Organizations gather to look at ways to improve quality of life for West Tennesseans

JACKSON, Tenn. — Community members and organizations gather to talk about ways to improve quality of life in West Tennessee.

It’s a collaborative effort between the City of Jackson, Area Relief Ministries, United Way of West Tennessee and the Southwest Council on Children and Youth. The two-day event focuses on challenges that residents in the community face, and how to create proper pathways to overcome the obstacles. Some of them include increasing flexibility in the workplace.

In Tuesday’s discussion, panelists made references to ‘ALICE workers’ or the working poor.

“What the data reveals is that’s over 50% of the population here in West Tennessee, even here in Jackson, where we have higher income levels, typically speaking, as compared to other parts of the region but yet 51% of the population is still struggling,” said Matt Marshall, president and CEO of United Way of West Tennessee.

Some panelists spoke about workers who may not have transportation or childcare, but are still expected to get to work, pay bills and feed their family.

“When we think about poverty in particular and those, again, that we call ALICE — the working poor, they makeup over 50% of our population. And so we are consistently trying to make sure that we tell that story, communicate that story to people all across our community just so they are aware of the needs and so that they understand it’s every person that they meet that’s just trying to make ends meet,” said Marshall.

Marshall shares why talking about these topics is important.

“We have to have events like this to help discover what our solutions are and bringing people together in a roundtable; leaders from all across the community. Folks who work in the non-profit space, in the for-profit space, in government, etc. To all work together to come up with common solutions for our community,” said Marshal.

The roundtable discussions continue Wednesday morning at the Doubletree Hotel. Breakfast begins at 7:30 and the discussion will be held from 8 a.m. until 12 p.m.

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