‘Poverty does not have to exist in our country’
Mary Downey says no one should have to live in their car in her Central Floridian of the Year acceptance speech
Editor’s note: The Rev. Mary Lee Downey, the CEO of the Community Hope Center in Kissimmee, was named the Orlando Sentinel’s 2019 Central Floridian of the Year on Thursday evening. After accepting the award, Downey described to the audience her hopes for people living in want, and how her personal story played a role in her work today. Below are excerpts from her remarks.
“I am the luckiest nonprofit leader in the world because not only do I get to help so many amazing people who deserve to have housing, who deserve to have the dignity of a place to live that isn’t a hotel room, that isn’t their car, that isn’t poverty because poverty does not have to exist in our country.
“There is no reason why it still does. And each one of us has a role to play in how they alleviate poverty, but I get to alleviate poverty and do that work with the amazing team at the Community Hope Center, who this award also goes to.
“The staff and the board of the Community Hope Center, the support of the Community Presbyterian Church of Celebration and the Florida United Methodist Church, who all said poverty does not have to exist in Osceola County, the people deserve to have housing and we are going to do that together.
“I am just a small-town girl from south Arkansas who no one believed in, who I had to beg my guidance counselor to let me take college prep classes because she didn’t think i was smart enough. And I had to work my way three jobs through college and that still wasn’t enough. So I know what it’s like for no one to believe in you.
“But I believe in the people that we serve in this community. And I believe that they have wishes and hopes and dreams just like ” did when I was a little girl. And I believe that they deserve to see them fulfilled.
“So as long as there is breath in me and I am surrounded by my beautiful family and my amazing team, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to bring housing and hope and a new neighborhood to Central Florida. That’s what I think.
“And when that happens, we’re going to do it again and again and again, because families and little girls like me do not deserve to live in their cars, and they do not deserve to not know if their lights are going to be on if they do have a house to live in.
“And we, each one of you in this room, we can change that. So thank you from the bottom of my heart to each of you who has loved and nurtured me and mentored me as well.
“We’re not done, so thank you so much.”