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About Us

The St. Joseph County Bridges Out of Poverty Initiative takes a breakthrough framework to break the cycle of poverty and create community sustainability. SJC Bridges’ community wide approach seeks solutions that shift from managing poverty to eliminating it.

WE START WITH EDUCATION

SJC Bridges puts the concepts, tools, and relationships in the hands of people in poverty. Our partner organizations, like St. Margaret’s House, Ivy Tech Community College and Hope Ministries, have graduated more than 300 people from a 15-week workshop called GETTING AHEAD in a Just Gettin’ By World (GA).  People in poverty investigate the collective story and their individual experience of poverty, making a plan to move to self-sufficiency.

AT THE SAME TIME we train employers, schools, colleges, agencies, churches, schools & individuals and provide avenues to get involved. Jacqueline Barton, CEO of Specialized Staffing Solutions says:

“Once I attended the Bridges Out of Poverty workshop, I had my ‘aha moment’ and gained valuable insights into why our best efforts were often not enough.”

MOVE TO COLLABORATION

The Future Story Project partners with local businesses to employ GA Graduates: the goal is one job for one year. We combine long-term employment supports and coaching for both employees and employers using the Bridges framework.

At our Monthly Networking Meetings (MNM), community allies meet for dinner with GA grads to network & resource each other. The allies learn about poverty in St Joseph County, and GA graduates receive support and build social capital that helps them move across the bridge to self-sufficiency.

In the Financial Management Class we partner with experts to build financial literacy for GA grads.  They learn how to implement a feasible spending plan, repair credit and avoid financial predators and they gain access to banks and microloans, giving them more financial strategies and choices.

SUPPORT ADVOCACY

As our allies and graduates learn together, we begin creating a plan for our community.  Through SJC Bridges-sponsored activities, like the conversations around the documentary Unnatural Causes, we educate the larger community about the effects of poverty on all of us.

South Bend’s Mayor Stephen Luecke says:

“The Bridges program in South Bend has brought together social service agencies, government, institutions and businesses to form partnerships that we had envisioned but never achieved before.  Most importantly, individuals from generational poverty are enriching the discussion as we learn from each other.”

RESULT: MOBILIZATION

The success of SJC Bridges to educate, collaborate and advocate is creating a group of citizens – working across sectors, political parties, and economic class — committed to the long-term sustainability and well-being of our community.

Poverty costs the whole community.  Together with our graduates, we are learning to better understand what it takes in time, resources, motivation, and relationships to become economically self-sufficient, as well as how to support graduates at each stage. Together with the community, we are learning what we need to do to build a stronger and more reliable bridge. Phil DeVol, co-author Bridges Out of Poverty, says:

“While there are over fifty communities using Bridges and Getting Ahead, St Joseph County Bridges Out of Poverty is one of the first communities to apply the concepts and is in the inner circle of the developing Bridges Community of Practice. We look to their practice and lessons as support for other communities.  I am particularly impressed with the cross-sector and bipartisan involvement. We are committed to being an active partner in this process and learning together.”

BRIDGES IN ACTION

One of SJC Bridges’ partners, Ivy Tech North Central is the first community college in the country to use the Bridges framework to address student retention and success. As a result of the South Bend campus’ success, the Ivy Tech state- wide system will be using this approach.

Joann Phillips, Chair of Ivy Tech’s Community College’s Human Services Program, says:

“Bridges has become much more than theory for our students; it is a powerful and practical tool they can immediately put to use in practice…it serves as the basis for the teaching and learning of all social issues, and reinforcing a value system that is based upon the dignity of all individuals, nonjudgmentalism, and empowerment.”

How to Get Involved

  • Get trained in the Bridges model
  • Be an ally at a Monthly Networking Meeting (MNM)
  • Sign up for enewsletter and learn of opportunities
  • Sponsor a Getting Ahead participant
  • Get your family, church or organization to sponsor a MNM
  • Learn about ending predatory lending and other issues
  • Be a financial mentor
  • Support our annual Bridges fundraiser

Contact us at (574) 246-0533.