Anti-Racism Team Update

Facts:

• In 2017, 25,000 children in Rochester lived in poverty. 25,000 children would completely fill Frontier Field twice. Rochester’s children’s poverty rate hovers around 50%; the national poverty rate is 18%. (ACT Rochester)

• In our local 9-county region, African American children are nearly 4 times more likely to experience child poverty than white children. (HardFacts 2020)

• In Foodlink’s 10-county service area, food insecurity is projected to rise 45 percent due to the impact of the Coronavirus on households across our region. Statistics showed a steady decline in food insecurity through 2018 (the most recent data available), when approximately 140,000 people lived in food-insecure households across Foodlink’s service area. Now, that number has risen to nearly 200,000. (From Foodlink)

Read: Psalm 104: 27-28 “These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.”

Reflect: In this passage, what does it mean to “open your hand”?  With what good things has God filled our hands?

Participate in weekly discussions based on the book Lent of Liberation: Confronting the Legacy of American Slavery, by Cheryl Mills. Discussions start the week of February 22 and continue through Lent, and will be held virtually:

• Mondays at 5:00pm through Irondequoit Presbyterian Church, on Zoom
• Wednesdays at 12:00pm through Third Presbyterian Church, on Zoom
• Wednesdays at 6:00pm through Gates Presbyterian Church. Email office@gatespres.org for links

Act: Preregistration is required for “Reimagining Public Safety in Rochester,” an online presentation by the Police Accountability Board (PAB), Friday, February 19, 2021, 6:30pm. Register here.