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Hi everyone!
OK, I don’t usually get political on my website, but this story’s too good not to share.
Here’s the deal. For the second year now, The Stop Community Food Center is running Eat the Math, a challenge to citizens all over Ontario is try living on a diet that a person on social assistance might receive from a food bank… and to blog about it. The idea is to raise awareness about how inadequate the food bank system is, and how deeper structural changes are needed to deal with poverty in this province. Specifically, The Stop is lobbying for an extra $100 in monthly social assistance.
On a deeper level, this project allows a large number of people to come face-to-face with their conceptions and emotional realities around the daily experience of poverty. Participants are encouraged to take public transit (no problem here) and to eat at a soup kitchen (that one’s tougher) at least once during the week.
And yup, I’m one of those people! I’m using this page to blog about my experiences, as well as posting on the communal Toronto page, right here.
Here’s the list. To make it more realistic, participants are also allowed five “standard pantry ingredients”. I picked tea, salt, sugar, garlic and veggie oil. Nope, my fancy cold-pressed olive oil was not allowed.
Note that food bank hampers are only available once per month.
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Food bank hamper for single person:
Copious notes
– 2 boxes Kraft Dinner (or substitute extra rice if gluten-intolerant) (Note: that’s me)
– 3 juice boxes
– 3 single-serving-size scoops dry rice
– 2 small cans soup
– box of dry cereal or 3 packages instant oatmeal
– any TWO of: 175 g tin of tuna, chicken or turkey; small jar peanut butter; 3 eggs
– 2 small cans of tinned vegetables, or 1 tin vegetables and 1 fruit
– 1 potato
– 1 onion
– 1 can plain beans or chickpeas, or 1 can pork and beans
– 3 granola bars or 3 fruit chews
– 1 quart milk
– 1 loaf bread (or substitute extra rice) (that’s me too)
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Here is more info on the program itself.
Here are blog entries from last year’s participants, which include Naomi Klein (author of No Logo and others) and Wayne Robers (head of the Toronto Food Policy Council).
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Day 1, 11am
I hate to admit this, but I felt really weird buying this food.
I’m not bourgeois. I wear inexpensive, used clothes. I don’t eat out much, or holiday anywhere fancy. I eek out a living on self employment. I love it, and I wouldn’t change a thing, but there’s nothing materially fancy about it.
In fact, when you deduct my write-off’s, it’s incredible that I can live on what I do. But I do, and I’m a long way from complaining.
Still, standing at the check out at the corner store this morning, with my tin of fruit cocktail, my tin of mushrooms, my box of white rice, my not-organic milk, I feel a strange discomfort starting in my throat and crawling up into my jaw. It’s shame. I want to laugh and explain to woman swiping bar-codes why I’m buying this, but immediately I’m ashamed of the shame itself. She’s the one who stocks a store with this food, who makes a living off selling it. I keep my mouth shut.
And in fact, how far am I from relying on this? I rarely think about poverty in my own life, but it would only take one bad accident or bad year. And since no one is keeping a pension or medical plan for me… I shake this thought out of my head before it reaches it’s logical conclusion. The point is, we’re all vulnerable. And without adequate systems to help us find our feet again, there’s a long way to fall.
So, I keep my eyes down, and feel secretly glad that I have a backpack to hide my cans into until I get home.
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… PS You may note a couple of cheats in that photo. There were no beans at the store, so I subbed in a can of organic beans I’d already bought. And I let myself get gluten-free cereal. These aren’t indicative of the food bank hamper, but they’re what is going to make this work, at least just a little bit, for me.
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Day one continued. 2pm
I’m already hungry. What a wimp.
But it’s true – my stomach is churning and I’m having trouble concentrating. I just spent half an hour going over and over the first paragraph of one student assignment. It was a great paragraph. I should have moved on. But my brain feels like a butterfly with nowhere to land.
I think the problem is that I usually eat protein in the morning. I’ve heard it’s good for my blood sugar levels, for balance. This suddenly makes perfect sense. Today I’ve put nothing into my body except tea, milk, sugar, cereal and a fruit chew.
So, I decide to cook up a little rice and fry it with an egg and a few of the tinned mushrooms. I check the rice every minute or so, determined not to overcook it as usual. I can’t afford to lose any to the bottom of the pan.
