One in five Hoosier children lives in poverty -- 155,600 people in the state.

Every child has a different story. Joelle Agbeshie, 13, came here as a refugee from Togo with her parents. King Collier's dad died, and his mother injured her back and is not able to work. The 10-year-old, his three siblings and mother now live in an apartment and struggle to make ends meet.

The Agbeshie family came to America to seek a better life but lost the support of its sponsoring family and became homeless. Joelle's father was a doctor and her mother a lab technician in Togo, but they aren't licensed to work in the United States. Both are working low-wage jobs that don't require much education. Joelle, who plans on becoming a doctor like her dad, is grateful that they've sacrificed so much for her.

The family is part of Wellspring Cottage, a transitional living program operated by Dayspring, a nonprofit dedicated to helping homeless families.

Y-Press wanted to find out more about low-income families and those who work to help them. Reporters and editors visited three locations for interviews:

• Anna's House, 303 N. Elder Ave., which provides food, education and medical care to Stringtown, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods.
• Dayspring Center, 1537 N. Central Ave., which shelters and feeds homeless families and helps them become self-sufficient.
• Barton Center, 210 E. Michigan St., a Salvation Army housing community that provides safe, affordable permanent shelter and support for formerly homeless families.

From numerous interviews, the Y-Press team picked seven people to tell readers about poverty, how to reduce it and how it's influenced their lives.

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Paige Thomas, 17; and Joe Morgan, 18.

REPORTER: Hrishi Deshpande, 12.

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Chelsie Rogers, 15, lives at Barton Center with her father. Until last December, they lived in shelters after her father lost his job. Chelsie is a sophomore at Manual High School. She enjoys reading and swimming and wants to go to college, maybe to be a doctor or nurse.

"My dad works. He's got a good job, but we're still not way up there. We're pretty much in the middle, the main class, so we still have trouble. We have to go to pantries to get food still, but we have good apartments. We're kind of poor, but there are people (living here) around us, like friends, so they kind of know what we're going through. It makes it easier.

"At Manual, people are, like, 'Where do you live?' I say: 'Downtown.' They're, like, 'Ooh. You must be rich.' I say: 'No, I live Downtown, but I'm not rich.' I don't want them thinking that I'm rich, but I don't want them knowing (that I'm poor, either).

"I want to get a good job, so that my family and I won't have to go through that (poverty) anymore, so we won't have to be poor. That way, even if they don't have any jobs, I can support my family."

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Rashad Lewis, 13, has lived at Barton Center for a year. He lived with his mother at a homeless shelter before moving in. He is in seventh grade at Harshman Middle School. He enjoys basketball, football, bowling and sleeping. He also prides himself on getting good grades, which signals to him that he's making something of his life for the future.

"I am 'po.' All right? I didn't say poor; I said 'po.' I'm 50 percent po, 50 percent mid class because there are people up in Michigan that are my family and they got some money to spend. And then here in Indiana, I'm as broke as a joke, I am not going to lie. But I would rather be happy where I am right now than up in Michigan having money to spend. Money cannot buy true happiness.

"I'd rather be here any day than living with my dad. There was a whole bunch of people living in that one house. It was my aunt, her two daughters, my dad, my mom, me, my little brother and my little sister living there. And then my older brother moved in, so we had nine people living in one small section of a house.

"My dad didn't want anyone on his couches so he would give the kids one room, he had his room, and then my aunt had the third room. My brother and I had downstairs on the floor to sleep. And I really didn't want to be on that floor, but I'd rather not speak of why. (I get) food stamps and free lunch at school. I never feel embarrassed about being po."

"[I don’t get teased at school for being poor] because I’m 13 years old, 200 pounds and some change and 5 foot 9. I got them scared up. I walk through the door; everybody knows not to mess with me.

"If I were president, I would start up a nationwide food drive for the people that actually need it, and not the people that want it, the people that need it, and just give away food and clothes and other things like that.

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Destiny Harris, 13, has been living at Barton House Apartments since the beginning of summer when she was reunited with her mother, who had been living in a homeless shelter. Destiny temporarily lived with an uncle because her mother didn’t want her living in a shelter. She goes to Harshman Middle School, 7th grade. She loves singing and wants to succeed in life so she can buy her mother a car and house.

"My mom is paralyzed on her whole left side from the last stroke she had, so she doesn’t even work.

"She has had eight strokes… So I’m grateful that I still got my momma. She gets disability checks…We can do stuff like buy clothes and buy new shoes if we need them. Plus we get food stamps, so that is helpful.

"My momma loves moving around a lot. I am from Indianapolis, but when I was four we went to Georgia and then we came back. Then we went to Minnesota and then we came back. And then we went to Milwaukee and now we’re here.

