After 9/11, Dr. Pamela Cantor was asked to assist in a study on the psychological effects of the attack on New York City’s elementary school students. According to Dr. Cantor, who had spent nearly two decades working as a child psychologist, the study had profound implications. The results, she says, suggested that growing up in poverty had a greater impact on a child’s psyche than the events of 9/11 had. Dr. Cantor felt compelled to look more closely at the relationship between poverty and a child’s psychology, and her research ultimately inspired her to found Turnaround for Children, a nonprofit that works within schools to make them a healthier learning environment for their impoverished students.
Since the original publication of this story, Dr. Pamela Cantor has become a NationSwell Council member.
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Tag: helping underserved kids
When His City’s Transit Service Stalled, One Man Built His Own Bus Company
In 2012, Andy Didorosi bought a few buses on a whim. He owned an asset management company at the time and didn’t know exactly how he was going to use them. But the following year, the Skillman Foundation, a Detroit-based education nonprofit, approached him with funding and a need: help kids get to much-needed after-school programs in neighborhoods with very few public transit options. “I launched the Detroit Bus Company to work on transit gaps in the city of Detroit,” Didorosi says. “It’s like an insurmountable issue that we’re working to hopefully solve.” Today his company picks up hundreds of kids in six underserved neighborhoods across the city and takes them to their activities.