The meal isn’t exactly yummy. The cheep veggie oil makes everything stick to the pan, and the mushrooms taste like dust, but it does seem to allow a level of calm, and I go back to work with focus. I can do this.
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Day one continued. 3:30pm
A friend, who is also doing this challenge, emails and says, “this already sucks”.
I wish I disagreed.
I really want an apple.
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Day one continued. 7:50 pm
Sluggish.
Still not really getting work done, I start perusing other people’s blog entries. I notice that I’m getting irritated and competitive. I’m angry that some people have stretched the rules, allowing themselves organic milk or brown rice. I’m angry that I can’t eat wheat, so I don’t get to have the loaf of bread and peanut butter. Looking at last year’s entries, I see vegetables. What is Naomi Klein doing with a carrot?!
And why am I taking this personally?
I search out my sister’s first blog entry and scour the food photo carefully. She has bigger fruit chews that me. No fair.
I’m six years old right now.
It’s incredible how quickly scarcity can bring out the worst in people. Or maybe I should just say, in me.
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Day two, 12:20 pm
This project has taken a bit of a turn.
Reading over yesterday’s posts and their flood of sympathetic comments, I’m starting to wonder what this is all about.
I’ll tell you a story. When I was 24 and living in Vancouver, I got a grant to create a big public-education project in the Downtown Eastside about media studies. For those who don’t know, Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside is the poorest postal code in Canada, with AIDS rates comparable to Sub-Saharan Africa. Or at least, it was then.
The class was going to be a big season-long experience called “Media 101” with lectures from professors and community media activists, sessions on making your own media, and internships with co-op TV, pubic radio and local papers. It would be offered through UBC as one of several free “101” classes that they were offering at the time, in their brand new inner-city building. We would provide bus tickets and food. I was in love with the whole process, glowing with the feeling of doing something so good and so big.
In the months leading up, I called a community consultation meeting so that I could hear from folks who had taken other “101” classes. I was looking forward to engaging the community to create the class. I had no idea what would actually happen.
It was late at night. The inner-city was just picking up out the university building’s stylish picture-window. The conversation had been far more awkward than I’d expected, and a weird quietness settled over the room as one woman, a leader in the community, read through my proposed budget. Her eyebrows raised and she shook her head slowly.
“OK,” she said, looking at me carefully, her voice measured. “Let me get this strait. UBC is getting recognized as ‘reaching out to the community’, will get huge funding and better ratings in the Macleans poll. You are getting a chunk of money, a life-changing experience, and material on your resume to go off to grad school next year. And us? We’re getting a dinky lecture series and a phony certificate. How do you justify that?”
The room was silent. I had no idea what to say. I biked home crying, and a few weeks later, for reasons that both were and weren’t related, the course was called off.
On that night, I stopped being an activist.
Sitting here at my writing table, seven years later, with this half-finished blog, that same discomfort is rising up. Part of me never left that room, sitting on my hands, feeling tiny and wrong and scared. Part of me still wonders if it’s ever right to speak up for people whose experiences we haven’t lived.
So. What is the point? Am I just taking a little tourist-trip through “the other half”, soaking up some writing material and stories for my next dinner party? An I relishing in this chance to moan and complain about problems that I don’t – and likely won’t ever – truly understand? Seven years ago, that woman looked me in the eye, slammed my careful budget down on the table and said, “This is nothing but poverty porn.” Part of me can’t stop weighing those words.
I do know that what I’m doing is not extraordinary. I know that my kitchen is laden with nutritious food which I’ll be able to mow down whenever I decide that I’ve had enough of this. I can cheat or stop whenever I want to. I can’t pretend that I’m learning what it’s like to be trapped in complicated cycles of poverty. I can’t pretend that what I’m feeling is real hunger.
I guess that what I hope I’m doing is opening new (small) windows of compassion and understanding in myself about what it would be like to live on a severely restricted budget, and especially on social assistance. I’m facing the ideas I carry unconsciously about food, identity and freedom. I hope that I’m able to communicate some of that through this writing.
And, I kinda hope that if she could read this, or if somehow she does, she rolls her eyes and smiles that at least I’m still trying.
