Why are people so resistant to immigrants? After all, studies have shown that immigrants stabilize neighborhoods, and their presence correlates with a reduction of crime. Additionally, they are more than twice as likely to start their own business as people born in the United States, according to a study by the University of North Carolina. And a study in Michigan by the Immigration Policy Center suggested immigrants are six times more likely to start high-tech companies than native-born people are.
All of this is why Michigan’s governor Rick Snyder believes that an influx of talented immigrants could help reinvigorate his state. So he asked the federal government if Michigan could create its own visa program for immigrants who have the means to invest $500,000 to $1 million in starting job-creating businesses.
In April, the federal government approved the plan. Snyder told of Gary Heinlein of the Detroit News that the move is “an important step in helping harness top talent and international direct investment into the state to continue and accelerate Michigan’s comeback. Our state needs outstanding talent to help drive the new economy. Immigrants are net job creators.”
Michigan will open a regional center for EB-5 visas, an “immigrant investor” program that was implemented with the 1990 immigration act. Those who have a plan for a business that will employ 10 or more people in Michigan can apply for permanent residence. (Their family can also apply.) Projects that target areas with high unemployment will be have priority, and given that there 433 neighborhoods in the state with an unemployment rate one-and-a-half times greater than the national average, there are plenty of communities to choose from.
Snyder is putting a lot of energy behind his plan to welcome immigrants to Michigan to help his state economically. He’s also created a Michigan Office for New Americans, plus he delivered two other immigrant-related proposals during his State of the State speech in January. He’s hoping these new Americans will bring renewed energy and ideas that can return Michigan’s economy to its former powerhouse status.
MORE: Meet the CEO Who Wants to Bring 50,000 Immigrants to Detroit
Tag: the Midwest
What Happened When This World War II Vet’s Home Caught Fire?
If a burning hot fire suddenly engulfed your house, how would you recover from the disaster?
That’s the situation that World War II veteran Tom Porter faced last August when the kitchen of his house in Gregory, Michigan went up in flames. After hurrying outside in just a t-shirt and underwear, carrying tubes for his oxygen tank, Porter was left virtually possession-less from the fire that tore through his house. Porter, who served as a radio operator in the Army, didn’t have fire insurance on his home (which sat on a 25-acre farm), and he didn’t know how he was going to come up with enough money to rebuild.
That’s when his neighbors stepped in. The next morning, residents from all over Livingston County, Michigan began to arrive. They salvaged and cleaned what they could from the burned home, then set about rebuilding the property — all without being asked. “There were people working here that I’ve never seen,” Porter told Jim Totten of the Daily Press & Argus.
For five months, the community worked: Repairing Porter’s home, building a new kitchen, and making sure his appliances were code compliant. Many neighbors would stop by after they got off work in the evening to spend some time building, a fact that brings Porter’s daughter to tears when she recalls their efforts. The Home Depot donated some supplies, and when money ran low halfway through the rebuilding process, the Livingston County Department of Veterans Affairs chipped in $10,000.
In January, Porter moved from the trailer where he had been living temporarily into the refurbished home, where he hopes to live out his days, caring for his 20 cows. And yes, he purchased fire insurance.
Tom Porter’s grandson Jason Porter said the community effort rekindled his belief in human kindness, which had wavered. “I totally changed my mind about people,” Jason said. “The community coming together. I cannot express how I feel about the community; it’s beyond words. It was unreal.”
But that outpouring of generosity was real — and Tom Porter has a brand new kitchen to prove it.
MORE: These Veterans Rallied to Save A Fellow Vet from the Cold
Are Cars the Key to Single Mothers Achieving Self-Sufficiency?
Molly Cantrell-Kraig knows what it’s like to be a single mom. Twenty-five years ago, she was on welfare and was without reliable transportation to school and work. As a result, she struggled to find a way to get to her college classes. But by accepting rides from friends whenever they were available (even if it meant she had to arrive hours before her classes), she graduated, found a job, and raised three daughters.
If that wasn’t enough accomplishments, she also launched the Women With Drive Foundation, which provides low-income mothers with cars in exchange for participation in activities that will put them on the road to self-sufficiency, such as earning a G.E.D., taking financial literacy courses, and receiving job counseling.
The nonprofit’s website notes, “A coalition of businesses called the Welfare to Work Partnership found that the most significant barrier to employment for their employees was transportation.” In other words, a car can iterally be the key to a single mom finding and keeping a job.
To identify women who are struggling with transportation, Cantrell-Kraig contacts social service organizations . Together, they craft a two-year plan with monthly check-ins to help the woman become self-sufficient and earn a car. “We don’t give out free cars,” Cantrell-Kraig told Emanuella Grinberg of CNN. “We ask for two years of your life.”
MORE: Here’s Why We Should be Investing in Single Moms
One Little School on the Prairie Has Big Achievements
Money can’t buy you brains. And it can’t purchase you good grades, either. But just because you’re lacking financial resources doesn’t mean that you can’t achieve academic success.
