Almost 450 people from 30 organizations meet tomorrow in Jefferson City to look for opportunities to fight poverty.

Organizers of the Missouri Poverty Summit say this state is rich in security and health, prosperity and opportunity. But they say it also is a state of homelessness, hunger, fear, and poverty.They point to studies showing almost 800-thousand Missourians living in poverty, 770-thousand are uninsured, and more than 300-thousand Missourians struggling with meeting basic food needs.

Summit spokesman Jessica Long says the organizations have done a marketing analysis about how people feel about poverty and how it should be addressed. "Everyone thinks that poverty is an issue that the entire community needs to address," she says.

Long says participants won’t be looking to state government to solve the problem and create opportunities for people to escape poverty. She says the summit wants to look at developing regional task forces to organize people in local communities to address poverty in those communities.

 

Upload BP’s intereview with Jessica Long (10:59 mp3)