Dierdre Mauss

Dierdre Mauss, who everyone calls Dee, is 63. She is a native of New Orleans and has been married to Bob for 25 years. She is an ATD Fourth World Volunteer Corps member and has been a member of the ATD Fourth World Board of Directors since 2006, serving currently as Vice Chair. She is also a member of the Racism & Poverty Discussions Steering Committee. 

She answered the following questions on December 7, 2021.

 

How did you meet ATD Fourth World?

The first time I met ATD Fourth World was in 1981, when the community I had been living with, Caritas, a religious lay group in Covington, Louisiana, sent me to visit the ATD team in New York for the summer. It was a more diverse community than the women of Caritas, yet there was a common spirit. We rotated responsibility for cooking and cleaning. We made contributions to a common purse which was used for shopping. We worked as a team to prepare for the Street Libraries after which we took time to write about our experiences. 

When I was living with Caritas again, after I graduated from college, ATD Fourth World Volunteer Corps members came to Louisiana to share in the work of Caritas. Then in 1987, Ingrid Hutter, one of the Volunteer Corps members, invited me back home to bring ATD Fourth World to New Orleans. 

What have you done with ATD Fourth World? 

While I lived in community with ATD Fourth World in New Orleans, I again participated in Street Libraries as well as family gatherings, and study groups reflecting on the writings of ATD Fourth World and Father Joseph [Wresinski, its founder] with others, including Bob whom I later married. Later Bob and I participated in supporters meetings, sometimes hosting the meetings in our home. Our living room was filled with supporters. It was really nice, sitting around the table preparing for October 17th, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. 

We all had a strong desire to meet, and work together with, people with experiences of poverty. So one of the Volunteer Corps members set up a “stoop talk” to have some conversations about everyday life experiences. We loved it. Every time. We met a wonderful family and their friends, all people ATD had met in the same neighborhood. So they knew each other well. Bob and I were the strangers. 

They welcomed us. We talked very openly and freely about everyday experiences. I learned so much every time. I learned that there were things I had taken for granted that I thought everybody experienced the same way. Simple things. We all had worked as children. But there were other things, like vacations, thinking everybody went on vacation of some sort. It’s not so. I learned a lot of things. I always walked away feeling so appreciative of what they would share with me. For example, I used to see these kids standing at the corner asking, “Can I help you with your groceries?” Or I’d see kids on the corner with squeegees. I walked away from those meetings with a whole new way of looking at what those children were doing. They were trying to earn money for school clothes, trying to contribute. 

That particular experience led us to meet around poverty as violence, and a few more people entered the group. I really enjoyed that. Then we went to England and we stayed with different families. From there we went to France for the Poverty is Violence conference.  

I felt such a connection and closeness by then to the people I was getting to know here in New Orleans. I think all of us still feel some nostalgia. It’s over, they are gone, it’s not the same, they dispersed to different parts of the country, a major reason because of Katrina. 

I became a full-time Volunteer Corps member in 2012. Before that was the writing of Not Meant to Live Like This. I helped by typing up things that people said, people’s testimonies, and interviewed somebody in preparation for going to Atlanta. I was enjoying it. And I said I really wanted to be part of this full-time. That’s when I became a Volunteer Corps member.

Why did (and do) you decide to work with ATD Fourth World?

I looked at all the things I’ve done in my life. I’ve had so many different jobs. I did all these things, and still didn’t feel fulfilled. I got called back to a job where I could get more money and get to travel, be a caseworker again. But when I was a caseworker, I was aware that there were people who were so far behind that they would need a lot of support to reach their educational or financial goals and that it still might not be enough to complete their GED or to receive financial assistance. The road would be much longer. 

There were people I knew would continue to struggle and I longed to accompany them, but the interactions ended after a few visits because there were more cases ahead. I always wondered about some of them and could imagine them as friends. I didn’t like having the appearance of having power that I didn’t have. I couldn’t give something, couldn’t make a difference and had people constantly disappointed because they couldn’t budget what they didn’t have. I was hoping to be able to build something with people with experiences of poverty, to not be on the other side of the desk, to do something side by side. As a Volunteer Corps member, I am free to develop these kinds of relationships with people who mutually want to accompany me.

I was wanting to build a community with people with experience of poverty at the forefront and others. In some of the October 17th gatherings that we had and the early stoop talks, people with experiences of poverty were the lifeblood. When they were there, there was something powerful in the room, something meaningful, something that they carried with them that was attractive. There was something attractive about meeting people who had different experiences, who had something to teach me about myself, about society, about themselves and about what they struggled with. The dream was to eradicate poverty.

What has been transformative? How have your and/or your life changed?

The most transformative thing for me was seeing that some people who are living with the least resources have such generous hearts and yet are looked upon with suspicion and fear. I ask myself, “Am I living simply enough or am I selfish? Am I welcoming or fearful?”

Another transformative thing was seeing the isolation of poverty. I have attended a few birthday parties where I was one of two or three guests.  I regret the other parties I did not attend. Community is so important to people that they notice if you are not there, and your presence is missed even if you don’t think it could be possible.

What I wrote about Being Present is about what was transformative. 

What are the highlights of your work with ATD Fourth World? What are/were the most important/favorite projects you’ve worked on?

How do you share your work with ATD Fourth World with other people? 

One indirect way I do it, if there is a conversation that we are having, and something is appropriate, I will share as best as I can, from the perspective of my work with ATD Fourth World, how I feel about the conversation we are having. If I hear somebody saying negative things about people with experiences of poverty, it could be different topics, I’ll say my thoughts on what’s being talked about. I may or may not say “ATD Fourth World.” I try to be an advocate for people who are misunderstood. 

What are you looking forward to being part of next with ATD Fourth World? 

I am looking forward to how we can clarify, and not only for ourselves but for others, the connection between racism and poverty, because these issues are not always in the same room. People talk about racism. People talk about poverty. I’m happy that we’re talking about them both together and that we are still working on that. I look forward to our being able to bring the two together. I look forward to a time when people will be able to not say, “it’s racism” or “no, it’s poverty,” but people will be able to say “it’s racism and poverty.” We both have the answer. We don’t need to fight about whether it’s racism or it’s poverty. It’s both and. And here’s how.