With Louisiana as the state with the third highest number of poor people, many of them working full-time, Northern & Central Louisiana Interfaith leaders are devising new ways to tackle poverty. Says Pastor Clayton Moore, "If you work, how is it that you're poor?"

NCLI leaders have launched Another Chance to Succeed (ACTS), modeling itself on Project QUEST in San Antonio and NOVA in Monroe, Louisiana. The goal is to train adults into higher wage jobs of at least $15 / hour. ACTS is targeting January 2017 as its start-up date.

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Catholic, Baptist and union leaders of Sydney Alliance challenged the wisdom of retail trading deregulation, given the impact on workers' families. Ten delegates gave personal testimony at a 'Take The Time' event; one related that as a father that works Sundays and 2 of 4 Saturdays per month, with a mother that works Saturdays, the only time to be a family occurs on days when shops don't open.

Facebook Post, Sydney Alliance

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"Capital IDEA Executive Director Steve Jackobs quips that when his organization decides to sponsor someone's community college education, it's like a Catholic marriage: "There's only one way out feet first." It's a joke, but indicative of the two-way commitment between Capital IDEA and its participants..."

In photo, student Liz Spinhirne listens to a speaker during a VIP meeting at the ACC Riverside campus.

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Lisa Pansza and Laura Garcia, "two participants of Project Quest, Inc., a local non-profit that provides education and workforce training, recently won top awards at a statewide vocational nursing contest. The two winners "have demonstrated through their achievements both their individual commitment as well as the value of this program in generating highly skilled workers from within our local community," said Dave Marttala, Project Quest's executive director."

Project QUEST is a community-based workforce development program created in 1992 through collaborative relationships initiated by Communities Organized for Public Service (COPS) / Metro Alliance, the San Antonio business community leadership, employers of high-skill workers and other private and public entities.

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San Antonio's Workforce Development Task Force, composed of a diverse collection of city and county representatives, leaders in the business and health community, and executives from two universities and a community college, reported their findings and unanimous recommendation to City Council: "Expand funding for long term training program Project Quest."

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"When University of Texas researchers studied the long-term benefits of an intensive Austin job training program called Capital IDEA, they found that graduates enjoyed a steady trajectory in earnings and within six years earned salaries that were $12,000 a year higher than participants in ordinary job-placement programs.

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"Eloina Serna wasn't the only one in her family who benefited when she signed up with Capital IDEA.... 90 percent of children who are now 18 or older earned a high school diploma and 64 percent of those children earned a college degree or are currently enrolled...."

Capital IDEA was founded in 1998 by Austin Interfaith, in partnership with Central Texas business leaders, to lift "families out of poverty through workforce training, especially in high-demand occupations such as health care, information technology, utilities and skilled trades." Capital IDEA graduate Eloina Serna poses with son in photo above.

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