Breaking
generational poverty
with Jesus
I G N I T E C O M M U N I T Y S O L U T I O N S
BY JENNIE ROSIO
B E A CON E D I TO R Clarence’s first time to
A manager might terminate
you from a job. Coworkers’
gossip might ruin a career.
But your calling? No one can
fire you from your calling.
Clarence Lowe, Founder of Ignite
Community Solutions, believes this
“life calling” is the seed that can grow
hope in the barren landscape of generational
poverty.
How? When a young man’s
great-grandfather, grandfather and
father have all suffered from abject
poverty, how can he then find this
seed, this calling? How does he find
purpose so compelling he’ll risk
anything to pursue it? Does he glimpse
writing in the sky? Crack a fortune
cookie? Hear a voice?
Clarence is no stranger to big life
questions. He’s the CEO and Co-founder
of Star Force, a full-service provider
of innovative workforce empowerment
solutions to government, businesses,
and academic institutions. For eight
years, he’s consulted across the table
with people whose get up and go has
gotten up and gone. Before that, at
Randstad, a staffing and recruiting
agency, he oversaw daily operations of
six site locations, with an internal staff
of 15 personnel and a temporary work
force of approximately 1,850.
Nine months ago, at the urging of
some clients and friends, Clarence
officially created a nonprofit called
“Ignite.” Through Ignite, those who
battle wellness issues, ex-offenders,
at-risk youth and low income individuals
tackle the big life questions. The
secret? “Change Your Mind, Change
Your Life” workshops, which Clarence
crafted over the last decade while at
the helm of Star Force. They’ve been
received so well that third-party evaluations
rank the rate of attendees’
improvement levels well into the 80th
and 90th percentiles.
The fuel for Ignite began in 2011,
when Clarence and his partner, Patricia
Vasquez, had just begun the Star
witness this hopelessness
was during his growingup
years in New York’s
Bed-Stuy neighborhood,
a three-square-footsquare
mile hotbed of
murders and assaults. “I
saw constant robberies,
lots of gangs. Most of my
friends wound up in jail
or on drugs. Very few
people escaped.” Clarence did escape,
however. For one, he says, he grew up with
both a mom and a dad who stayed together.
Also, after enlisting in the U.S. Air Force (at
the tender age of 17), he found his own
newfound sense of purpose.
“It was a really powerful conversion,” he
says, describing the night he prayed a
simple but desperate prayer, asking God to
reveal Himself. “I went from being this shy
guy in Brooklyn to this person who just
went everywhere telling people about
Jesus. That was my sole reason for being.”
Even Clarence’s constant stuttering —
which had plagued his entire
boyhood — ceased.
Clarence Lowe, Founder of
Ignite Community Solutions
9 www.saBeacon.com August / September 2019
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