ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Rochester City Council held a hearing on childhood poverty Tuesday night. LaShay Harris, city council vice president, launched a childhood poverty initiative in September. Tuesday's meeting was among a series of hearings scheduled to talk about this topic as part of her initiative. "Together, and I mean together, we can make sure every child in the city has the best possible start in life," said Harris. As we reported earlier this year, the State Comptroller ranked Rochester no. 5 on the list of cities with the highest poverty rate. "We need more of our leaders that have businesses to start pouring more into our children and our families so we can start the healing process together, because if we don't start together to heal each other, it's never going to happen," said one of Tuesday's speakers. Young cancer survivor from Rochester area pushed down stands at Sunday’s Bills game In addition to this initiative, city council launched a survey in collaboration with the Children's Agenda to better understand the impact of childhood poverty in the community. That survey can be found here.