In Syracuse, New York, every day is the same for me. It takes me a half an hour to get out of my warm, comfy bed. I am surrounded by a sea of pillows, that leave me lying there. I hop in the shower, make some coffee and eat breakfast. I leave my door with a hot cup of coffee as I make my way to class. What I don’t notice is the middle-aged woman pushing a grocery cart next to me as I make my way to class. In it are jumbo garbage bags filled with cans and bottles. Her destination was a recycle center where she would be able to get five cents for every can or bottle she turned in.

I moved to Syracuse two years ago when I started my freshman year of college. It was here that I really saw poverty for the first time. Syracuse is one of the poorest cities in the United States. Half of the city’s child population is considered poor. Around downtown Syracuse, there are too many homeless shelters and resource center for those struggling. You hear horrible stories of people dying in the streets in the cold. The sad reality is that some of these resources don’t have enough to support the ever growing poverty in Syracuse.

Poverty is everywhere and this problem isn’t happening in just Syracuse. In Springfield, Massachusetts, men walk down the street with suitcases in their hands. They have just come from a shelter that had to kick them out for the day because they can’t stay open twenty four hours. I don’t have the answer to solving poverty. I don’t know how to even begin. But what I do know is that there is a problem in this country. People don’t get what they need because others can’t provide it. There is no opportunity to move forward. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Something’s got to change.