Preventing Poverty

A year ago, while working on the new strategic plan for Bill Wilson Center, I wanted to think of a big audacious goal for us.  At first I ask the Board of Directors to consider a vision of ending poverty.  While many of them laughed, others soon caught onto the excitement of making a big change in Santa Clara County.  After a lively debate, the Board of Directors agreed that we could “Prevent Poverty” with our services rather than end poverty.  That was good enough for me.  Today we are building connections for young people so that we can prevent poverty in the next generation.  Although we have had some major setbacks with the mortgage meltdown and the evaporation of retirement and investment funds, I am hopeful that we will, indeed, prevent poverty as we build more and more connections for our youth.