Your Business Resource for Greenville Metro and Upstate South Carolina

Our Eyes Were Opened is helping Greenville see poverty in a new light.

Through the years of working both with individuals and groups who want to help people who live in poverty, as well with those who need help, Beth Lindsay Templeton has seen that people who truly want to make a difference sometimes make a bad situation worse, get angry at the people they want to help, or have no idea how to help. Our Eyes Were Opened, the poverty education program of United Ministries, helps clarify issues of poverty so that people can reach out with wisdom and compassion.

The program uses a variety of methods to help enlighten people who want to reach out to those who live in poverty. Our Eyes Were Opened offers a poverty simulation where in the space of a couple of hours a "family" lives through four weeks (fifteen minutes each) and interacts with grocers, employers, human service providers, mortgage company, pawn broker and other "vendors" to keep their family safe and healthy. Workshops titled "Loving Our Neighbor," "Servant or Sucker," and "Understanding Poverty in the Classroom" provide interactive learning modules that offer practical and sometimes surprising lessons for connecting head and heart when reaching out to help. A poverty tour of blighted neighborhoods demonstrates how close poverty is to our everyday lives. The program also provides books by Templeton (Loving Our Neighbor: A Thoughtful Approach to Helping People in Poverty and Understanding Poverty in the Classroom: Changing Perceptions for Student Success) as well as a five-part DVD series titled "Servant or Sucker" and a simulated job fair for teens titled "I Want to Work."

Program creator and director Beth Lindsay Templeton has worked for more than 28 years with people who live in poverty and with congregations, individuals and civic groups who want to help. As a nonprofit executive in Greenville and a Presbyterian minister, she brings broad experience and theological understanding to the lessons she shares in workshops, seminars and writing.

For more information, workshop fees, or to schedule an opportunity for your company or group to participate in a poverty education program, call 864-271-2965 or visit www.oureyeswereopened.org.