Circles recently enjoyed a great chat with Kemberly Bush (CEO, Pathways to Prosperity, the lead agency offering the Circles USA model in Palm Beach County, FL) and her colleague Pastor Richard Dames (Director of Circles Palm Beach County). Here, Kemberly and Pastor Richard describe the many moving parts they manage to keep Palm Beach County one of the most successful and diverse high-volume Circles chapters in the U.S.
Good morning! Can you share some exciting updates and “New and Goods” from Circles Palm Beach County?
RD: We just graduated a class of Haitian Creole speakers a few weeks ago. The exciting part for us was the fact that they decided, as a group, that they wanted to go out and purchase their own caps and gowns. So they marched in and everything was matching, color coordinated, excitement on their faces. It was resounding for us to see all of them outside getting dressed—just a huge moment!
KB: The community in which our offices are located here in Palm Beach County has a large Haitian Creole population. Right now we've got over 80,000 Haitians [in the county] and they're expecting that number to grow expeditiously. Many coming right now speak Spanish—they don't speak Creole because they are coming by way of Chile. We also have some families that have been here for quite some time, and they're very successful. My very first Circles class graduated in 2014—that was probably one of the most successful classes I had. We did have Haitians in that particular class, including one man, Wendell, who saved $20,000 in one year. Everyone was like, how did he do that? And so we started having other people following his model.
We've had to really change our thinking, change the way we deliver our services. I've had to change staffing because I needed to respond to the community. If everyone here only had one Creole [translator], it wasn't going to work. We needed to build upon that. So now we have four. Because it's the only way that we can service this community and be true to it.
Our first graduating Creole-speaking class was in December of 2023. It was the first time we had engaged an all-Haitian class. We were requiring individuals to speak English prior to doing this, because it was so difficult in the classroom to have to do the translation. But we were leaving out a whole population by doing that. Now it’s hit off amazingly. Our first graduating class ended with representatives from the U.S. Congress [awarding] pendants. We had our state Senator, state House Reps, and those who were running for office all in attendance. And so, because we served that one population, word of mouth started to travel. The [graduated Circle Leaders] are all Allies now and we've had three classes that were just Creole speaking: 100% Creole. But I will tell you that the very last class, when they came up and did their speeches and things like that, they did it all in English; because now we're offering ESOL [English Speakers of Other Languages] classes for our families as well. To me, that is really exciting news.
RD: We had been having candidate forums here [organized] with some of our partner organizations. [After] a lot of planning and strategizing and organizing, we decided that we wanted to put together a People's Forum. That People's Forum would consist of those who were still running for office, but primarily for the House of Representatives election. And so we [invited] three of our Circle graduates to share their lived experiences on this panel. One talked about education, her field. The other [spoke about] housing. And the third was about being safe in the neighborhood.
Circle Leaders had the opportunity to share their lived experiences with politicians, clergy, and the community at large. Giving them that experience is really setting the stage for them. As we continue to deal with the Big View, they're learning about the Cliff Effect and how that affects them—the systemic barriers that are in place, how it keeps them at that level. Hopefully the politicians will be able to take that back to the State House and address this across the aisle, so that we can begin to dismantle some of those barriers.
KB: What was really interesting for me at the People's Forum was to hear those politicians as I laid the framework for ALICE—Asset Limited, Income Constrained and Employed. These are ALICE families. They're the working poor. And afterwards, during the networking where we were able to eat and meet one-on-one with the politicians, to hear them say that they had never heard of ALICE. They were clueless! “What do you mean, you don't know? And you're going to be sitting here making decisions on ALICE families?” Our goal is to equip our ALICE families; because if we engage them in the whole voting process, we can change the landscape of this country. If we get the ALICE families involved in the vote, in making decisions, that's how you begin to change the Big View—to really begin to address those systemic barriers. That is who we serve.
Were you able to track how their elections went? Will you have some allies in place in office now?
KB: Yes. We [hosted] people that were running for Judge, we had a State Attorney candidate, the Sheriff's Office and things like that. They got a chance to hear my Circle Leader, Bentoria—I'm her Ally—talking about the successes she has had as a result of being involved in Circles. Bentoria started her own nonprofit [after] receiving some funding. She is an author who self-published her book on Amazon. And she talked about becoming a homeowner.
Before she got a chance to get through it all, everyone started clapping. She said, “Yeah, right, that should be a reason to celebrate.” But then, she was able to share with them that that little bit of increase allowed her to be able to buy the house; but it [also] knocked her out of the other safety net services. “So,” she said, “it was a short-lived celebration for me, because now I have to learn how to readjust my finances without any of those safety net services. And what can you all do to help me and other families that fall into this category, so that we don't find ourselves, you know, still struggling after we have these successes?” It was just absolutely amazing.
RD: Bentoria was the one that we took to Tallahassee.
KB: Oh, yes! Last year for Children's Week, we took Bentoria with us to Tallahassee. So she had had a chance already to meet [the candidates] and take pictures. We've got people in office that she's already familiar with; they know her story. And we'll be going back again in May.
We hope that this is a path to accountability from our elected officials!
KB: Same here. It was funny to hear everyone that was part of their platform [speak out], saying, “I'm a part of Circles.” “I volunteer with Circles.” “Yeah, I'm a Circles Ally.” They're really vested.
What are some other issues that the Palm Beach County chapter is looking forward to tackling in 2025?
