Since 2021, first as a volunteer, Mae Mims has given her expertise, passion, and hard work to Asheville Poverty Initiative’s Realty of Poverty Education Program, leading as coordinator and, as the role demanded, innovator and champion. Education about the reality of poverty requires a kind of teaching and learning that is first-hand, immediate and rooted in lived experience. Both crucial and difficult to understand, Mae embraced the challenges of poverty education with empathy, fully understanding the stakes and navigating them with grace, including the weight our amazing poverty educators are asked to hold in sharing their stories, and the impact their stories have on the lived realities of all of our unhoused and marginalized neighbors, building a bridge to understanding.

Ben will be stepping down from his role as executive director of Asheville poverty initiative as of Aug 2026