashner, founder & ceo

The Quintessential Need

Christina is pursuing what she thinks is the best long-term strategy for her family’s stability. She went to school to become a registered nurse and hopes to secure a position in a hospital in the coming months.

Christina ran into a roadblock, however, when her husband lost his job and the family couldn’t come up with the money she would need to sign up for and complete two certification courses necessary for her to secure an entry-level nursing position.

This story is the quintessential Benevolent need. It’s so incredibly clear that one can almost quantify the cost of not meeting it.

Let’s think about that. It will cost $250 in support for Christina to move from stuck to employable. The cost to Christina’s family and to the welfare system of not overcoming that hurdle is even greater and more tangled.

If Christina does not get certified and employed, then…

• The City’s and Christina’s investment in the costs of her nursing education will have been misspent.
• Christina’s children’s child care - subsidized on a sliding scale - will require more public funding if Christina’s employment is lower-paying, as it will be in a job which does not utilize her new education.
• With Christina unemployed or underemployed, the costs of the overall safety net will be further taxed, potentially including food banks, social services, job training and workforce development programs and more.
• Finally, Christina’s family could be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit each year as her family remains under the income threshold, costing our tax base even more.

So if $250 spent now can save all the thousands of dollars in expense I’ve touched on above, then why is it so hard for Christina and all those in similar situations to secure the support they need? That, of course, is a still longer and more complex question. The answer lies in the shifts we’ve made in this country in the ways we spend what we call “welfare” dollars in the past fifteen years or so. Rather than putting cash supports in the hands of those who are struggling to reach the goal of stability and sustainability, our system now focuses on providing in-kind support in the form of subsidies and service.

There are clearly shortcomings to our current systems of supports for those living in low income circumstances if $250 in discretionary cash is unattainable but thousands of dollars in consequential expenses are readily available.

By helping Christina over this hurdle of nursing certification courses, we can not only help her family move forward towards stability and success, but we can also help prevent thousands of unnecessary expenses to our social safety net and shine a light on just how essential cash supports are for families along their paths to financial stability.

Is it Like Micro-Finance?

I think it’s time to address head-on the oft-asked question:

“So is it like micro-finance?”

Well, readers, Benevolent is like microfinance in that:

1. Benevolent provides validation on each need just as each microfinance project is (or should be) subject to due diligence by someone on the ground in that community who knows and has vetted the recipient.
2. Multiple donors come together to meet each need on the Benevolent site just as some micro-finance providers allow for a crowd-funding model for investing in micro-finance enterprises.
3. The individuals whose needs are listed on the Benevolent site are each striving for the next level of sustainability and resources for themselves and their families just as those who seek investment in their small enterprise are seeking access to sustainable and increased income streams through microfinance support.
4. Those who financially support the needs posted on the Benevolent site can expect that their dollars will fuel progress and direct impact for those whose needs are met just as those who invest in microfinance can expect that their capital will fuel progress for those individuals and enterprises who receive microfinance loans.

The difference is, of course, that with Benevolent, investments are made to help people over hurdles and onto next steps and those investments are made as donations, not loans.

Why do we choose this approach? It’s values-based. Here’s a draft of a bit we plan to put up on the website to explain to anyone who’s interested why we choose a micro giving model for this platform…

We believe that Benevolent’s help to overcome hurdles should be grants, not loans:

• Needs funded through the Benevolent site are investments in people’s progress. Each of these low-income individuals has a long path ahead and we choose not to encumber them with additional debts as they strive for sustainability.
• Our needs are capped at $2,000 and average donations are under $200 each. These are small needs met by modest gifts.
• The return each Benevolent donor receives is to know who they helped and how their support made a direct difference.
• Each of us can recall when we received help - eyeglasses, a computer, tuition, a security deposit, pots and pans. Not all support necessitates a payout or payback.

Benevolent provides an avenue for people to seek the support they need without taking on the burden of debt at precarious junctures along their personal paths.

What do you think? Is this the platform you would have chosen?

- megan kashner, founder & ceo

Filling Gaps and Building Communities of Support

A Benevolent Blog Guest Blog

By Professor Scott W. Allard, School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, Research Associate of the Population Research Center at NORC and the University of Chicago, Research Affiliate of the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, Research Affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Member of the Board of Directors of Benevolent.

_________________________________________

As poverty and unemployment rates remain at historically high levels, the growing needs of working poor families and job-seekers shine a harsh light on the gaps in today’s safety net. These gaps should be challenging us to think of new ways of connecting those who can help with those in need. Benevolent.net offers a promising new way to direct giving to the unmet needs of low-income families -- needs that too often fall through the gaps in the safety net and consequently make it difficult to find or keep a job.