The rural community of Grand Island, Nebraska is populated with many families that live below the poverty line; they make their living packing meat, processing potatoes into French fries, and working at fast-food restaurants. At the town’s Wasmer Elementary School, there are twice as many Latino students as white, and 86 percent of the kids live in poverty. Based upon this, statistics would normally suggest that the school’s standardized test scores wouldn’t be so hot.
But astonishingly, Wasmer Elementary K-5 students score as high as children enrolled at the most affluent schools in the state, with 91 percent of kids achieving math proficiency and 87 percent reading proficiently — thanks to the concerted effort of their teachers, principal, and staff.
Principal Betty Desaire told Joe Dejka of the Omaha World Herald that there isn’t any magic formula to the school’s achievements, which come from a combination of high expectations, focusing on each child’s needs, and emphasizing the importance of testing and learning math facts. Additionally, the school holds students accountable for completing homework, and itinvolves everyone in the school — including the lunchroom staff and the janitors — in making sure the kids succeed. Wasmer is so in tune with her students’ needs that at the school carnival last year, the most popular prize the PTA offered was a new bed, because some kids don’t have a proper place to sleep.
“Betty Desaire and the school staff, they just get it, so much,” Wasmer PTA member Tracy Overstreet Gartner told Dejka, “And they are focusing on each kid individually. It’s incredible. They make it a team effort. … I get emotional about this because it’s so great.” For its achievements, in 2013 Wasmer Elementary School was named a Title I Distinguished School along with 45 other high-poverty schools across the United States.
Principal Desaire is due to retire at the end of the year, but everyone believes that the system she put in place will continue to help Wasmer’s students beat expectations for years to come.
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Meet the Scientist Who Teaches Neuroscience With a Toy Cockroach
It goes without saying that most kids think bugs are cool. After all, there’s a reason why ant farms and insect jars have been popular toys for several generations now. Michigan’s Greg Gage is hoping to capitalize on this fasciation with bugs in order to spark a brain science revolution.
After a first career in electrical engineering, Gage fell in love with neuroscience and now he wants to share his enthusiasm with kids. While Gage was earning his Ph.D. in neuroscience at the University of Michigan, he and fellow student Tim Marzullo gave lessons about the brain to kids at nearby inner-city schools. “But it was never quite as cool as what we were doing in our labs,” Gage told Melissa Pandika of Ozy magazine.
So they started to build a machine that would allow students to record when the neurons of insects experienced a voltage spike, sending an electrical impulse to communicate the desire to move a leg, for example. Gage and Marzullo set a goal to only spend $100 and use materials available at hardware stores to build their SpikerBox. Even when the original prototype failed, it generated enough interest that they garnered sufficient donations to continue their quest.
The eventual result — dubbed Backyard Brains — offers a variety of kits and tools for kids to launch their own neuroscience investigations, including the EMG SpikerBox that amplifies the “hidden messages” of the user’s nervous system, and the Roboroach, a kit of tools that allows the user to attach electronics to a roach to briefly control its movements through the microstimulation of its neurons. (The Roboroach is based on a current treatment for Parkinson’s disease.) Backyard Brains also hosts workshops to teach kids how to build their own SpikerBoxes.
The Backyard Brains website outlines the mission behind these products: “The brain is complex, but extremely fascinating. We need more people interested in studying the brain because 20% of the world will have a neurological disorder…and there are no cures!” Gage told Pandika. “I want to find extremely smart people who typically decide ‘I want to be a doctor’ or ‘I want to go to Wall Street.’ We’re hoping to start a neuro-revolution.”
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These Veterans Rallied to Save a Fellow Vet From the Cold
With sub-zero temperatures and snowstorm after snowstorm, this polar vortex-fueled winter has been a rough one for much of the country. But especially for those who can’t afford to heat their homes.
The frosty situation of a 92-year-old Pembine, Wisconsin resident who was a World War II veteran was especially dire. When the Fox Valley Veterans Council learned of that the vet who served in Iwo Jima was in danger of running out of the propane he uses to heat his home, they took immediate action. Iraq veteran Sandra Meyer, who works with Fox Valley Veterans Council, told Jim Collar of PostCresent.com that the man didn’t want to leave his home. “He wouldn’t have had propane to last him through the night. He knew very well if he left his home, he wouldn’t have a home to come back to.”
The Fox Valley Veterans Council maintains an emergency fund to assist veterans in dire need, such as those who can’t pay for their rent. When Meyer told the others on the council about the World War II vet’s plight, they considered seeking federal assistance for him. Their resources have been so tapped this year that they’ve had to turn away a few vets seeking money to fix burst frozen pipes. But the council worried the elderly man would freeze to death while they waited for the paperwork to be processed, so the members voted in favor of using funds to buy propane.
