Caring Magazine
Interviewed by Chadwick Phillips
January 24, 2015

To eradicate the issue, The Poverty Initiative focuses on the who and why.

Roughly 48.8 million people—or 15.8 percent of the U.S. population—lived below the poverty level in 2013, according to the United States Census Bureau.

To eliminate poverty, Liz Theoharis knew she needed to first understand who it impacts and why, rather than simply acknowledging its existence. So, she went straight to the source: those living below the poverty line.

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Emory University Youth Theological Initiative
March 21, 2013

Liz Theoharis ’93 knew that her call to anti-poverty activism was a religious one.  It took the Church a while to catch up.

In December, Theoharis was ordained by the New York City Presbytery as Coordinator of the Poverty Initiative, a program affiliated with Union Theological Seminary.   In many ways, her ordination simply formalized a role Liz had taken on in 2003, when she co-founded the Poverty Initiative, whose mission is “to raise up generations of religious and community leaders dedicated to building a social movement to end poverty, led by the poor.”

Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a “Freedom Church of the Poor,” the Poverty Initiative seeks to empower poor leaders and their organizations by offering training programs, building a grassroots anti-poverty network, and sponsoring educational events, “truth commissions,” and a host of other programs that help congregations and activists act strategically and think theologically about poverty.

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