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Day two continued, 9:50 pm
I’m surprised how lonely I feel. I had a meeting with six other women at a coffee shop this morning — my favorite coffee shop where I often spend long hours, cozied on a couch with a latte, working away. I joke that it’s my living room.
I brought tap water, and it was fine. No one judged me. Still, I felt oddly guilty for not spending anything. I kept thinking that the barista was sending me glances. I could get away with it because I was in a group, but I know I wouldn’t be welcome normally without money to spend. I can’t drop by later, or tomorrow. It’s strange to feel shut out of a place that feels like home to me.
It’s not just places, though. Walking home from yoga along Bloor Street last night, all I could see was people eating. Talking and eating, walking and eating, laughing and eating. All of connection seemed to revolve around food. Sure, it’s possible to socialize over a long walk, but it’s not the norm. If I really didn’t have money for extras, that entire world of familiar connection would be closed off.
I know this week is temporary, and a fabrication, but I still feel sad and left out. That’s big.
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Day three, 10:45 AM
I’m trying to think of a delicate way to say this. Already I can see my brother Nick throwing his hands up and yelling “Hello! T.M.I!” But here we go…
No food has left my body since I started this.
Sigh. That’s *not* how things usually work in here. Then again, I usually eat stuff like, say, apples. Did someone say apples?
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Day three continued, 1:35 pm
I’m pretty surprised how quickly I’ve adapted to these foods. I thought I would pine for my morning large-flake organic oatmeal with fresh fruit, almonds and ground flax, but this morning, I did even think about it. The craving had left.
At first, I thought this was progress. Then I thought harder.
I think that bodies adapt really fast. After just a few morning runs, I crave running. When I stop running because it’s too cold, the craving curls up and goes to sleep. When I’m drinking lots of water, I’m thirsty. You get it. I’m sure you feel it too.
The implications of this are scary though, when I think about eating from this food hamper on a regular basis. I want to crave carrots and brown rice and green tea. I don’t want those cravings to take a nap, or fall into a coma.
Anyway. It’s tuna casserole for lunch, made with white rice, a tin of soup and the last of the tinned mushrooms. I’m kinda excited.
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Day three continued, 11:23 pm
Tuna casserole. Hello lunch and dinner.
It’s not exactly that I’m hungry, I’m just… mucky. I’ve been teaching workshops from my home for four years and they always, always start with tea. Last night, for the first time ever, I forgot to make the tea. Then, I did make tea, and carried the steaming teapot back to the table without any mugs. Someone finally spoke up.
Maybe it’s all placebo. I mean, malnutrition surely can’t click in after three days. But, there’s no question that something is off. Tonight, one of my students was looking over the list of food and said, “How do people eating at food banks not get scurvy?” “Oh, there’s some fruit” I said, pulling out my yet-unopened can of fruit cocktail. I ran my finger down the back.
Half a cup of fruit cocktail contains exactly 2% of your daily recommended intake of vitamin C.
That’s when I decided to cheat and take a vitamin.
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Day four, 12:44 pm
I’m upset.
Staring down this leftover casserole and half-tin of fruit cocktail, I can’t stop thinking about what I could have made with the equivalent amount of money. I know how to eat cheep. Give me a butternut squash and a picked-over chicken carcass and I’ll have soup for five, with roasted squash seeds for the top. It will be for more nutritious than this spread and will have a vastly lower environmental toll.
Yeah. Here’s what I’m thinking about today: By creating a structure where people have to rely on packaged food chosen by someone else, the system holds an undeniable assumption — that people living in poverty can’t be trusted to make their own choices. Thus, it takes away people’s opportunity to be clever and innovative.
You know what? If I were on a very restrictive budget, I might still splurge on a latte, or some dark chocolate, or fresh, organic raspberries. I think that should be OK. I think that weighing the consequences of decisions is something we should all be allowed to do.
Because really, what makes us human, more than our ability to choose? To mess up, to learn, to mess up again, or not. To find the cheapest lentils in the city in order to make dahl for the next two weeks, because I used my extra money to buy my kid the haloween costume she wanted. To be thrifty. To be frivolous.
