Cass County Bridges Out of Poverty’s initiative includes, top, from left, Veronica Stewart and Rosita Tipton and bottom, from left, Karen Ford, Dianne Bailey, Deborah Hackworth.

Cass County Bridges Out of Poverty, a communitywide povery reduction initiative, announced Wednesday the receipt of a Region 6 Voices for Action grant which it will use to fund a Leadership Development Initiative.
Voices for Action is a statewide effort to reduce poverty 50 percent in Michigan by 2020.
Led by the Michigan Department of Human Services, the initiative has created a network of organizations including human service organizations, government agencies, local faith-based and community organizations, nonprofits and businesses.
The local Leadership Development Initiative empowers individuals who are coming out of poverty to become leaders in the community.
The six-month initiative began in January and will end in June.
Participants include Dianne Bailey, Karen Ford, Deborah Hackworth, Veronica Stewart and Rosita Tipton.
Their work began by defining leadership, examining leadership strategies, assessing the strengths and weaknesses of their individual leadership styles and building group consensus on next steps. Their challenge is to design the leadership initative to be self-sustaining and to put their skills to use in service to Bridges Out of Poverty and the Cass community.
Poverty is a problem that affects both individuals and the community. Bridges Out of Poverty maintains that by empowering individuals who have lived through poverty, we will create strong community leaders who are committed to eliminating poverty.