By Tangela Morgan | Development Director
Many families in poverty pay more than 50% of their income towards rent. Communities that work together to produce stable homeowners are in a position to turn this around and for the 26% of Memphis residents who live below the poverty line, the time is now. Since our inception in 1999, the RISE Foundation has helped over 911 low to moderate income households become self-sufficient by helping them build and sustain human and financial assets.
In our signature program Save Up, one of those financial assets chosen by many of our participants is a family home. Through the Save Up program, long-standing collaborations with area banking partners, city homebuyer initiatives and non-profit agencies, has helped RISE to successfully assist families in achieving the dream of homeownership.
Save Up graduate Ms. T. Clemons recently worked with RISE in partnership with Habitat for Humanity to attain her new home. Ms. Clemons described her experience as “something she knew her family desperately needed and had decided coming into the RISE Save Up program that she and her family would commit to being 100% dedicated to the projects, assignments and attendance required to complete the process”.
To inspire future graduates Ms. Clemons wanted to share what she learned through RISE because she feels that RISE teaches program participants to never give up, even if others can’t immediately see the benefits of creating a spending plan and budget for your family. She was referred to the program by a friend and former graduate who she is grateful for. Ms. Clemons pledges to continue to practice money management, invest in an emergency fund for her household and work on starting her own business. She credits RISE for helping her to realistically see a plan to create wealth-building assets for generations to come.
She states that her road to homeownership was not at all easy and the setbacks were challenging but worth going through because she had help from RISE program coordinators when she needed them, and they always kept her eyes on her future greatness. “God is good all the time, even in our short comings”, she says.
RISE is thankful for the many referrals from our community partners and former graduates who believe as deeply in our mission as we do. Please help us to continue making our communities stronger through financial education by making your donation to RISE today.
By Rodney Lomax | Senior Save Up Coordinator
By Tangela Morgan | Development Director
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