I’m troubled by many of the conversations I’ve had and read this week. Often, there seems to be an underlying distrust of people who “use” the social welfare system. As if there weren’t a myriad of complicated reasons why people might find themselves in a place where they need some help. As if the forces that nudge people to that place aren’t structural as much as personal. Recession, lay-offs, sudden illness, ill children, ill parents, depression, work accidents, car accidents…. The list goes on and on.
The number of people using food banks in Windsor increased by 242% in the last seven years. Is this because none of those people were thrifty? Or because two car plants closed down?
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Day four continued, 1:51 pm
I’m outa milk. Dang.
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Day four continued, 3:32 pm
There goes the last of the “fruit”.
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Day four continued, 4:48 pm
My digestive system and I have been bickering all day. I see it as one of those hardened winter-in-Ontario hockey coaches. Pom-pom toque, wide shoulders, roaring metabolism. Affable but quick-to-temper. I think his name is Jay.
He blows had on his whistle.
Digestive system: “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?”
Me: “I’m participating in a consciousness-raising activity to engender conversation about food access and the complexity of poverty in Ontario.”
Digestive system: “THAT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE.”
Me: “Well, it does to me.”
Digestive system: “ONE APPLE OR YOU’RE OFF THE ICE!”
Me: “Sorry, I can’t help you.”
Digestive system: Blowing his whistle in my ear. “YOU CAN’T TURN YOUR BACK ON ME! I MADE YOU!”
Me: Sighing “Yeah I know.”
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Day four, last call, 10:20 pm
Yeesh.
Yeesh.
Hey check out my garbage can right now.
This isn’t how it usually goes. I’m the one who brings her clear plastic bags back to the bulk store to reuse. Most of my garbage is green bin stuff, carrot tops and sweet potato peels.
This week, however, almost none of my garbage will decompose before I do. Gross.
But, the waste doesn’t stop here. An incredible amount of energy was spent to get this food to me. The mushrooms were from China. The fruit salad came from Australia. The juice came from South Africa. The tuna came from Thailand.
Do I need to go on? Aside from the tuna, all of this could be produced within a few hundred clicks from my home. And, if it had been, it wouldn’t have needed to be soaked in sugar or salt water in order to be edible. And, it wouldn’t have been stored in cans lined with bisphenol A, a chemical which mimics estrogen and has been linked with aggressive forms of breast cancer.
There is no just need for one person to take up this much space in order to eat for five days.
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Day five, final thoughts
I fell off the wagon.
Last night, my stomach felt like a churning cement truck, so I did it… I ate an apple. It was like a crispy prayer. This morning, facing the last of my hamper supplies, I just couldn’t do it. I’m down to an egg, a little rice and some good ‘ol Mr. Goudas oil. I’m uncomfortable, frustrated, and clearly unhealthy. I’m done.
So, in closing, here are some of the things I’ve learned:
- Adding a little water and heat to that cooked-to-the-bottom-of-the-pan rice makes a surprisingly yummy treat.
- Having no extra money makes me feel lonely.
- Never take apples for granted.
- This system is unhealthy, insufficient, dehumanizing and wasteful. Sure, as people have pointed out, it’s not expected that people will live on what they get from the food bank, but with only $585 per month in social security, and with rent what it is in this city, there’s no way that most folks will have money leftover for food.
- Indigestion is a big bad hockey coach from Timmons.
- It’s possible to make a scary amount of garbage in one week of frugal eating.
- There’s huge correlation between low incomes and diagnoses of type 2 diabetes, caused largely by a poor diet. The government spends approx $12 billion a year to treat the illness, which is entirely preventable with a healthy diet. (Thank you to fellow Eat The Math blogger Danielle Olson for that info.)
- Tinned fruit cocktail is not the tasty sensation that I remember.
The most surprising thing that I’ve learned, though, is that people want to have this conversation. I thought that this project would be a quiet little journal exercise that no one would read but me. That is what I was prepared for. Instead, this page has gotten over 400 hits from over 300 unique visitors in the past 5 days, and my posts on the communal blog have gotten up over 2000. I’ve received dozens of emails on top of all the messages below, many from strangers, or people I haven’t spoken with in years.
It’s been far bigger than I could have guessed, and frankly, than I was comfortable with. It took some major adjusting, but it was adjusting I was happy to do. I’m simply amazed by how open and engaged my community has been by the questions raised in this experiment.
