Sometimes a community service is so obviously needed that the community’s leaders don’t take time to evaluate the need or consider ways to improve the service.

That no longer can be said about anti-poverty efforts in Butler County. The United Way of Butler County conducted its second annual poverty summit Nov. 21 at the Crossfire campus of Butler First United Methodist Church, in Center Township. More than 100 leaders from public schools, nonprofit and county organizations and churches attended the day-long summit, intent on effectively helping impoverished families without causing harm or impeding their recovery.

The statistics alone are sobering: 5.8 percent of Butler County families live at or below the federal poverty line — income of $23,850 for a family of four. Single mothers with children under 5 are most affected, with 44 percent of them living below the poverty levels.

But the numbers tell only part of the story. Kierston Hobaugh, United Way director of results and performance, says many others live barely above that poverty threshold and are still struggling.

“We have 40 percent of families that live just on the edge,” Hobaugh said at the summit. “They’re living paycheck to paycheck. They’re living on the brink — that one crisis, one family illness, one car breaking down — any kind of emergency could tip them over that point where they’re now one of those families in poverty. That’s significant. That’s almost half of the families in Butler County.”

The United Way, its member agencies and churches are well aware of the widespread burden of poverty and near-poverty. So are the public schools and county human services departments. They all see poverty — and they wage combat with it — on a daily basis.

So it’s commendable that representatives from all these agencies get together and evaluate poverty as their common foe.

United Way Executive Director Leslie Osche says the objective should go beyond handouts. “I think there’s an opportunity to look at poverty statistically and look at it humanistically,” she said. “Is there a better way of implementing this?”

There’s a growing school of thought that handouts alone do more harm than good. Lisa Gill, director of serving at First United Methodist Church, says there are better long-term solutions. Like the biblical proverb of giving a fish to someone versus teaching someone to fish, “It’s helping them to see the consequences of poverty . . . and finding lasting solutions,” Gill said.

There’s a church example the agencies would do well to emulate: the concept of discipleship, which comes from the same Latin root as the word discipline, denotes one-on-one learning. Individuals who have worked themselves out of poverty know best what it takes to do so — along with the self-assurance and confidence that come with achievement.

The choices are simple: continuing to provide free meals, free food, free rent, free clothes and so on to the needy; or, providing guidance, instruction and accountability — in a word, discipleship — to neighbors who are capable and willing to do the work and improve.

There should be no question which model we should cultivate.