KB: Transportation is key here. Everything is so spread out. The bus system does not run; it's not friendly to those who don’t have a car. A bus is just not convenient for families that have got children. So we had the Commissioners do proclamations deeming a Poverty Awareness Week. And that week, we [issued] a snap challenge: Eat off of $6.50. But more importantly, we took public transportation along with some of our partners. We went north and south, then east and west, really giving individuals an opportunity to see what it was like, that it's not easy. To be honest, I had never been on public transportation. We interviewed people along the way on social media, so everyone was making comments [that revealed how] people just don't know the struggle that families are going through. Now we're looking into funding for those individuals [for] little taxis—sort of like an Uber, if you will—an open vehicle that can take people to medical appointments, get them to job interviews, drop them off to work. They can call and order it, and it's free within local cities. We're trying to explore the best way until we can reform Palm Trend, which is the major bus line. But what can we do in the meantime to help our families get around safely? Transportation, the Cliff Effect, and housing are paramount in Palm Beach County. Because there is none.
Is rural commuting a factor in your chapter’s transportation issues?
KB: Yes, it is. The Glades, Belglade, Pahokee—is [among] the poorest parts of West Palm Beach. It's our farm workers. So, you know, they're very transient because they're moving wherever they can go. There’s nothing out there for them if they can’t get a job. Even if we take Circles there, they still have to come to the coast in order to find viable employment that would help them to move their families along. The bus does run there, but the timing of it…it's just not that great. One of the biggest concerns is if they are on the bus and there's a medical emergency. Let's say the kids are sick. Now you’ve got to try to readjust, get off, catch the next bus. There's a lot of opportunities [to grow] the transportation here in Palm Beach County.
That's a lot of work. It sounds like Circles Palm Beach County is very much a service hub that you’re all running.
KB: We are a service hub, we're just always tackling. We never stop. I would say we're serving about 200 Circle Leaders and families annually. We have those that have graduated. We usually graduate about four classes a year. Each class has roughly 17 to 20 individuals that are graduating. And then we service those that have graduated with our weekly meetings. And it's a lot.
Part of what we've had to add is case management. We now have a Circles case manager who is dedicated to connecting individuals with services and addressing those immediate needs. We hired someone to do data, because we have to be able to track it and then be able to tell the story with the data to the funders. That's the only way we're going to be able to continue to fund this initiative and make it work. So we've got some outside people doing data, but we also have a full time person in house that is tracking the data for our Circle Leaders. We've got a lot of moving parts, but it works.
All this is part of a larger model called SOFI in Palm Beach County: that's the Securing Our Future Initiative. It’s spearheaded by Palm Beach County Community Services. Dr. James Green leads that model. And we have several programs that work with SOFI. Circles is the only model that actually tracks those clients beyond one year. So we're the only one that has this three-year tracking mechanism in place, which means that we're able to let people know what's happening beyond 12 months with these clients. Our data is important to the overall Palm Beach County comprehensive plan to reduce poverty by 10% over the next 10 years.
Do you have some hard-working chapter members, local leaders, and valuable partners that you would like to shout out?
RD: There are lots of them! We have a volunteer with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), their director—he is a great friend of ours and one of our partners. Genesis Health Center. We also partner with the Boynton Beach Coalition-Clergy, an organization that I serve as the founder and President, who are local pastors in Palm Beach County. Men of Vision and Purpose (MVP) is a group of men that go around to the different schools and read to our youth. They take them out once a month to breakfast and serve as mentors. A lot of them are retired professionals in various fields across the county. Who are we missing?
KB: Those are all really paramount. A lot of our success is because we partner with the BRIDGES programs. BRIDGES is a place-based strategy funded by the Children's Services Council here in Palm Beach County. There are 10 BRIDGES sites all throughout the county and out west in the Glades. These are individuals who have built relationships in these communities for 14 years; they know who the [people there] are. That is our recruitment arm to BRIDGES. They've already got individuals who are engaged, that are learning about parenting, that are learning about reducing child abuse and neglect, engaging in the school system. Now what Circles can do is come in, to begin to look at the economic mobility so we can make sure that they're able to come out of poverty and change the landscape. Because as long as they're staying on the receiving end, nothing changes. We're trying to change that and have our Circle Leader graduates from years ago come back and be Allies, to speak about what's been successful for them.
Finally, we're cultivating a partnership with the foundation Shared Futures out of Delray Beach. The head of this family foundation has been exploring giving guaranteed income to some individuals, yet they have no data. They don't know if it's working. Now they want to partner with Circles, because we have infrastructure in place to take a segment of our Circle Leader graduates and give them that guaranteed income of $500 a month. Let's just give them this money for a year. And then what happens? Do they open businesses? We don't know what it's going to look like. We have not given guaranteed income to any of our Circle Leaders yet. This will be a first for us in Palm Beach County.
We just love Lynette [Fields, Executive Director, Poverty Solutions Group] and the work that they're doing, and we look for ways for us to work together. When Children's Week comes, we'll meet up again in Tallahassee to get some things going. Pastor Dames knows all of the politicians, so we definitely capitalize on those situations to get in the door, to get our message out.
And this year, one of our former senators—who is now the County Commissioner—is working with us on our application for appropriations. We're in the exploration phases of some partnerships, so I'm really looking forward to what's going to come out of these great opportunities!
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