And, this is just one tiny piece. The Stop has inspired over 1000 people to take part in this exercise across the province. On average, participants estimate they they’ve had 80-100 conversations about food access across their respective weeks. That is almost 100,000 new conversations.
That’s beautiful.
So, I’m sayin’ it: THANK YOU. I’m so touched that you (yup, you) are reading this. If haven’t dropped a line, please do. If you have been sparked into new thoughts or if you disagree with me vehemently or if you just want to say hi, I’d love to hear it. Either leave a note below or drop me a line.
Ever-warmly,
Chris
That list of food can’t possibly be for one month, can it?!? Surely I am misunderstanding …
You’re totally right, Sarah, there’s no way it could last a month. Yet, that’s all that someone would get from the food bank for one month. So, this, plus $585 social assistance = all the subsidies available for a single person who isn’t on disability, aside from drop-in meals at soup kitchens. In short – it’s impossible.
Hi again. I just did a little more research and found out that *some* food banks will give out two per month. There’s no rules, but 1-2 are both standard.
Hey Chris, don’t have many words at the moment – feeling very moved by your blog post. Thank you for expressing your experience and giving me lots to think about. (p.s. I want to bring you food – are gifts from friends allowed?)
I just blogged on your blog. (is that meta-blogging??) since I’m not doing this, I’m promoting your efforts as far and wide as I can…
Alex. Those are very sweet words. Thank you. No gifts! I want to do this like everyone else, but your offer is really lovely. I feel it!
And Deanna! Thanks! I love your post. (And I have a nice image in my head of a firefly eating math. Somehow this translates to math homework. “A firefly ate my homework!”)
Thanks for spreading the word. I’m so buoyed by the fact that people are actually reading!
Hmmm…our food bank is also a once a month deal for the canned goods, but it allows you to come back weekly for the freebies such as bread, milk, fruits and veggies. For a single person, once a month you can get a specialty health item if you bring your own bags, one fresh bagged salad, one litre milk, one tin of pop or water, one tin soup/pasta, one peanut butter, one tin fish/meat, one tin beans, one cereal, one KD/side dish, one pasta/rice, one tin tomato product, one tin veg, one tin fruit, all the bread you can use, one sweet (usually cookies or muffins etc), four small snacks (granola bars, puddings or whatever), one box cracker/pretzels or whatever is there, and all the fruits and vegetables you want. Of course all the items are dependent upon availability. I’ve seen days where there are lots of fruits and veggies (none in the best of conditions) and days where there are hardly any. All bread is day old or older.
Thanks for sharing, Aunt Jennie. Sounds like there is more funding in Niagara than in Toronto. Or maybe less need?
I grew up with what was then, and is now, considered poverty-level conditions. No indoor plumbing until I was nearly 8 yrs old, weekly tin-tub baths–shared between the 5 of us. The person who got in the tub last, endured cold, scummy water. All my clothes were hand-me-downs or homemade. But I don’t ever remember going hungry. The summer garden, the wild berries, the few farm animals provided food that my mother and grandmother preserved, dried and put in root cellars for the winters. None of it was fancy. Meat a rarity, yet we never went hungry. As I look at that photo, tears well in my eyes. You’re a big girl. You will take care of yourself. What you are doing is good and right and relevant. Because somewhere in Ontario or Calgary or Montreal, there is a little girl who yearns for an apple, too. How sad she may have to wait until she is nearly 30 before she can have one without sacrificing something else. My thoughts are with you–for you illustrate a sad, sad truth: the poor and hungry are always with us, and we fail them all the time. Have you ever noticed how many of the miracles recorded as peformed by Jesus had to do with food? Whether you believe in actual miracles or see the bible as a book of fiction, it’s inescapable that the author/s recognized that need. Fair play, Chris, as my Irish friends say. Fair play.
I’m in awe. I’m so honored to read your brilliantly written thought provoking words,
Oh my Chris…I would be cranky too. I am also frugal in many ways, but food is never scarce in my little home (and I eat constantly). This is a grand project indeed.
It’s beautiful and thought-provoking. The story of stopping being an activist with that meeting. That’s an intense moment and statement. And now seven years later entering this project and what comes up. It’s deep stuff–even writing about it. And then putting it out into the world. I relate to something in what you wrote to the enormity of dealing with privilege in attempting to relate across “difference”, and I think it is important stuff to write about. Go you.
