Our Day to End Poverty: 24 Ways You Can Make a Difference (BK Currents (Paperback)) [Paperback]

Shannon Daley-Harris (Author), Jeffrey Keenan (Author), Karen Speerstra (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 18, 2007 | Series: BK Currents (Paperback)

Imagine ending poverty at home and around the globe in our own lifetimes. Imagine your actions combining with others; actions to make poverty history. With originality and imagination, this book invites us to look at our very ordinary days, from waking up in the morning to going to bed in the evening, and to begin to think about poverty in new and creative ways. "Our Day to End Poverty" is organized into 24 "hour/chapter" segments. Each chapter/hour of the day proposes a variety of fun and practical actions one can take to help overcome domestic and global poverty. The chapters are short and pithy, full of specific facts and a menu of alternative action steps. Each chapter connects with your day, from breakfast to bedtime, relatinng these steps to ending poverty to our daily routines. Some times a problem gets to be so big, we feel there is nothing we can do about it. "Our Day to End Poverty" reminds us that if we all do just a little, a lot can get done.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jeffrey Keenan has spent most of his vocational journey working in the personal computer software industry, beginning in 1986 with Aldus Corporation, the desktop publishing company which developed PageMaker. Over the past 10 years, Jeff has held various management positions within Adobe Systems' Global Supply Chain Management team, including a two year expatriate assignment to establish Adobe's Asia-Pacific supply chain base in Singapore, and most recently as the GSCM team's Strategic Initiatives project manager, leading Adobe's supply chain social responsibility initiative . He has spent those same twenty years nurturing and developing his family and volunteering for a variety of community service organizations. After four years of exploring, global poverty issues, Jeff is putting his resources behind this book which he fully believes will "move the needle for billions of people whose lives are negatively impacted by the limited (or non-existent) life opportunities." Shannon Daley-Harris, free lance writer, editor, consultant, and mother, lives in Washington, D.C. Shannon has authored Welcome the Child: A Child Advocacy Guide for Churches with Kathleen Guy, A Child Advocate's Concordance to the Holy Bible, Congregations Stand for Healthy Children, Putting Our Faith into Action, Say That I'm a Child of God, and numerous other publications, articles, and devotional and study guides. Over the past sixteen years in staff and consulting capacities she has served The Children's Defense Fund, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Council of Churches, and other organizations addressing poverty, health care, and children's concerns. Prior to 1990 she taught children in Belfast, Northern Ireland and Trenton, N.J. Joy Anderson, President, and Jackie Vanderbrug, Managing Director, are with Criterion Consulting, a national firm that incubates and scales social ventures that make for a better world. Their work has shaped dozens of successful ventures ranging from health care initiatives for national church bodies at new collaborative models for local social service agencies. Their methodology and combined knowledge of the factors shaping the social sector and the breadth and depth of their relationships with current leadership, make them an invaluable resource for strategic endeavors that can reduce the prevalence of poverty today. Karen Speerstra, President, Sophia Serve, a coaching service to writers and publishers, is based in central Vermont. Author of Divine Sparks: Collected Wisdom of the Heart, and Earthshapers, and co-author with her son, Joel, of Hunab Ku: 77 Sacred Symbols to Balance Body and Spirit, after a career in book publishing, she now spends her time, coaching, reading, writing, editing, and gardening.

Product Details

• Paperback: 232 pages
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers (June 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576754464
• ISBN-13: 978-1576754467
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.8 x 8.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,286,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I Am Now a Daily Poverty Fighter June 4, 2007

By Susan E. Baechler

Format:Paperback

Thank you to the authors for bringing local/global poverty issues and solutions to the front door step with urgency, actions and respect for what is already in our hearts. You have created an awareness and checklist that transform concern into action. May I say that I'm stunned to find the UN Millennium Development goals new to me after seven years of activity. Such a global common good should be front page news and top of mind for all of our work and life efforts. With this smart guide, schools, book clubs, libraries, individual citizens and all public and private institutions have a way to make a daily difference that suits them. Your book enlists all of us in a war with no opposition but inaction and ignorance - a war we can win. And your approach shows us how efforts of any size contribute. I am now a daily poverty fighter.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars We Can All Make a Difference August 12, 2007

By Ellen L. Frost

Format:Paperback

Have you ever felt the urge to "do something" when faced with searing images of poverty? Perhaps you have lingered for a moment over photographs of a starving child in Africa, a flood victim in Asia, a poor family coping with a natural disaster or illness in your own neighborhood, or a hundred other reminders of poverty on our planet. Like most of us,you may feel helpless. This book is aimed directly at people who want to help but don't know how. It includes links to poverty-fighting organizations that need donations, but it goes way beyond money. Examining each of the 8 UN Millenium Summit goals, it lists numerous simple activities we can initiate in our families, our communities, our places of worship, and on our own. Clearly written ideas, grouped under the headings "Learn," "Contribute," "Serve," and "Live," should prompt all of us to "do something," starting right now.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving Beyond Concern June 1, 2007

By JChamberlain

Format:Paperback

Like many people, I have had a longstanding concern about poverty and the related problems people face on a daily basis (preventable deaths, unnecessary suffering, and inadequate education just to name a few). Our Day to End Poverty provides a wonderful opportunity to move beyond concern into action.

Written in a style that brings forward the immediacy of poverty-related issues, Our Day to End Poverty is a diverse and interesting guidebook, providing hundreds of possibilities for actions anyone can take.

Discussing an issue like poverty that continues to have such wide-spread and devastating impacts it would be easy for the authors to drown or overload you with the enormity of the task we all face. Instead, they treat poverty, with the turn of every page, as a problem we can beat through individual and collective action.

Exploring the actions laid-out in the book opened doors to other possibilities, and has started to help me uncover new ideas about new places I can help and encourage others to join me. All of this, and I am truly only beginning to explore the depth of this book.

I would venture to say that this book also provides a tool equal useful for an idealistic young graduate or someone considering how they could give back in their retirement years.