"We left Milwaukee because we were actually evicted from where we were staying, so we had to come here on the train. We had to pack up all our clothes and take all our clothes, but we left a whole lot of stuff like our furniture and a lot of our clothes.

"As a little kid -- shoot -- I didn’t know I was poor. We used to do stuff all the time when I was little. We went to Six Flags, but my momma would save a lot of Pepsi tops. That cuts off a little bit of the price.

"I’ve never been picked on or anything for being poor ’cause everybody else around me was poor, so they didn’t have any room to talk about anyone anyway.

"(Barton House) is a nice place for me. We may not be able to do some stuff like sit out on the front porch because they call it loitering, but whenever they get a security guard, they let us go in the multipurpose room.

"There is a way out of everything, so it’s (poverty) not a cycle. You can get out. Like my momma has been out a whole lot of times; she just chooses to go back in.

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Kristin Norris, 18, is a freshman at Indiana University and hopes to go to law school. The Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School graduate volunteered at Dayspring Center for two years as a high school student and during summers.

"My life has changed a lot from volunteering here. The more I worked here, the less I noticed the differences between myself and these kids.

"It’s great to be around them because they’re so sweet and affectionate.

"My favorite part is working with the kids -- just being with them and playing with them on the playground and kind of acting as an older sibling. It’s nice, too, to see that my being here has had a really large impact on them.

"Raising awareness in schools (would really help reduce poverty). Going to schools and giving lectures about poverty would make students really want to help out a lot.

"We need a combination of political activism and monetary donations to really have an impact on poverty in society. Monetary donations help temporarily, but it’s like putting a band-aid over a deep wound…Poverty is the infection, and band-aids are the monetary donations.   Political activism would be the antibiotics.

"In the long run, political activism will help to change laws and ways that our society functions in order to better help the poor. But the monetary donations are important in the short run. They make a huge impact on the lives of those who are in deep poverty.

"Kids who want to make a direct impact (to help those less fortunate) should volunteer. Even if kids don’t have money, they can spend their time helping, impacting the poverty that we as a society have.

"It’s a really great feeling to feel like I’m making a difference instead of sitting at home, wishing I could do something.

"I’m out there doing it.

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Lucious Newsom, 91, has spent more than 20 years handing out free food to the poor in Indianapolis through his Lord’s Pantry ministry. In summer 2006, he opened a community center in Stringtown named Anna’s House after Anna Malloy, a little girl who has been a devoted volunteer for his ministry. The center provides education, medical care, tutoring and free food to those who need it.

"I came here for this cause. I had seen the Mozell Sanders dinner and I thought that was great, that Thanksgiving Day. But then that Friday I wanted to help again and I was told that they only do this once a year. I thought it was very disgraceful to feed over 20,000 people one day and then your food’s so good it’ll last a whole year.

"I'm from Chattanooga, Tenn., and I lived kind of in the mountains. I wasn’t used to seeing a lot of people where people didn’t help them.

"What motivated me to come to Indianapolis?  To see the poor being exploited by people who professed to be serving the poor, and they were really using them.

"They were not, they weren’t doing it to the glory of God. They were just doing it for their own edification.

"I have given up everything to serve the Lord. I’m no longer a seasoning manufacturer.I gave it away -- gave it to my children, to my wife so they could live. And I don’t get any funds from home. I live by faith. That’s how I live, and doing pretty good ain’t I?Ain’t lost any weight.

"My life is given over to the Lord Jesus to do with me as he sees fit. I’m not my own. I now belong to Jesus, all of me -- my hands, my feet, my voice, all of me now belong to Jesus. And I serve him, not the poor.

"All the food that you see in here this morning I begged. We pay utility bills, rent. We bury the dead. Last year we buried six people out of this community who had no funeral expense money, and we were blessed to be able to go out and get the money and bury them.

"Poverty will never go away. It’s not meant to go away. I’m a Bible believer, and Jesus said the poor you will have with you always, and whatsoever you do to the least of them, you do it also to me. They will never go away. They’ll always be here.

"I can’t help these older people. I can’t get them out of poverty. But all of these young ones that come through here, they’re gonna be scientists, doctors, attorneys, nurses, secretaries… you name it. The cream of the crop is gonna come right from this town. Cause if we help them to get a good education, I’m gonna guarantee you they won’t be in poverty.

"Just every time you get an opportunity, do some good for somebody who don’t have it. It will make you richer for doing it.

"That’s what the Lord’s Pantry is really all about. We’re about serving the Lord. It’s not about Lucious or anybody else. Any more questions, ‘cause I gotta go to work now?

Originally posted 9-9-2007

Copyright 2007 Y-Press