CLEARFIELD, Utah — For years, Davis County’s Open Doors Circles Program has helped people out of poverty. But this year, they say they’re losing funding that's essential to the program.
The Circles Program is a long-term initiative to help families out of poverty.
Daneen Adams, the assistant executive director, said they found out they weren’t chosen for grant funding from the Department of Workforce Services last Friday. They have received the grant twice before.
“So we lost about $286,000 a year, and it’s a 3-year grant. So basically we lost about 900,000,” Adams said.
She said the Circles Program has proven to be successful over the years, receiving awards and high monitoring scores.
“A living wage is $38 an hour in Davis County, and that's what all of our program participants shoot for,” Adams said. "It’s a very expensive program to run. Probably about $9,000 a family. However, as soon as you get them to that living wage, they’re putting about $32,000 back into the community.”
Adams said they have more than 100 people in the program right now, so they are looking for other solutions to keep the program running.
“We’ve seen our families grow, we’ve seen their kids do better, so we have to keep this going,” Adams added. "It’s probably just going to be turning to our community, local elected officials, and maybe going back to the state, the Department of Workforce Services grant and saying, 'Hey, what happened?'”
Program coordinator Johanna Shaw was saddened when she heard they didn’t get the grant.
“Circles is actually really near and dear to my heart. I don’t want to get emotional, but this was a service that was offered to me 10 years ago when I experienced situational poverty,” Shaw said.
Before Shaw worked there, she was brave enough to step through the doors and ask for help.
“Thinking back to my own personal journey, I had a lot of rejection, a lot of fears of wanting to get help because what would people think of me, but looking back and thinking now, I don’t know what I was so afraid of. Because this right here. I can’t even put it into words. To know that people care is important,” Shaw said.
While it’s hard for people like Shaw to hear that the program is struggling, she knows giving up isn’t an option.
“It takes a village and a whole lot of support to keep doing this. It doesn’t just affect us, right? It affects everybody that doesn’t get funded. How are we going to help end the cycle of poverty if we don’t have the ability to do that?” Shaw said.
Right now, they’re going to work on finding solutions for the families they’re working with.