I’m really enjoying reading about your experiment, and the inner dialogue you’re sharing with each day, even hour. That is such a small amount of food! I suspect most people who receive food in that quantity must also supplement it in some way. Out here in the the San Francisco Bay Area, there are many food kitchens as well as charities that distribute sandwiches daily to parks and gathering places. But I don’t know. I’ve never been in that situation, personally. An eye-opener.
Part of trying to understanding each other is to know we can never fully understand.
Thank you for sharing your flashback to a vulnerable moment.
Chris,
I caught your link from Facebook. Just wanted to say that I read your blog so far, deeply touched by your story from the community project in BC. Really something to think about around activism, who is able to participate in these experiences and how. You inspired me to consider my privilege in new ways. I would be hungry too, and as someone with lots of food allergies/restrictions, I can only imagine how much harder this would be if I had almost no choice in what I had to eat. Best of luck with this experiment.
Hey Chris, I am so glad to read your Day 2, 1220 post. As I was reading the one before, just a moment ago, I was thinking those same things; “You’re HUNGRY??” yeah right. As if I, someone in a position of wealth and comfort similar to that of yourself, have a right to say anything. This seems to be the point- there is this constant wavering between wanting to speak out and then silencing ourselves. You are, I am, first inclined to speak out and name injustice (inadequate access to healthy food, the ignorance of privilege) and then wait! no! we are in no place to speak such things. The act of speaking out, the act of (attempted) representation is a tricky one.
I hear your words about the woman’s feedback- I experienced similarly destabilizing instances wherein my intentions were shattered to expose an ugliness I hadn’t seen; a “who do you think you are” kind of moment. But I agree, at least you’re trying, at least you’re introducing the topics and opening them up for discussion.
The other angle to this experiment is one that I wondered if you’d considered. For those who are engaging in this experiment, the act of communicating your feelings about it is part of the process. It is good that you’re writing- it gets us thinking. I wouldn’t have taken these 30 minutes to think about poverty, privilege and otherness if I hadn’t read your post. But then again, is your ability to post and communicate your feelings yet another thing that distances you from an authentic (as much as is possible) experience of hunger?
The internet lets anyone publish. We can all blog if we want to, or so I think. But I wonder, if someone is living off the hamper, what else does that mean about their life? We can’t stereotype or assume- people living off the hamper have varying life circumstances. I just wonder how many of them have the time and energy and resources available to publish their thoughts and garner affirmation and support from their support networks. Or worse yet, those who don’t have support networks at all.
The whole issue of social experimentation, trying to live in someone else’s shoes is so flawed- how can an experiment ever replicate true experience? As you say, you can quit anytime. You could explain your situation to your local barrista and (s)he might allow you to stay without buying anything. She might also commend you. The same is not true for someone who doesn’t have the privilege of “explaining” their situation away.
I am not saying anything you don’t already know. I know this. I also know I am offering nothing in the way of remedy. What is a privileged person to do with their good intentions….I guess I`m not the right one to ask.
But again, I think speaking up is better than staying silent. Even if your voice is one that serves only to invite critique, at least the critique is revealed and given audience.
Chris, I am reading your blog with great interest since I used to have to resort to the food bank once in a while. In a funny way, it was quite interesting to go there. Looking at the other people was an experience; perhaps it was my writer’s eye! I found the volunteers always treated me with respect and I was impressed that sometimes there were choices: “Peas or corn”, they’d say. I have written a little book that deals, in part, with this experience and was published be a friend. Would you like a copy?
Yours is a more solitary experience and I don’t know if I could eat the foodbank food for a month. After the foodbank, I discovered the dropin centres, just one or two, but began to find them depressing, especially after I became a bit more prosperous. So glad I don’t have to go the foodbank or dropin route any more but, if I had to, I would.
Good luck with this endeavour.
Judith,
Thanks for the thoughtful note. I’d love a copy of the book!
Just to clarify — I’m not doing this for a whole month… Just till I need to throw in the towel.
