Cairo in Alexander County receives support from Breaking the Cycle (Kathleen Hunt photo).

By Linda Norris Behrens

Messenger Staff

Alexander County is the southernmost county in Illinois. Pulaski County is adjacent to it. Both counties, located within the Diocese of Belleville, lead the list of the highest percentage of families below the poverty level in Illinois.

“Breaking the Cycle” is a business incubator and nonprofit that serves both Alexander and Pulaski counties. It’s one example of an organization trying to help the economic situation in that region.

Breaking the Cycle was one of the 2025 recipients of a Diocese of Belleville’s local Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) grant.

“CCHD funds local community-led initiatives that create new and just economic and community structures,” said Cheryl Sommer, CCHD committee chair for the diocese.

“Our diocese has the poorest counties in the state,” she said. “Our Catholic faith calls us to address both the immediate needs of those facing poverty and the systems that cause so much poverty.”

The collection for CCHD takes place Nov. 15-16 in the Diocese of Belleville. Local (diocesan) CCHD grants are given from the 25% of the CCHD collection that automatically stays in this diocese.

These CCHD grants serve as seed money to support fledgling economic and community development initiatives in the diocese so they can become established enough to qualify for larger CCHD grants on a national scale.

“Ultimately, the Belleville Diocese receives more back in national CCHD grants than is sent to the USCCB National Collections Office from the annual CCHD collection,” Sommer said.

Breaking the Cycle

Breaking the Cycle’s mission is to empower individuals and organizations, ultimately breaking cycles of violence, discrimination, disinvestment and poverty.

Through regional planning and strategies, its goal is to strengthen the alignment and effectiveness of local community, economic and climate support systems for Alexander and Pulaski counties.

“Breaking the Cycle, a business incubator, is a wonderful example of creating alternative economic systems,” Sommer said. “It supports local entrepreneurs who are operating or wanting to start microbusinesses, viable businesses that could impact their communities.”

Breaking the Cycle focuses on economic development in cities like Cairo and Mounds, in deep southern Illinois.

“If you are in a city that is completely disadvantaged, there is no way to start a business,” said Patricia Wilson, former interim executive director of Breaking the Cycle and current program manager. “If there is no way to find a job, no way for the community to help and the government is unable to do anything to help
them, then it is almost impossible to get a leg up and better yourself.”

The program works on putting infrastructure in place for microbusinesses, such as salons, day cares, and construction and cleaning companies.

“People don’t usually have trouble coming up with the business,” Wilson said. “They struggle with operating the business.”

“We help them with business registration, understanding compliance rules, legal contacts, all those things to unsure their business is established,” she said.

With the CCHD grant funding, they will be able to provide a virtual shared office assistant for these small businesses that can’t afford office staff to do project tracking, graphic design, answer phones — the basic tasks a business owner needs to be successful and to grow.

“If we receive a national CCHD grant,” Wilson said, “we want to build an incubator, a physical space to provide office space for many microbusinesses.

“With this type of support, we can make a difference in people’s lives,” she added.

“I’m excited by what we are doing,” Wilson said. “The thing about the diocese funding that we think is really important, we have been able to do some of this pilot work that we wouldn’t have been able to do without it.

“I’m enjoying the partnership,” she said. “It’s been a blessing to us.”

For more information about Breaking the Cycle, visit www.brkcycle.org.

For more information on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, visit www.diobelle.org/propagation-of-the-faith.