Government programs like food stamps or Medicaid often come to mind when we think of assistance for the poor. Yet these public programs cover only some of the material, transportation, or health needs of low-income families striving to make it. For example, lack of access to a reliable car or to public transit is a significant barrier to many of the working poor – but there is precious little transportation assistance available. Many poor job-seekers may need vision care or dental work in order to secure a steady, good-paying job, but these basic health needs often are not covered by public assistance programs.

There is other help, but it also can be spotty and insufficient. In some cases, social service programs and organizations provide critical assistance to the poor through employment services, adult education, child care, emergency assistance, and counseling services. Delivered often through community-based nonprofits, these social services are central to helping many low-income families achieve stability. The problem is that social service programs are coping with substantial cuts in public and philanthropic support. And what support there is doesn’t always reach those with the greatest need. In my 2009 book, Out of Reach, I found that residents of high-poverty neighborhoods have about half as much access to social service providers as do people who live in more affluent neighborhoods.

It can be bitterly hard for families living on the edge of stability to find help in times of need. Most turn to family, friends, or trusted members of their social networks for help with needs that safety-net programs do not or cannot address.

Ordinary people who want to help often don’t know how to. We know there are people around us who are having a hard time, but many of our neighbors silently struggle to find work, feed their families, or keep their homes. We find ourselves asking - what can we do?

How can the nonprofit sector do a better job of filling critical gaps in the safety net? And, on the other hand, how can we give private philanthropists, who don’t have unlimited means, opportunities to make a real social impact?

I believe Benevolent can be the answer to these questions. By providing an online portal that connects donors to community-based organizations, caseworkers, and ultimately to families who need help in a time of crisis, Benevolent helps to weave a connective web of people to fill in critical gaps in the safety net. Benevolent ensures that we reach those most in need at the moment of their need, and ensures that the donors’ support has real, visible impact. By providing a place for people to interact and share with each other, Benevolent helps us become a community of support. In short, Benevolent is a platform for helping us to realize how we would like to receive help and give help.

- Scott W. Allard, Benevolent Board of Directors

Doing the Right Thing 15+ Years Ago is Working Against Denise Today

Denise did what she needed to and followed the rules. Now she’s lost her job and she and her children are living at a shelter.

Denise was a teenage mom. When her child was born, she continued her education, receiving some Temporary Aid for Need Families support while she went to high school. She made it through her junior year before she found herself having to make the tough decision to drop out of school. She had struggled to find safe, nurturing child care for her son while she was in school, but when her senior year came around, she was out of child care options and chose to put her son first and stay with him.

In the following years, Denise went to school to become certified as a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA). She was able to do this because CNA training is one of the select training paths one can take in Illinois and still qualify for TANF, subsidized child care, food stamps, and other services.

Once she had her CNA, Denise found a job working with seniors and people with disabilities. She worked full time, uninterrupted, for fifteen years as her family grew, her skills increased, and she matured into adulthood. Denise had never been homeless never had to seek out TANF any further, until this recession.

In March, the facility where Denise worked shut down. When she pursued a new job in her field, she found that the field had changed, shrunk, and that there were not jobs readily available. She’s been seeking work since March and only last month had to give up her apartment and move herself and her children to a shelter. She has gone back to school for her GED, hoping to go on to train as a medical assistant. Last school session, though, she had to drop out because she didn’t have the bus fare to get to her classes regularly.

When Denise sought help, TANF, food stamps, and other supports this year, she found that she was ineligible for most public supports because in her teens she had exhausted the 60-month lifetime limit for support. This meant that doing the right thing for her son when she was 17 years old precludes her from receiving much help now, in the depths of the recession. While I’m not sure whether the crafters of welfare reform in the 1990s meant for this to be the case, it is the reality for Denise.

Today, we post Denise’s simple request. She’s finding it almost impossible to persevere in her job search, get to class and the library, and manage her progress forward without being able to access even public transportation. Denise is asking for three months of a hand in the form of three monthly bus passes for the Chicago Transit Authority. It’s not a large request, only $280, but Denise has a plan and a path, and simply needs help getting to and from it.

As always, you can support Benevolent member needs at www.benevolent.net. We are pleased to report that Anne's need, posted less than two weeks ago, has been met in full. We hope to continue to prove the Benevolent model with the fulfillment of this need in the weeks before the launch of Benevolent't real site.

- megan kashner

Founder & CEO

Are We Entitled to Know?

