Theme of workshop: ‘Fight the poverty, not the people’

By Mike Lange
Staff Writer

    DOVER-FOXCROFT — When Donna Beegle was a child in Arizona, her parents moved so often that she never knew what a stable home life was like. “Some of the places we lived in were either condemned or should have been,” Beegle said. She is also the only member of her family who has not been incarcerated.

Observer photo/Mike Lange

    POVERTY WORKSHOP — More than 200 people attended the Maine Highlands Poverty Workshop at the Center Theatre on Oct. 23 featuring keynote speaker Dr. Donna Beegle. Pictured, from left, are Karen Heck, senior program officer for the Bingham Project; Piscataquis Community Secondary School students Jenna Chapman and Tiia Flick; and Dr. Beegle.

    But after leaving school to get married at 15, having two children and continuing to cope with poverty, she found herself at age 25 with no husband, little education and no job skills. Eventually, she earned a high school G.E.D., an associate’s degree in journalism, a master’s degree in communications and a doctorate in educational leadership.
    Now happily remarried with three children, Beegle has worked with educators, legal professionals, health care providers, social service agencies and other organizations for the past 23 years who want to make a difference for those living in poverty.
    Last week, she brought her message to the Maine Highlands Poverty Workshop which drew more than 200 people to the Center Theatre in Dover-Foxcroft.  She joked that she began to speak out on poverty issues “because I know too much to stay quiet.”
    Beegle said she learned at an early age that poor people are easily stereotyped and often segregated.
    “Go to a school where there’s a lot of poverty and you’ll see signs that say ‘No,’ ‘Don’t’ and ‘Stop.’ Go to a privileged school and the signs say ‘Dare to Dream,’ ‘Be all you can be,’ ‘Challenge’ and ‘Question.’ The child in a poverty-stricken school that challenges or questions is considered disobedient. But in a privileged school, they’re told they have leadership capabilities,” she said.
    Beegle recalled that all during her school years, “I never knew some of the words teachers would use to describe things. When I’d ask what a word meant, my teachers would say that I needed to be a responsible learner ‘and I will not enable you,’” Beegle said. “Now that I have a doctorate in education, I have to ask: why wouldn’t you?”
    Although Beegle said that she was the only one in her family who didn’t serve time behind bars, she admitted breaking the law a few times. “I drove illegally for 14 years because I couldn’t afford car insurance,” she said.
    It wasn’t until her college years in Portland, Ore. that she got to know “people of privilege – those who had a roof over their head, plenty of food and their health needs were met.”
    Many of the students also volunteered to help low-income residents with food and clothing drives. But Beegle asked herself: “If they care so much, why are they allowing people to live like this in their community? Then it hit me real quick. They really did care, but they didn’t have a clue. They didn’t know any more about my life and generational poverty than I did about their middle-class life. We are segregated. We don’t interact … We need to fight the poverty, not the people.”
    She credits her brother, Wayne – who served 12 years in prison – with helping her attain her educational goals. “When I entered community college at the age of 26, I ran into words I’d never been introduced to … I couldn’t even read my textbooks,” she said.
    So she asked her brother for help. “He’d do all this research in the prison library and then write me 25-page letters … but he would use language I could relate to,” she said.
    Beegle noted that it costs $34,000 a year to keep someone in prison and $60,000 annually per foster child in most states. “We have the money to make a difference,” she said.
    Workshop moderator Karen Heck, the senior officer of the Bingham Project, has also served as mayor of Waterville since January 2012. “Waterville is a wonderful city, but I’m very concerned about the fact that our poverty rate is 23 percent and it’s 43 percent for children age 5 and under,” Heck said. “I totally believe we are people of good will.”
    State Sen. Justin Alfond, a Dexter native, said no matter where you live in the state, “There’s a Title 1 school and there are communities that are struggling with poverty. As a small state, I know we can do better. We have to do better for our most prized possessions: our young people.”