ACT Rochester delivered its annual Community Report Card today, and it shows the nine-county region trailing the state by 10 percent or more in three key areas: Financial Self-Sufficiency, the Arts, and Public Safety.
Director Ann Johnson says childhood poverty rates, which have risen four percentage points the last two years, is a culmination of many different issues.
She says ACT Rochester is working to change the culture of how our community uses data to solve that and other problems.
ACT Rochester Advisory Committee Chair Tom Argust adds that poverty is the number one issue facing this community, and not just economically speaking.
He says there's also a growing sense of poverty of the soul, of poverty of demoralization and a "poverty of thinking you don't have anything to live for, and that's dangerous."
Argust says it's ACT Rochester's hope that by providing the data, they can spur people of good will to get together and try to change things.
Around 200 people attended ACT Rochester's presentation of the Report Card, including students, business executives, and representatives from non-profit organizations, and the county, city and state.