Caring Causes: Jeremiah Program

  Jeremiah Program (JP), a national nonprofit with one of the most successful strategies for disrupting intergenerational poverty for families two generations at a time, is proud to announce significant growth and expansion in 2020.  All seven campuses—Austin, TX; Boston, MA; Brooklyn, NY; Fargo, ND-Moorhead, MN; Minneapolis, MN; Rochester, MN; and St. Paul, MN—are seeing an increase in participants, with the Rochester campus expected to reach full capacity in the first year of its opening.

Despite unprecedented challenges brought on by COVID-19, Jeremiah Program grew in 2020, buoyed by the organization’s new leadership and the inherent success of the program itself.

Among milestones in 2020:

• 10% increase from 2019 in families served, for a total of 345 families
• 513% increase in number of applications submitted in Fall 2020 over the previous fall
• 184 moms enrolled in JP’s empowerment course in 2020--the highest in the program’s history
• The launch of an inaugural JP alumni fellowship cohort designed to ensure that alumni have the tools and the social capital to be at the tables where decisions that impact their lives--and the lives of countless other families like theirs--are made, all too often without anyone with that lived experience in the room
• Strategic partnerships in the social justice space, including a virtual discussion with C. Nicole Mason of Institute for Women’s Policy Research on the devastating economic and other impacts the pandemic has had on women, known as the She-Cession
• The bolstering of the JP National Governing Board of Directors with senior executives from Goldman Sachs, among others 

“The health and economic crises that we experienced in 2020 were among the worst this country has ever faced,” said Chastity Lord, CEO and President, Jeremiah Program, who assumed the role six months before the pandemic hit. “Single moms providing for their families on a low income were already holding their worlds together by a fragile thread, and the COVID pandemic has frayed that thread even further. During a time of so much loss and uncertainty, Jeremiah Program is committed to ensure that struggling families do not fall deeper into the cycle of poverty.”

Jeremiah Program employs a two-generation strategy for single mothers and their children, to transform situations of generational poverty to economic mobility. It provides an integrated model of services to low-income single mothers in college and their families, including childcare and quality early childhood education, a safe and affordable place to live, and empowerment and life skills training. The organization is run by visionary Chastity Lord, whose work regularly addresses the individual and systemic barriers that these women face, and supports family ecosystems that value both mothers and their children. 

“I am proud and inspired by our team for staying the course during this time, allowing Jeremiah Program to do the heavy lifting of investing in mothers and their children, and ultimately partnering with a record number of families,” added Lord. “We expect to continue our expansion with a goal of serving 475 families and occupying all of our residential units by the first half of this year.” 

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About Jeremiah Program: Jeremiah Program is a nonprofit organization that offers one of the nation’s most successful strategies to help families disrupt the cycle of poverty two generations at a time. Using a combination of quality early childhood education, childcare, a safe and affordable place to live, and empowerment and life skills training for single mothers attending college, the program has impacted the lives of more than 4,000+ single mothers and their children since it was founded 20 years ago. The organization currently serves over 600 single mothers and their young children at seven campuses across the country in Austin, TX; Boston, MA; Brooklyn, NY; Fargo, ND-Moorhead, MN; Minneapolis, MN; Rochester, MN; and St. Paul, MN.