Recently Jennifer Garner went to Washington to testify about child poverty at a hearing for the House Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Subcommittee on behalf of the charity Save the Children
The actress, who shares three children with husband Ben Affleck, got emotional while testifying for more than 25 minutes at the House Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Subcommittee’s calling for more funding to help children in need.
“Mothers come up to me and say, ‘Can you help get my child into these programes? Can you just nudge us up in the wait-list? Is there anything you can do?”
“The thought that I would have to go back to these mothers and say, ‘Well, no, there is nothing that I can do.’ These families know what it is to have this intervention, and they know what they’re losing when it’s gone, and I’ll have to answer to it.”
Garner called for a “significant investment in high-quality childhood education, proven effective programs like Early Head Start, childcare development block grants, preschool development grants and home visitation models such as Save the Children’s Early Steps to School Success.”
“These children don’t vote, they don’t make political contributions, neither do their parents,” she said. “Somebody has to tell their story above all the noise. Poverty is silent, but I can’t be.”
