Community Action of Freeborn County will extend its activities against poverty by building a broad partnership across public, private and non-profit agencies, Executive Director Collette Turcotte said during the agency’s 18th annual meeting Monday. With a new name, the South Central Community Action Partnership, the organization will seek to establish a way for people in need to get out of poverty.

Since 1984, Community Action has been working on providing shelter, financial and legal services, and transportation assistance for the deprived.

But, the organization, along with its 24 siblings in the state, came to a conclusion that it needs a more comprehensive approach to eradicate poverty in the community.

&uot;To end poverty means to help families who are currently on welfare not only to leave welfare, but to get out of poverty,&uot; board member Jan Grodahl said. &uot;It is no longer OK for them to cycle on and off welfare.&uot;

&uot;We must realize that it is about helping people out of poverty and not about helping people to cope in poverty,&uot; Grodahl said.

The move means a departure from a Band-Aid fix approach, according to a staff member Linda Cruz-Lares.

The organization will focus on an individual-specific analysis that identifies the most appropriate assistance, empowering the family to get out of poverty. It will also cultivate a social environment that facilitates sustainable, livable-wage jobs, realistic opportunities for kids to finish high school and to enroll in post-secondary education programs, and access to health care, child care, affordable housing and reliable transportation.

&uot;Of course, we cannot realize it alone. We need to build partnerships across community organizations,&uot; Cruz-Lares said.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 5.6 percent of the population in the county is living under the poverty line. The figure is below the national average of 9.2, but higher than the state average of 5.1.

This year, Community Action launched the Newcomers’ Resource Center, which intends to help new residents, including non-English speakers, settle down in the community. It also took over the operation of the public transit system in Mower County.

During the meeting, Southern Minnesota Legal Service Managing Attorney Gary M. Hird was honored as the 2002 Poverty Warrior.

Hird has been providing various legal assistance to low-income people in the five-county region. Since he came to the community in 1995, he has also worked for the Red Cross, United Way and Freeborn Family Services Collaborative, and founded Partners in Housing, a group dedicated to affordable-housing development.