Since its introduction two years ago, Circles of Allen County has made a measurable difference in the lives of many of the area’s most vulnerable residents. It has helped propel individuals back into the workforce. It has smoothed the way for a reunion between a young mother and her children. It has helped find doctors for individuals with previously untreated conditions. And this is without touching on the boost to confidence that follows these hard-won projects of self-improvement. ACROSS these two years, a growing group of volunteers — diverse in age, race, income, denomination, political outlook and professional experience — have been gathering most Mondays to share a meal, exchange ideas, and to offer practical instruction to the handful of participants who are taking positive steps toward improving their lives and the lives of their families. AS WITH many of the allies, Joe Haynes’s natural reluctance to discuss his volunteer work is overcome by his recognition that the program’s goals can only be fulfilled by encouraging a new crop of volunteers. RON Solomon is of a similar mind, and is another who would rather his good work go unheralded. The Woodson County cattleman was made aware of Circles when Masterson presented a talk on the program to his men’s group at church last year. “When I retired,” Solomon said, “I wanted to spend some time giving back. When I heard about this, it piqued my interest.” IF LOFLIN is the program’s youngest ally, Helen Ambler has to be — the most experienced. At 83, Ambler’s line of DNA includes a great-grandfather who was the first African-American born in Allen County and a youngest grandson who recently collected his doctorate from MIT. CIRCLES of Allen County is in need of ad hoc volunteers, too: members of the community willing to help with child care — a make-or-break component of the weekly meet-up — and food donation, especially.
The program — launched by Georgia Masterson in the summer of 2013 with grant money from the REACH Healthcare Foundation — aims to reduce poverty and improve quality of life by bringing a disadvantaged portion of the community into regular contact with volunteers drawn from the broad bracket of the middle class. Every Monday evening the two groups gather as one to discuss ways the participants might improve their situation.
This pairing between Circles participants — known as “leaders” — and its volunteers — known as “allies” — is the lifeblood of the program.
As Masterson prepares to introduce a new group of leaders into Circles, she and the program are in need of more volunteers. The ideal ratio of “allies” to “leaders,” explained Masterson, is two to one.
The only prerequisite for volunteering as an ally is attendance at one of two “Bridges Out of Poverty” classes, which Masterson will hold on the evenings of this Thursday and June 2. According to Masterson, the class offers potential allies an education “in why people in poverty react differently to circumstances than those people who were raised in the middle class.”
Tara Solomon, a co-facilitator in the program, describes the nature of a volunteer’s commitment this way: “You really kind of make it your own. What an ‘ally’ means in the smallest terms is a once-a-month commitment. But, actually, it’s a lot more than that. You build trust with the leaders outside of the meetings. It’s a back-and-forth friendship, and a learning experience.”
But, to hear many of the allies tell it, the benefits of the program flow in the opposite direction, too.
“You know, we all kind of say this, all of the allies,” explains Ceri Loflin, an audiologist at Greenbush — and, at 28, the program’s youngest volunteer — “it feels like the leaders teach us so much more than we teach them. Most of them are just so unbelievably strong.”
According to Haynes, a retired small businessman and respected former Allen County College accounting instructor, “Prior to Circles I just never had a face to put on poverty, or the opportunity to have a relationship with someone who’s really experiencing that sort of difficulty.” Haynes recalled the material sparseness of his early boyhood in Missouri, but “I think the difference was that I had two loving parents. Even though we didn’t have much else, I had that” — which is not, acknowledges Haynes, a luxury afforded to all of the Circles participants.
A pragmatic man, and one not given to hyperbole, Haynes confesses that the Circles program arrived at a time in his life when his instinct for self-reflection was most pronounced. “I think for a lot of people it’s a natural tendency at this point in the life cycle to think: Have I been a little selfish, you know? Am I really trying to help my neighbors as much as I should? I do think Circles has contributed to that. But, for me, I think the process had already started. You work all your life to save and retire and accumulate wealth for you and your family. And then, pretty soon, you’ve done that and your kids are grown and gone, and at some point your perspective changes. What has been so significant in your lifetime becomes insignificant.”
