Living with Enough: Responding to Global Poverty

2010-11 Civic Engagement Theme

Almost half of the world’s population lives on less than $2.50 per day. One billion children live in poverty, including more than 14 million children in the United States. At more than 14 percent, the official poverty rate in Allen County is at a 20-year high. Poverty disproportionately affects children, minorities, refugees and women. 

Bluffton’s response is guided by the extensive biblical witness that calls us to live faithful and responsible lives by being satisfied with enough and advocating for those who do not have enough to meet their basic needs. During the 2010-11 academic year the Bluffton University community sought out multi-disciplinary approaches to understand and address the causes and effects of poverty at the local level and in the global community.
Bluffton magazineStudent response to the theme was chronicled in the spring 2011 Bluffton magazine.

The book assigned as summer reading for all first year students was The Emptiness of Our Hands: A Lent Lived on the Streets by Phyllis Cole-Dai and James Murray. This book chronicles the authors' experience of living on the streets of Columbus, Ohio, during Lent of 1999.
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