When I moved down here from North Carolina I was quite scared. My neighbor was very welcoming. She would always check on me and helped arrange my house. Now 10 years later were married with a child. Maybe I should’ve just moved down here way before then.

Came here from Lantana and lived here since 1970. Ran service desks in Lantana, but business became difficult and would have to borrow money to keep it running. Didn’t want to do that. Had two small kids to support and be around. Came out here quite by accident. Called out to a mechanic job in the area he found in the newspaper. Discovered Pahokee when he came down, and decided to move the whole family here. When he came down here, someone helped him out to pay off his dying business. He was lucky. Started working here, and living in a trailer. A lot of Jim Crow here, and he grew up in the North. He was a stranger to this. Did various jobs here. Father left home when he was 7. This experience made him determined to be a part of his kids lives.

In 2011, child poverty reached record high levels, with 16.7 million children living in food insecure households, about 35% more than 2007 levels.A 2013 UNICEF report ranked the U.S. as having the second highest relative child poverty rates in the developed world.According to a 2016 study by the Urban Institute, teenagers in low income communities are often forced to join gangs, save school lunches, sell drugs or exchange sexual favors because they cannot afford food.

My neighborhood is good and quiet so one day I was very sick and I fell and so I’m screaming until my neighbors came and they helped me up to the hospital and they moved but I was always talking on him and then I used to meet up places and we always had fun and talked

an important moment my interviwees life was. a time back about 10 years ago when she was driving down the street and then out of nowhere her car broke down now this was late at and she says that she was going to walk to a gas station to get gas and when she was walking a group of boys was walking and she was walking for a good while and noticed that they were following her so she decided to cross the street and walk on the other side and thet crossed also, then the group stsrted running after her and she began to run as fast a she could. sne says they caught up with her and started to take her stuff she had a purse and other stuff but she felt they wanted her watch. she was able to slip out and keep running she ran into a yard and banged on the window the boys all ran and she left. she was able to get her gas and safely make it back to her car.

An important day in my life was when I first got out of prison Life wasn’t always great for me and it wasn’t always good but when I went down that bad road and had the wrong friends I was in and out of jail I was selling drugs Things was just bad for me don’t need you guys making the same mistake I made