Yes, I grew up in poverty as well and yet we never went without. Sometimes I didn’t like what I got, but the old saying beggars can’t be choosers applies in those situations. We live way under the poverty level even now according to the powers that be, and yet we never do without food. My knowledge base in the realms of cooking is a huge help. Sadly, most of the people I meet at the food bank don’t have that knowledge base. This is a huge detriment to them. There have a been one or two who I know are illiterate so that even those lovely little recipes the shelter has for offer, or the instructions on a package of noodles are useless to these ones.
I have recently prepared meals at a local homeless shelter as well as currently volunteering at our food bank and you meet so many different people. There are those who are scared and lonely and embarrassed, the ones who have been working and living off the system for years and will do so for many more, the vulnerable mental health patients, the ones that are intelligent and able but have just recently hit a rough patch in life. Choice is hugely important for all of them. It gives just a little control over sometimes uncontrollable situations. Choice brings dignity and a sense of identity and power. Here, even the Christmas “hampers” aren’t really that at all. They are Christmas vouchers at a local grocery store (No, you can’t purchase cigarettes with them) so that choice is available for their holiday meals.
Choice is powerful. You can even choose to live with poverty in dignity or choose to live in poverty with defeat. I’ve seen both. There are those who look like they’ve given up on life who walk in our doors, and those who look like they just came from a job at the office. My grandmother used to say that there is no shame in being poor, but you certainly don’t have to look like it. Don’t even assume that all people are lonely, or are feeling disenfranchised, or missing that latte! For some, what you don’t know, you don’t miss. For others (myself for now), it’s a challenge I relish. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But that is attitude which is a key when living in poverty. Good attitude comes from a strength of character and for many, that is the most important thing missing in their lives. A sense of worth, dignity and self-control can get you through a whole mess of white rice and No Name tunafish with a joyful heart.
Lots of different opinions!
So glad you can quit when you want to. May I ask if there is anything special you are craving?
When I was in Germany on an exchange program, I used to discuss that question with other foreign students. (German food is a bit different.) We craved grilled cheese sandwiches but that sounds too much like what you might be eating right now.
Hang in there and enjoy that apple when you get the chance.
I will send you the book ASAP.
Judith
Hi Chris,
I have really been enjoying your blog and think you are incredible for doing it and being so honest about your experience so far. I am looking forward to reading about the rest of your journey. Your insights on this type of social assistance has been very enlightening. I always knew that one of the problems with the food bank is that they don’t get nearly enough food that are actually nutritious (thus whenever I donate, I try to donate canned items that have more nutritional value then let’s say chef boyardee or campbell’s chicken soup) but I did not know that this is how they distributed the food. I simply can’t see anyone surviving on so little but evidently, there are people who do. Anyway, your blog has been inspirational so kudos to you!
Angela
You are a big shiny locally grown apple. I learn so much from you.
Heya Love,
Just have to say how stunning this was to witness. Truly.
It’s given me amazing persepective and thought-food.
Thanks for sharing your adventure.
Thank you for putting your experience (& your discomfort) so openly out there. This is something I didn’t have any knowledge about previously…
You’re hardcore. Great blog. Good on ya, Chris.
So glad you have quit and have an apple whenever you want. And I’m glad you shared this experience with us.
Judith
Interesting that that foodbank food is less biodegradable. I never knew that before. It sounds like food from China, etc. is more expensive than local, healthy food. That makes NO sense at all.
Beautifully written, deeply insightful, and so gorgeously honest – as always Chris. Thank you for sharing this. And in regards to your question about activism, I relate. I always find it easiest, and best, to advocate for that which we can personally identify with. Otherwise we might think we are helping when in fact we are really harming. I struggled with this a lot when I lived in East Africa and saw so many well-meaning programs from countries around the world flop because they didn’t actually ask the people of the community what they really needed. But those who need most rarely have a voice, so doing nothing isn’t the answer either. I truly think the answer is in experiencing, sharing, asking questions, and getting in tight and cozy with the issue. And that is just what you did. And that’s where profound change will come from. Because now, through you, we all have a better idea of what it is really like, and we might actually do something truly helpful. In fact, maybe that’s the question I now have… Having lived through this, what do you think would actually be a helpful solution to this problem? What service, gift, or policy could have made this week easier for you? I’ll ponder that too… xo
Super info it is definitely. My girlfriend has been searching for this info.