He also found the program’s co-facilitator unusually persuasive (Tara Solomon is his daughter).
Together, the father-daughter pair is in frequent contact with their leader and that leader’s young family, offering conversation, car rides to the doctor’s and to school, and pitching in any way they can.
“I’ve worked in social services in several different realms,” explained Tara, currently a coordinator at Preferred Family Health, “so I felt like dad and I would know what to expect. But you don’t. Not until you dig into that life a little bit, and are able to see things — just some of the everyday barriers they face that we don’t quite experience.”
“And, at times, you’re not sure you’re even making any progress,” said Ron.
“Or what you’re really contributing,” said Tara.
“But just being there, if you can,” concluded the elder Solomon. “That is helpful, too. Just your presence.”
For Masterson, who has been teaching the “Bridges” courses for nearly 10 years and was the first to institute a Circles USA program in southeast Kansas, this point is key. At a recent meeting she asked the group’s leaders to comment on their experience in the program so far.
“It was incredibly heartwarming for me to be able to hear them talk about how it is a place where they can come and not be judged or put down in any way,” said Masterson. “That it’s their second family. The support system they get from it is probably more meaningful, as far as having a better life, than even any increase in income.”
There’s a wall decoration in Ambler’s spacious Kenwood Circle home, which reads “Live well. Laugh often. Love much.” — a maxim the Iola-native embodies completely. Her conversation brims with wit and clear-thinking. And while indeed eager to laugh, Ambler also signals a capacity for toughness when it’s called for. She’s one of those few individuals who seem to have perfected the balance of human emotion, which may be what makes her, according to Masterson, one of the more popular allies among the Circles participants.
“See, I speak their language,” says Ambler. “I’ve been there, done that. In other words, I’ve been on the other side. I was a single mother. I’d been married, divorced. I had children at home.” As a young woman Ambler worked for a time as the first black waitress at the Tioga Hotel, in Chanute. Later, she did housework in Iola for a dollar an hour, before settling into a job with the school district that carried her across three decades.
Ambler’s message to the leaders is one of self-confidence. She assures them that their hardship doesn’t have to be permanent; that, with help, they can break the cycle of poverty.
“It’s like I told this young woman,” said Ambler: “Honey, when you’re down and out, and you have kids, you ask for help where you can get it. You don’t have to feel ashamed. … There are so many people that are ashamed of how they came up, and this is one thing that I taught my kids —
“I can remember us going someplace one time and I had this old car and when we would go through town the kids would roll the windows up, because they wanted people to think we had air conditioning. Of course, I always thought it was funny myself — I have a hell of a sense of humor. But I said to them: ‘Oh, ashamed, huh?’” Ambler pauses, slowly stressing each of the next six words. “‘Well it doesn’t change a thing.’
“I think this is the thing most people don’t get. I don’t have to apologize because I was poor. I don’t have to apologize because I’m black. I feel as good as anyone, and my mother and dad taught all of us kids this: You’re as good as anybody who ever walked down the street. But you’re no better.
“I always tell the gals at Circles ‘So someone doesn’t like me?’ Well,” says Ambler with a flirtatious smile. “‘They’re missing a treat.’”
“I wasn’t sure what I was getting into,” remembers Haynes — who Masterson has fingered as one of the program’s most loyal allies — “but I kind of view these things as ‘It can’t possibly hurt.’ So, if you’re not going to hurt anything, and you might even do some good, then why wouldn’t you do it.
“I tell people, even if we disagree on exactly how to get there, we all want the same objective, we want to educate our kids, we want to take care of our neighbors.”
Anyone interested in attending the “Bridges” classes either this Thursday or else June 2 — from 6 to 9 pm at the Community National Bank meeting room — should contact Georgia Masterson at Thrive Allen County, 620-365-8128 or at [email protected]
Helping others is its own reward for Circles allies
