Our Speaker today was Ray Jewell. He has been working for the past year to start a new non profit organization, Janesville Community Center. Ray believes poverty is our community's biggest problem. As a resident in the diverse 4th Ward, he has seen some of the negative impact on families caused by poverty. When he learned that 95% of all Wilson Elementary students had free lunch assistance (and 47% of Rock County is at poverty level) he decided to expand his plans for assistance to all of Janesville. He has talked to many of the non profit organizations in our area as he plans the programs the Community Center will offer so as not to duplicate services and believes that his 'out of the box' thinking will help people to help themselves and get adults and youth involved to enhance their lives in a positive way. He hopes to partner with the Police and Justice departments to help with his first priority: job placement and youth leadership development. The biggest obstacle is finding a location for a base and funding and he hopes to get support from businesses and individuals in our community. An interview in the Gazette can be found here: https://www.gazettextra.com/news/local/janesville-community-center-slowly-working-toward-launch/article_b22fd21e-dddc-555e-b977-b293360dc584.html
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