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THE BOOKS

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Poverty’s Phoenix is the searing account of one child's struggle and how she summoned the courage to break the generational cycle of life in poverty. In this gripping memoir, author Shanequa Levin offers us an insider's look at the plight of a teen mother and how that child's child perceived the world.

Through young Shanequa's eyes, we see what it's like growing up with drug-addicted parents; we experience the trauma of having a father who was incarcerated for much of her life and a teen mother who is a product of her environment; and we feel Shanequa's pain as she learns that she is poor and what that means for her family.

Levin gives a voice to children who were born into poverty and face its wrath on a daily basis. Each chapter depicts a jarring experience that helped shaped this present-day community leader’s life. This memoir is a testament to a mother's love, survival, and what it’s like to be black and poor living on the Gold Coast of Long Island, New York, in the 1980s.

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All I Ever Wanted...

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What is so important about maintaining ties with a parent behind bars? Isn't it better to keep a child away from prison or jail? These are the questions that come up far too often among those who are caring for the children who are left behind, be they kin care providers, social service workers or teachers and social workers in schools.

This volume allows ten of the 2.7 million children with incarcerated parents living in the United States to answer these questions through stories that the reader will never forget. In an era of broken families, silence, stigma and shame around incarceration, affecting one generation after another, the voices of these young people give a resounding YES to the need for connection, breaking out of the stigma and silence, while proudly and hopefully speaking each young person's truth. They are a testimony to the strength of the human spirit, which cannot be broken, and an invitation to all of us to truly listen to the voices of this too often invisible population.

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Project Impact Reports- Long Island

ISBN-978-1542873017

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Teams from seven nonprofits on Long Island came together during 2016 at the invitation of the Hagedorn Foundation to define their intended impact, evaluate their impact, and use what they discovered through evaluation to expand and deepen their impact. These reports represent some of their most compelling insights.

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