A New York Times editorial this week called out different states’ approaches to determining worthiness for state-administered aid. Florida’s Governor, Rick Scott, signed a law in May requiring those who receive TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) to submit a urine sample and pass a urine test. While that determination is currently being held up through the federal courts, the sentiment behind it is apparent.

What the New York Times’ editorial calls “punishing poverty,” I would call “punishing need,” and it calls up for me a number of insights and concerns I’ve heard from members of our nation’s nonprofit and philanthropic sectors this week at the excellent Independent Sector conference here in Chicago. While the Benevolent model is clearly a highly- validated one - with local nonprofit Validators providing clear statements about the ways in which their clients are striving and on the path to meet their goals – the question of personal revelation remains.

Several people have asked me how much each Benevolent member who wishes to post a need will have to reveal about his or her self. How much personal history will we require in order to post the need, and how much will be necessary to make the potential donor feel secure in filling that person’s need? My response remains the same – Benevolent members have the latitude to reveal as much or as little about themselves and their circumstances as they see fit.

I am given pause, however, by the presumption, both in Rick Scott’s legislation and in the well-meaning queries I’ve received, that in order to be entitled or even eligible to get help from another person, from the State or from a nonprofit, we must be prepared to bare our souls, reveal all our past indiscretions, and own up to our faults.

It made me think about situations in which someone has wanted or needed something I had the power to provide, like a job. When I interview candidates for positions, I don’t ask them if they’ve ever done drugs. I don’t ask them whether they’re taking medication, and I certainly don’t ask them if they’ve been a victim of domestic violence. I ask them, instead, about their personal goals, about the skills and exposure they hope to gain over the coming years, and about their approach to work, responsibility, and collaboration. Basically, I ask job candidates forward-facing questions – questions about where they’re going and how they hope to get there.

If we’re lucky, a job candidate and I will find a common direction and complementary set of needs – the candidate a need for growth and challenge, and my organization a need for the skills and energies the candidate can bring. It is my hope that rather than looking for a deep revelation of past missteps from those who seek our help, we will focus on the path forward our Benevolent members have set for themselves, and look for a new kind of complementarity.

The complementarity I’m referring to here is the way in which giving meets a need for the donor – a very personal and intimate need. If we can find individuals whose need for financial help and willingness to share their stories and their goals meets the needs of those who seek to understand and gain from that introduction into the life and onto the path of another, then we will have met a set of complementary needs.

Similarly, trust is a complementary phenomenon. In the case of Benevolent members, both the donors and the members with needs will want to find a comfortable place of mutual trust – the donors trusting that the individuals are doing their utmost to move forward on their life paths and the people exposing their needs trusting that the details and intimacies they choose to reveal will be held met with respect.

How much does each person – the person who gives and the person who receives – need to expose about himself or herself in this equation? The answer will reveal itself over time and testing of the Benevolent model and platform, but it is my deep hope that we, as a Benevolent community, can refrain from the tendency to ask of those with a need more than that person feels comfortable sharing.

Whatever Benevolent’s members who post their needs have faced or however they might have stumbled in the past is not the focus of our drive to help them today. Today, we focus on individuals’ goals, circumstances, systems of support, and paths forward.

Every adult makes choices every day. Often, we make the wrong ones. When we find ourselves – consciously or unconsciously – starting to expect more revelation from a person in need than we would be comfortable revealing about ourselves, I hope we’ll each pause and re-locate that part of us that respects and sees the common humanity between us.

- Megan Kashner, Founder & CEO

The word to spread is...

If you’re wanting to spread the word about Benevolent, here’s the word to spread:

“Starting in mid-November, you and I will have the opportunity to connect directly with individuals who are facing hurdles, opportunities and challenges, and who are open to receiving our help as they strive to overcome and succeed. There will be a new platform, www.benevolent.net and it will be our chance to make a difference, one to one.”

Here’s how we’re getting there…

Next week, the Benevolent team will start our work in nonprofits across the Chicago community, talking with staff members and clients of local social service organizations. We’ll be listening to the stories of individuals living on very low incomes, each one facing a hurdle on his or her path to stability and greater success. We’re looking forward to sharing some of these stories in future blogs and on the pilot of our website.

In these initial weeks of our work in the “field,” we’ll be capturing the stories of people at a moment of need or opportunity in their lives, through our partners at the Cara Program, the Community Counseling Centers of Chicago (C-4), Family Focus, and Bethel New Life. As our work unfolds, we’ll extend to other nonprofits in other neighborhoods across our area. We’re aiming to get our site up, with several dozen individuals represented and ready for help, by mid-November. When that happens, our members’ stories will speak for themselves.

