Welcome to The Broken Link Organization site!!  This site is designed to inform you of current poverty figures and to tell you of ways to help!!  All of the broken links out there need someone to care... be that someone!! 

If you want to contact us you can e-mail us at ZACrugby@yahoo.com

 Personal Experiences

 


 

Why Doesn't Anyone Help? 

    My mom and I were getting gas one day. While getting gas we noticed a person off to the side of the building digging through trash. It made me feel bad so I asked my mom "Mom can I go give that guy some money for some food?" People went inside and told the store manager and left before they even got anything or got gas. That is an example of what poverty does to people and businesses.

Zac Cole

 

  

Hungry

      The other day my best friends Shai, Deana, Heather and I went ice skating down in Greenville. On our way home Heather's mom stopped at Burger King. It was about 12:30am when we pulled up to the drive through. After we ordered our food Ms. Lisa's window was still open and a man came up to her. He said "Ma'am, I'm so hungry. Can I please have some money?" Ms. Lisa wouldn't give him money but she sent Deana and Shai to get him something to eat. So they got out of the car and went back in to get the man some food. Heather and I stayed in the car with her mom. The man looked about 40 and was African American. He was skinny and dirty. He went on telling Heather's mom about how he had a daughter. He was carrying a box but I couldn't see in it. He couldn't even explain where his daughter was so I wondered if he even had one. But I felt very bad for the man. This just shows how poverty is everywhere and how it affects lives.
                                                                              Casey Holloway


      

 

A Rough Start
     

            Starting out, my parents lived in the basement of a distant relative's.  They were soon able to work up enough money and put it together to buy a little house that belonged to my mom's great uncle, John who had passed away.  It was only nine hundred square feet, named Little John's because of it's area, and when  I came along it was just fine for my preemie baby size.  My mom worked every weekday in labor and delivery from seven to seven at University of Tennessee hospital.  UT was where both my parents went to college and the hospital wing was where they met.  My dad also worked most of the time in a lab working in Research for Graduate school to earn his PHD.  (He would have gotten it to if it wasn't for one greedy professor who wanted him to have to stay and continue to help her with her experiments.)  He suffered long hours testing mice (that he was severely allergic to) and combined with my mother, only had an income of twenty six thousand dollars.  Despite a tight budget, my mom and dad made early childhood exciting for me.  While they worked, I spent all day at daycare and part of the week being watched over by mom or dad's parents or my great grandparents who lived across the street.  I can still remember my tiny hand when I was two and three barely big enough to wrap around my dad's thumb as he walked me across the street to see my (great grandparents) Granny and Papaw.  I recall one instance looking over my shoulder at our tiny house and seeing the bright red door, the unique detail that my mom and dad had so cautiously painted on our run down white "casa".  One year the money was so tight, my dad had to take back the holiday Barbie I was going to get for Christmas so he could use the refund money to pay bills.  We had a garden for vegetables and my dad shot deer for meat.  We couldn't drink the tap water, so we had to fill jugs at a spring that ran off of a mountain.  My mom washed dishes by hand and store bought food was a treat.  My sister was born when I was three and a half and both my parents continued to work until we got the faithful news.  When I was four and my sister barely one, my dad announced that he had received a job in Athens, Tennessee working for a pharmaceutical company.  Out of the teeny house we raced, my mother a new  stay at home mom and my dad a business man making good money.  The most amazing thing was arriving at our new house, not just to take another look at it, but to move in our stuff.  That four level house with a big backyard and kid neighbors couldn't be mine!  It was one extreme to another.  From then on, my dad found more medical jobs, moving us around two more times before finally staying put.  Life can be tough when money is short.  Going through living conditions like I had in my early years, makes it easy to appreciate what I have.
                                                By: Ashley Biggs

Pictures of me as a baby.  These were both taken before I was one.

Sitting in the French Broad next to the land that my grandpa owned.

Posing infront of the front red door of the house.

 My mom's friend, a registered nurse that worked in labor and delivery with her at the hospital, was a photographer and would charge us hardly anything to take pictures.

My red wagon and swing were my two main sources of entertainment.  The swing was made by my grandpa and was my mom's growing up.  

 

Poverty: It's an awful thing but its real. 

 

POETRY:
 

Lot of hunger and having no food is poverty,
Not having spare cloth to take bath is poverty,
Needing a shelter but not having one is poverty,
Child's sick but can not buy treatment, is poverty,
Fainting child dreaming a mouthful of rice is poverty
Searching warmth in cold flesh in winter nights, is poverty,
Sitting with umbrella on wetting bed in showering night, is poverty,
Thoughtful mother, two mouthful of rice and three children, is poverty,
An ill, deserted mother selling her child wishing it will survive, is poverty.
A defeated and desponded mother poisoning and killing her child is poverty,
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Palas Kumar Ray

 

Make Poverty History:

Poverty, a word, A cause
A journey with no applause
Poverty
So many speak, too few listen
Pound in the tin, Conscience in pocket
Poverty
A cudgel taken up on my behalf
They take my voice, Ignore my words
Poverty
Level the scales balance the need
Enough for everyone No time for greed
Poverty
The latest dance, do you hear the rhythm?
Do you know the rhyme?
Poverty
Words that explode, none of them are mine
Poverty to History, Injustice will not confine
Poverty
Make poverty History’ sounds so divine
If it sooths your conscience, fine
Poverty
I should be grateful shouldn’t I?
Not raise questions, but learn to die
Poverty
Sweet charity, Blind Indifference
Do you know me, Can you see me
Will you hear me
Poverty.
Adrian Wait


http://www.poemhunter.com/poems/poverty/

Follow the same link above to enter in the design your own shirt contest! You will be given a blank sweatshirt to add pictues and phrases on to support our cause!  The winner will be sold and featured on our site!  Use only sweatshirt colors that are available for digital printing please.  To enter contest make a comment below that includes your name, email, and cell number in case you win.  Also specify the blank sweatshirt # you're taking. Then rename that blank sweatshirt on the site with your name. 

*NOTE-- as soon as your comment with your personal information is posted, we will hide it for your safety.

Make comments either on poverty or the site to the right... feel free to share personal experiences and ideas for ways to help.  Please note if you would like to make a donation. Feel free to add pictures!

Broken Link Tee shirts available in pink and blue.  Sizes Youth XS to Adult 3XL.  Only $20.30 for one tee! Price goes down as quantity goes up!!  Order just 3 and they're only 14 dollars a piece!

Follow this link to order one!!

https://www.uberprints.com/account/tools/mydesigns.asp

Email to account is ZACrugby@yahoo.com and the password is Poverty

If you have a problem ordering the tee shirts email ZACrugby@yahoo.com 

Available soon: Rubber bracelets for the cause!!!