Your e-mails: How to break the trap of poverty

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(CNN) -- As part of an upcoming "CNN Presents" on poverty, CNN.com asked its readers to imagine they had $10 million dollars to give away to help end poverty.

Here is a selection of the responses, some of which have been edited.

Poverty can only be defeated through the growth of democratic institutions that respect individual rights.
Adam Sterling, Riverdale, New York

Education! By paying for secondary, or even primary, education, the cycle of poverty slows down greatly. It may even stop for those who obtain a degree, or the education needed to earn a viable income ... I grew up in the projects of the San Francisco Bay area, I knew my only hope was to become educated.
Candice Harris, Orlando, Florida

Your concept of a $10 million give- away is like spitting in the ocean and then watching for the water level to rise. In light of the size of the problem, it is better to select a small target and give them the resources to get out of poverty than to think and act in huge generalities that are too mind-boggling to be successful.
J. L. Sroufe, Sioux Falls, South Dakota

If I had $10 million to give away, I would personally set up a program to teach financial literacy. My program would have a series of training programs that would target the ages of 12 to adulthood. As a child, my parents never sat down and had a real talk about money and the proper thing to do with it.
Stephanie, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota

Poverty isn't just about the lack of finances. It is that coupled with lack of opportunity, lack of appropriate education and diminished hope. It's almost impossible to eradicate the cycle of poverty without first instilling hope, creating opportunities and, of course, education. If I had $10 million to pour into this cause, it would first be directed to fund the basic necessities -- food, clothing and shelter.
Allison Quamina, Haverstraw, New York

Poverty is a state of mind, as well as a financial condition. Ten million dollars would be put toward education programs for the poor. Education causes minds to open, motivation begins and we start to rise to new levels, lifting ourselves out of poverty.
Julio, Garden City, Kansas

Restart the U.S. draft for young adults...two years of mandatory duty, armed forces, government projects...They will learn as the Baby Boomers of today had to learn after World War II. Higher wages and better health care will come from their learning experiences.
Dwight Brown, Crystal River, Florida

I would establish a fund to help finance limited equity housing co-operatives for people with low incomes to own and operate.
Bill Carey, Missoula, Montana

I would open one center in every state in the United States. Each center would store good healthy food in packages to be distributed in the same manner as the Red Cross distributes. I would have each center communicate to all community-based organizations in the state to submit forms for families that need representation.
Pamela Goodman, Montclair, New Jersey

If I was in a position to give away $10 million dollars to break the poverty trap, I would make sure it would go to after-school programs in the inner cities. I feel that that a long-term federally funded after-school program would slowly but surely lower the crime rate in the inner cities of the United States
Robert Fasching, Arcadia, California

I would seek out the brightest 100 students or adults in the poverty trap and give each of them $100,000 with the promise -- and a contract -- to help as many in the same position as I found them... With a cycle of sharing and caring, we could easily make the United States a better place, not just to live, but a better place in the world as a country to imitate.
Adrian M. Ward Sr., Memphis, Tennessee

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