We know from personal experience that when you grow up in poverty, you face different kinds of hardships…

When your house has no heat or there is little food in the refrigerator, you suffer physically.  But when you venture into the public, there can be emotional hardships that are just as painful.  You might feel shame when you go to school wearing the same tattered sweater five days in a row.  You want to hide as you watch your classmates sign a yearbook you could not afford.  Or you might skip school altogether just to avoid being bullied.     

We lived that pain because, in the early 1960’s, our family received monthly welfare payments that barely covered the cost of rent and food. We soon became known as “the welfare kids.”  Our mother - Alice - did whatever she could to pick up extra cash, and when she got paid, she proudly ran home to announce to us that we were going shopping! To this day, we recall the exhilarating feeling of getting onto the school bus wearing new sneakers or sporting a new haircut. In the grand scheme of things, these items were not as important as food and shelter, but they lifted our spirits and made us feel more “normal” among our classmates.

In 2011, as we were reminiscing about how our mother tried hard to make us feel good about ourselves, we began to wonder whether we could help lift kids in similar situations.  And the rest is history.  After consulting with numerous charities to see if they offered targeted financial assistance to children, the unanimous answer was “no.”   With the assurance that there was a great need for our services, we formed Alice’s Kids. 

And now, after all these years, we know that a little help can go a long way.