Women Fighting Hunger speaker says ‘Help people create better lives’

When it comes to helping people in need, don’t wait for others to act. Be the positive force that will help lift others from their despair. That’s one of the powerful messages delivered by a woman who went from homeless girl to Harvard University graduate to an important advocate for young people in need. “Don’t […]

When it comes to helping people in need, don’t wait for others to act. Be the positive force that will help lift others from their despair. That’s one of the powerful messages delivered by a woman who went from homeless girl to Harvard University graduate to an important advocate for young people in need. “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. … All people want the same thing. People want a better life,” said Liz Murray, co-founder and executive director of The Arthur Project, a New York City-based nonprofit that helps mentor young people. Ms. Murray was the keynote speaker at River Bend Food Bank’s third annual Women Fighting Against Hunger event held Thursday night, March 30, at Rhythm City Casino Resort, Davenport. The event, which attracted more than 400 people, was a fundraiser for the Quad Cities-based food bank serving eastern Iowa and western Illinois.   During the event, River Bend officials pointed out some of the accomplishments in the past year. But they added: “We’ve had our share of troubles,” said Janet Mathis, board chair of the River Bend Food Bank. Perhaps topping that list is the state of food donations in the region. Donations are down anywhere from 25% to 40%, Nancy Renkes, River Bend’s president and CEO, told the crowd Thursday night. Those donations are down because of inflation, high prices at the grocery store and the continuing volatility in the economy, she said.

In urging the crowd and community to support River Bend, Ms. Renkes added: “We can all help. We can be helpful to our community.” But most of the Thursday night event was devoted to Ms. Murray sharing her powerful and emotional story of being raised by drug-addicted parents, being homeless living on the streets of New York City, getting help from a mentor, and eventually going to Harvard University. In 2003, Ms. Murray’s life story was the subject of a Lifetime TV network movie called “Homeless to Harvard: The Liz Murray Story.” Ms. Murray called her parents “severely drug addicted.” But her upbringing was complicated. That’s because her mother and father also attempted to be loving, supportive parents. She called her mother a “beautiful person” who deeply loved her daughters. And her father was a former graduate student who took her to the library every week and encouraged her to read. “He would say to me ‘Read, sweetheart. It will open the world to you,’” she said. But there was a darker side to her parents. She said her father literally sold the shoes off his feet, and the family’s TV set for $10 to buy drugs. There was rarely any food in the home. That lack of food had Ms. Murray and her sister looking for food anywhere they could find it. The girls put sugar into ice trays so they could have sugar water to survive. Ms. Murray said she shoplifted food, and the two sisters went door to door in their apartment building, asking neighbors for any extra food they could give them. (Ms. Murray’s Arthur Project is named after one of those neighbors. She said a man living in her tenement building – named Arthur – gave them food, sometimes claiming that he had made too much food for dinner and wanted the girls to have it.) Her situation would get worse. The family would be kicked out of their apartment. Her mother died after contracting HIV, and her father was living in a homeless shelter. Ms. Murray was homeless in her teen years on the streets of The Bronx. “I came so close to giving up,” she said. But she recognized that education was a key to lifting her up. A one-time dropout, she found a mentor at her new school who helped guide her. She called that mentor the “tweed jacket man” because of the professor-style way he dressed.  Ms Murray said she looked horrible and filthy. “I had an attitude. … I was dressed in rags and was an alley cat with a storm cloud over my head,” she said. She earned her high school diploma in two years, and applied for a scholarship to Harvard University through a New York Times newspaper program. As part of that program, she wrote an essay outlining her struggles. Her essay told of her parents, and that she was going to school while being homeless. (That was a fact she had worked hard to keep a secret until that point.) The essay was printed on the front cover of the Metro section of the New York Times – and her situation quickly changed. Once people read her story, she received a lot of support from the community and people across the country. Some of that support included:

• An eight-year-old boy sent her quarters from his piggy bank.
• A woman made a quilt for her to keep her warm in the dorms.
• People made her food.
• And one woman came up to her and said: “Sweetheart, can I wash your clothes for you?” Ms. Murray said she remembers that incident because that woman also told her: “I can’t do much, but I can do that.”

Her remarkable comeback story resulted in Ms. Murray graduating from Harvard, getting a master’s degree in psychology of education at Columbia University, becoming an author and becoming a passionate advocate for underserved young people through her Arthur Project. But she adds her story has led some people to label her a “bootstrapper.” That is, a person who was able to single-handedly pick herself up by her bootstraps and turn failure into success. She rejects that scenario. Ms. Murray said her success is the result of a lot of help from many people, groups and nonprofits. It came from people who didn’t wait for others to act and decided to act themselves. During her comeback story, she said that she received food from a nonprofit organization in her community. And that food made all the difference in the world. “If I didn’t have that (food), this whole thing wouldn’t have happened,” she added.

The River Bend Food Bank's Women Fighting Hunger event was sponsored by: Gold sponsors, John Deere, Northwest Bank & Trust Co., Royal Neighbors of America, Rhythm City Casino Resort, SSAB and UnityPoint Health Trinity; Silver sponsors, Eye Surgeons Associates, GreenState Credit Union, Quad Cities Regional Business Journal, River Valley Cooperative and Smart Luxury Motors.