Elevate Lebanon discusses efforts to combat poverty at Rotary luncheon

Elevate Lebanon and its work to help residents on the path from poverty to self-sufficiency was the topic for Thursday’s Lebanon Rotary Luncheon.
The speakers were Robin Durbin and Beth Durreman of Elevate Lebanon.
Durbin talked about Elevate Lebanon’s philosophy of helping people with a “hand up” and a “hand out.”
“Our mission is empowering people to reach their full potential,” Durbin said. “The Elevate Work program is a way of doing that. We can talk about empowering people all day long, but how are we actually doing that?”
She said they work with people to prepare them for a career that will allow them to leave poverty behind.
She said they encourage self-sufficiency by supporting what people can do for themselves. She said they reserve one-way giving for true emergencies and avoid long-term dependency.
She said sometimes people can be helped by just changing their social groups and networking.

“We explore all opportunities that fit that person. You have to treat each person as an individual,” she said.
She said many of their clients suffer from generational poverty.
“They don’t know any better. Their moms, their dads, their grandparents, aunts, uncles, it goes on for generations,” she said.
Durreman, who serves as outreach director, said the classes include an action plan of what the students wish to accomplish. The goals may be to get a GED, a promotion or a job.
“So we have these students on different levels and we can individualize the program by the student putting their plans of action together and we work on that from week one all the way up to graduation,” Durreman said. She added the planning can be done in any form they want, such as lists. Others prefer a visual approach.
“They can flip through magazines and find photographs of where they want to be and they can cut them out and put them on a board. Students that are very artistic, they may not have a good vocabulary, but they can draw beautifully and they will draw an image of where they want to be so they can visualize that,” she said.
Durreman said the program is looking for people willing to serve as mentors who can commit to nine weeks of providing support and guidance to a student.
People can contact Elevate Lebanon through their website, www.elevatelebanon.org, call the office or email Beth.Durreman@ElevateLebanon.org or Robin.Durbin@ElevateLebanon.org.