What happens when a bank executive, an attorney and a CHOC vice president eat only food from a South County Outreach pantry? Answer: Nothing

At this point, I have written extensively about my mere brush against the fear of possibly facing poverty during the economic crash.

We struggled for two years while my husband looked for work and we took care of our twin babies best we could while managing a house we could no longer afford. We used government programs to supplement our meager income until we could afford to get off.

But what we never did? What we never did was face poverty itself. Yes, there are many in the middle class who are experiencing very scary changes in their lives. They are needing assistance, they are swallowing massive debt, they are forced to sell off their belongings, they can no longer afford the lifestyles they once had, even though those lifestyles may not have been anything close to resembling lavish to begin with.

They are like us. Scared of the very real possibility of poverty, but not poor. Not poor.

Those who actually experience poverty exist in a world that the 'new poor' have yet to have to deal with. My mother grew up in a world where if one of the children lost the week's paycheck, her entire family didn't eat that week. So many of my friends have to choose between keeping the lights on or feeding themselves. Moms go without meals so they can clothe their children.

That is poverty. And that is not what I experienced. And it is certainly not what three high-powered families experienced when they agreed to eat nothing but food from a local food bank for three whole days.

The rules were simple. No grocery shopping. They must eat what they get from the pantry only. Except not, because they could supplement with whatever food they already had in their pantry.

This, like all "I witnessed the other side for a week" stories, is disgusting to me.

First, the operators of the food bank talk about how lucky these families were that there was so much fresh produce that particular week. They said sometimes there's not nearly so much good food available.

Which means that those rich families took fresh food, a rare and hard to come by delicacy, from people who are actually hungry. Not for three days, or months, but as a life.

Second, three days of pantry food plus food they already have in their homes is not 'seeing how the other side lives'. It's a voyeuristic vacation, swathed in privilege and entitlement. It's insulting to see an article that starts out with spoiled milk and talks about a child asking her friends to pack extra crackers in her lunch and being worried that people will judge her for her different school lunches. It's insulting not because those things didn't happen, or don't happen on a regular basis for those who are truly in need. It's not insulting because of its attempt to raise awareness amid those doing better in their lives. It's insulting because taking the time to write about a few well-off families and their experiment with poverty for a few days makes a mockery of the very real struggles other people are going through day in and day out throughout their entire lives. As if this experience would make any difference at all.

You know what would have made a difference? If those families had pledged to donate money or time to the food bank they utilized for this event. If they had campaigned for better programs to help those truly in need rather than just sit back and say, 'wow, all those people are right! Poverty sucks.' then wiped their brows in relief over the knowledge that they were successful enough on their own to afford milk whenever they want or need it.

As it stands now, this is just another embarrassing experiment in classism.

Poverty is Our Problem, Too

It was February in Connecticut.  The bitter winds blew over the snow, frozen into icy lumps so that even the force of the gales could not lift it.  Walking over it, my warm boots didn't even make a crunch.  My fingers were frozen; I was holding a microphone.  My lips were chapping and my eyes watering; I had to leave my face uncovered so that I could interview the various people who came my way.

They were lined up in tattered coats, wearing dirty threadbare turtlenecks three sizes too big.  Many pushed strollers ahead of them, little heads sticking out from beneath old blankets, staring wide-eyed into the early winter sunlight.

"Excuse me, miss," I said, "I was wondering if you had time to answer a few questions."

"No hablo ingles," she replied.

I turned to the next in line.

"Excuse me, sir, can you answer a few questions?"

Up ahead, the line shifted.  Another woman was at the front now, struggling to find her ID card with numb fingers sticking out from torn gloves.  Another woman was with her, attending to the carriage on her left with coos and pets.

"I'm sorry, miss," I heard from the door at which the woman was standing.  "We are all out of diapers, and this is our last jar of baby food.  You can have it.  I know it's not enough.  Why don't you try again next week."

The woman's shoulders slumped a little bit as she accepted her small bag of assorted groceries.  I managed to talk with her later.  She said she would make do with the oatmeal and pasta.  The baby could eat that.  She would get here even earlier next week (it was only 9:00 a.m.); the baby goods always ran out first.  She said people just didn't think about children living in poverty.  They'd prefer to pretend it didn't exist rather than help.  Homeless people in America, she said, were thought of as irresponsible burdens on society who'd gotten themselves into their own mess.  Since children don't fit into that definition, they were often overlooked.

"I may be poor, and completely out of luck," she said, "but I do what I can for my child, and she did nothing to deserve this."

She was soft-spoken and well-mannered.  She was kind and thoughtful.  She was struggling.  She was homeless.  Her daughter was beautiful.  They were both freezing, so I let them go on their way.

I was a reporter at the time; my assignment to interview people visiting the food pantry on this winter morning, to talk to the organizers of the pantry, to paint a picture for our viewers of the lack of resources in the area, to show them how much help was needed, to open their hearts.

And I, myself, was so lucky to be there.  Just months before, my husband had lost his job.  I had our twins two weeks later.  We had just bought a house (for more than twice what it is worth now.)  We were soon to lose our health insurance.  I was budgeting down to the penny for groceries.

And I had had it easy.  The state provided for us.  We received unemployment.  They allowed me to sign up for WIC.  We never went a day without food.  We never spent a night without heat.  We worried ourselves sick over our poverty.  We didn't know it at the time, but we weren't poor at all.

Now, after having secured a new job closer to home after my maternity leave ended, I truly saw poverty.  And it was my job to stick a microphone in its face and ask it why it existed.

One child hungry is too many.  One person hungry is too many.  We forget that this is a daily reality as we survey our dirty living rooms and wade through the laundry.  We think, I cannot possibly spare a dime, I'm just as badly off as anyone out there, why, we hardly were able to afford our groceries this week.

But we were able to afford them.  And most of us brought them back to a warm, bright house and set our babies down in their warm, safe cribs while we put them away.

No one should have to suffer in any season, children least of all.  I know each of us cannot do nearly enough to make even the smallest dent in the problem of child poverty that is becoming more and more widespread.  But if you buy an extra package of diapers this week, and I buy three extra packages of wipes, and my neighbor buys a few boxes of baby food, we've all only spent $6.  And we've set up a child living in poverty for an entire week.

In these economic times, no one has anything left to give.  But it is precisely in these economic times that we need to search within ourselves and dig past the lint in our own empty pockets to help a child who otherwise might very well freeze or starve to death.

No mother should have to stand in line at a food pantry for hours in the dark and cold of a February morning only to be told there is nothing left at 9 a.m.

We can make a difference.  We just have to try.

**This post in contribution to the blogshare at Life Inspired by the Wee Man.


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