Evelyn Dortch

      My name is Evelyn Dortch and I am the Executive Director of Direct Action Welfare Group. Many people who meet me wonder why I decided to form a welfare rights organization. When they ask me, I tell them proudly that I myself was once a welfare mother. There is no shame in admitting that I needed help. There is no shame in admitting that the only way I could leave a very abusive husband and care for my four children was to go on welfare.
      When I was seven months pregnant with my fourth child, I finally built up the courage to leave the state and leave my husband. It was the best decision I have ever made. In order to make it in our new home, I applied for welfare and moved into the projects. When my youngest daughter turned two, I found a job working 16 hour shifts for a bit more then minimum wage. After a year and a half, I knew that I couldn’t continue working long hours and still not be able to provide for my children. I was working but still had to rely on food stamps to feed my children. Their father has never paid child support. While working, I met an amazing woman who told me I could go to college and helped me through the admissions process.
      I went back on welfare and went to college. I was 28-years-old and had not set foot in a classroom in years. I was really scared my first semester until I received my grades and they were straight A’s. I knew I had made the right decision. I was proud and my children were proud. When people would ask my children what they were going to do when they grew up, they would say “Go to college, of course.” I was becoming a strong, independent woman and I knew everything was finally going to be all right. I was on welfare and I wasn’t ashamed to admit it. I used the system to enable myself to make a better life for me and my children until “welfare reform” went into effect in 1987.
      My senior year of college I was called into the welfare office in Charleston, West Virginia, and was told that if I wanted to continue to receive social service assistance that I would have to quit school and go to work. My caseworker suggested that I apply for work at McDonald’s. I refused to quit school and take a minimum wage position without benefits; as a result, I lost my assistance. I finished my last year of college with the help of my friends and family. It was a struggle, but in the end it was worth it. In May of 2000, I graduated from West Virginia State College at the top of my class, magna cum laude with a Bachelors Degree in Social Work. I now have a job that I love and make enough to support myself and my children.
      Many women were not as lucky as me. They were forced to quit school because they did not have the financial support they needed to complete their education. That is why I formed the Direct Action Welfare Group and that is why I fight for the right of people living in poverty to be heard. Education was truly my family’s ticket out of poverty and is why it is so important that other women like me have access to education and the supports needed to complete their education

Photo Exhibit

A nationally touring exhibit of 50 framed, museum quality, color photographs coupled with narratives created by students who are welfare eligible, single parents changing their lives through the pathway of higher education.  The installation presents a unique view of poverty from insiders’ perspectives and reframes the cultural (de)valuations of poor single parents vis-à-vis family, work and higher education in the United States today. View the Gallery Guide.