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In less than a day, they secured the fuel and delivered it to the vet — despite the fact that the propane ended up costing more than they expected. To make up the difference, individual veterans contributed out of their own pockets. “There was no way to say no,” Council President Jim Strong told Collar. “It was duty driven by love.”
If you’re looking to help someone, consider donating to The Fox Valley Veterans Council, which needs help refilling its coffers so it can provide assistance the next time a veteran is left in the cold.
MORE: An 87-Year-Old World War II Vet Made A Promise at 19 to Help Someone Every Day
Meet the Man Who’s Putting Dry Socks on the Feet of the Homeless
Tom McNamara knows the importance of listening. So much so that he’s decided to spend his golden years listening to complete strangers from coast to coast. And while he does that, he’s going to outfit their feet, too.
As a special needs teacher in Illinois, McNamara spent his entire career listening to people that few others paid attention to. When he retired two years ago, he wanted to keep making a difference in people’s lives: “I wanted to continue doing something, but I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do,” he told David Karas of the Christian Science Monitor. “I bought some socks and handed them out in my local area, and I got a fabulous response.”
That simple act determined McNamara’s future plans. He sold his house, bought an RV, and embarked on a cross-country mission to deliver new socks to homeless people, while also drawing attention to their plight and serving as a sympathetic listener to them. Living off of his retirement funds, he’s already given out 4,000 pairs of socks in 17 states and doesn’t have any plans for stopping. He raises some money for the footwear from friends through a GoFundMe account and makes impromptu negotiations with store managers for bulk discounts as well.
“My goal is to draw attention to the homeless, to have people realize that they are human beings [who] want to have conversations with us,” he told Karas. “They want to feel like they are in the same place as you are, and that’s why I do it in a traveling mode.”
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His Family Lost Its Farm. Now He’s Making Sure No One Else in His Community Suffers the Same Fate
Farmers can’t take sick leave, so when an emergency comes up, they’re sometimes in danger of losing a year’s crop, putting their entire livelihood in jeopardy. That’s when Farm Rescue steps in. Farm Rescue’s founder Bill Gross worked as a pilot before returning home to North Dakota, where his family had lost the farm he grew up on after a financial setback. In 2005 he started the nonprofit to provide help to farmer’s struggling with illness or natural disaster.
Farm Rescue has helped 250 families in North Dakota, South Dakota, eastern Montana, Minnesota and Iowa. The non-profit provides donated equipment and organizes its over 700 volunteers to make use of the seed, fertilizer, and fuel the families provide. Families can contact Farm Rescue for help, but half of the time concerned farmers hear about a neighbor’s troubles and anonymously recommend them for help. “We provide the equipment and manpower, and we get it done for them,” Goss told David Karas of the Christian Science Monitor. “We are basically a big, mobile farming operation.”
“We are helping to make it more likely for future generations of family farms to be able to continue,” Goss told Karas. “That is what I actually find the most satisfying.”
MORE: This Partnership Encourages Vets to Become Farmers
All These 10-Year-Olds Wanted for Their Birthdays Was to Help Vets
In Waukesha, Wisc., Mary Poblocki, Adrianna Alberts, and their friend Megan were turning 10 and knew just how to celebrate. “We don’t really need that much presents,” Mary told Yona Gavino of TMJ4. Instead, the girls asked for donations to the Veterans Employment Alliance (VEA).
Megan had the idea because both of her parents are veterans. Her mom Kathleen is proud of her daughter and her friends. “It tells me that I’m doing the right thing. It tells me that retiring from the service to be a full-time mom was the right decision,” she told Gavino.
CJ Brown of the VEA, a formerly homeless vet, is thankful for the donations that will go toward helping veterans and keeping them off the street. “Well, it’s cold out there,” Brown said. “Many of them get sick. Some of them are dying on the streets.” Admirably, Megan and her friends want to change that.
MORE: Leave it To Teenagers to Find the Most Fun Way to Help Disabled Veterans
These Guys Just Walked 2,000 Miles to Help Other Vets
Five months ago veterans Anthony Anderson and Tom Voss set out on an epic trek from their homes in Wisconsin to Los Angeles to raise money for Dryhootch, a non-profit that helps veterans transition back into civilian life, and to increase awareness about the difficulties facing returning servicemen and women. On Saturday their community threw them a welcome home party at the Milwaukee County War Memorial.
Voss told Jesse Ritka of 620 WTMJ, “Neither of us really had any time to decompress after our deployments so the beginning idea was to take the time to work on yourself, better yourself by walking. Anderson and Voss’s beards grew long during the 2,000 mile walk, and blisters came and went, particularly during a footsore stretch in Iowa and Nebraska.
Anderson and Voss were aiming to raise $100,000, and finished $20,000 short of their goal, but are still accepting donations. And they’re still educating people about how everyone can help veterans. Anderson told Ritka, “Don’t watch the stories on the news and say well I’m informed now. Take that information and go out and do something with it. Try to change the lives of your neighbors, your friends, your co-workers because that’s where veterans are.”
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