Why here? We chose Chicago as our pilot site for many reasons, the first of which is that Chicago is our home – both professionally and personally. We’ve built strong partnerships with these first few organizations and their staffs, people who believe in our mission and the work we are gearing up to do. At Bethel, for example, the leaders and staff would happily have helped us fuel the pilot site with the needs of fifty, one hundred, two hundred clients and families currently served by their various programs.

This tells us a great deal. That the need is great and immediate: individuals living on very low incomes are striving for more for themselves and their families, and they need their community – us – to help them realize their goals and dreams. That the nonprofits who know their communities’ needs in the greatest depth are excited to introduce a new resource into the mix, one which will help their clients voice their own stories. That people are seeking connection, affirmation and dignity in their work and in their lives.

What we’ll find out in the coming weeks is how best to provide a meeting ground between people who need help surmounting specific obstacles and others who want to help steady them on their paths, in a way that is within their reach to do. We will find out what resonates and what doesn’t; what the snags are, and how we can overcome them. We’ll come closer to our goal of getting help and support to people at critical moments in their lives.

We’re glad to have you along with us for this journey and to explore these new steps together. As we do, we hope you’ll start to spread the word about this pilot across your networks.

- Megan Kashner, Founder & CEO

Aunt Pearl – Benevolent Giving at its Best

When my Aunt Pearl lost her husband, Murray, she was devastated. She sat on her recliner in front of the TV for too many hours each day and she became very close with the ladies of QVC. In the few years following Murray’s death, my Aunt Pearl spent far too much on her QVC purchases. She bought knick-knacks and clothing, but mostly jewelry. Soon, her jewelry box filled with gemstone rings and necklaces.

We were all relieved when Aunt Pearl came out of mourning after a few years and stopped treating her pain with TV purchases. Pearl had had her share of trouble. Born with a twisted leg and later afflicted by polio, she was a mama’s girl through-and-through. Her first marriage didn’t go well. In her world, it was unheard of for a young couple to divorce, but Pearl had enough self respect not to be taken advantage of by a man who turned out to be first of all, mean-spirited, and secondly, gay and using her for cover.

When Aunt Pearl married for the second and final time, it was for love – the kind of love that sends you into years of mourning and ridiculous TV shopping when you lose your partner. Murray was ornery and picky, but man did he love my Aunt Pearl, and she him. They never had children. Instead they treated all their nieces and nephews, including my mother, as their own, and all of us kids as cherished grandchildren.

Here’s where the link to Benevolent comes in (thanks for bearing with me)… As Pearl neared the end of her life, she was confined to her home more and more. She required home health care and had a series of women who came in and out of her house to care for her. Throughout it all, Aunt Pearl was completely in control – mentally and emotionally. Slowly, though, things started to disappear from her home. First we noticed that her jewelry was disappearing, piece by piece, then that her kitchen was more and more empty of pots and pans and such, then that a small TV was no longer in the kitchen, and then that Pearl’s money was slipping through her fingers at a higher rate than we would have thought likely.

We worried that someone was stealing from Pearl, that her caretakers were pocketing grocery money and making off with her possessions. Or perhaps that it was the medical transit drivers, or the grocery delivery people, or anyone else who might have come into or out of her home. With each realization, we (ok, my mom) asked Aunt Pearl if she knew where her possessions had gone.

Time and time again, Pearl would light up at this question and share a story of woe or opportunity that one of her caretakers or one of her caretakers’ children or spouses had faced. She would explain one woman’s desire to become a nurse, another’s problem with an overdue bill for a car repair, another one’s problem with school clothes for her daughter. Each time, Pearl explained how she had decided to help the person out in the particular situation they were facing. Sometimes, she was giving her money away, other times, things she owned – when she thought that her gifts could make a difference, make someone happy, make progress possible.

Years later, when Pearl was finally in her last days, it all came back to her as Claudette– the woman who wanted to become a nurse and needed help paying the nursing school tuition – now an experienced nurse, helped Pearl and my mom navigate through the hospitals, doctors, and decisions facing them. In the hospital stays, she came to Pearl’s side every day when her shift ended. Claudette, to whom Pearl had given direct help, brought Pearl’s gift full circle as she helped Pearl exit her life with dignity and with as little stress as possible.

I’ve learned a great deal about the power of personal connection and the right help at the right time over the course of my life and my career, but perhaps no one taught me more than Aunt Pearl. At Benevolent, we’ll strive to live up to Pearl’s legacy every day and introduce others to opportunities to give and share the way Pearl did.

- megan kashner, Benevolent Founder & CEO