Our group had the opportunity to work with an organization located in Jan Hus Church, after another organization, apparently run by nuns, was forced to cancel on us.
When we got to the church, we were split into groups in order to work in their food pantry, the men's clothes closet, and the women's clothes closet. I was lucky enough to be assigned to the pantry and the women's closet later on.
In the pantry, we were kept running by Tom, one of the program directors and an overall excellent human being. We ran crates of food up and down the stairs for the people who needed it. The pantry was running short on a lot of stuff, so we unfortunately couldn't provide the people with everything that they asked for. This pantry provided things from all of the different food groups, but people would turn away items that they didn't like, and have to leave without anything from a certain food group.
Sometimes people would request things that we didn't have. Other times, they would request more of what they received. Unfortunately, we would have to deny these requests, due to a lack of supplies.
I found today to be an exercise of wants versus needs. People want fruit and sugary juices, but need vegetables. Because people just weren't educated about their health and nutrition, we actually had people turn away fresh produce. I wanted to help these people as much as I could, but I needed to do what was best for the organization I was with. The organization needed all of my hard work for as long as they had it, and my wants would just get in the way of what is really needed.
What you want is not always what is good for you, as I was told hundreds of times when I was a child. Sometimes you need to hear the word "no". It hurts, but in the end it's the best for everyone involved.
What we need to do, though, is set people up for success, instead of just telling them no. We need education for all people, in order for them to be able to take care of themselves. We need to fund and staff programs in order to help our people and improve our society as a whole. We have a lot of needs, but our wants are being looked after first, because it's comfortable and easy to take care of our wants.
We must push ourselves to look past our wants if we want to solve the tangled problem that is poverty. We need to care for the needs of others first.
Haley
I appreciate your unique writing style and humor! Certainly a conundrum, but isn't meeting someone's want's caring for them? Can you tell us more about the "choice" pantry system? If people are choosing to not take certain items is the choice pantry system really working? I personally notice that I like sugary and startchy foods the best, but when I am on a high vegetable diet I actually crave veggies and the sugary foods aren't consumed as much. I'm very educated on what foods are good for me and which aren't but that doesn't change my consumption habits. So what else might be needed, aside from education, to help ensure person's in poverty are consuming more fresh fruits and veggies? If Jan Hus provided recipes along with the yams when they gave them out, would people be more apt to take them?
ReplyDeleteIf caring for someone's wants is care, then that means spoiling a baby is actually caring for them. But that doesn't make sense, because spoiled children tend to have a rude awakening once they begin interacting with others. It may appear to be caring, but generally caring for someone means having their best interests at heart, not just giving them what they want. If people understood what their options were and chose as best as they could, then I think it might be a different case, because their wants would (hopefully) overlap with their needs.
ReplyDeleteI think that, in general, choice pantries are a great thing. However, this pantry was so desperately in need of everything that it was struggling to do its job. Choice pantries allow people the chance to care for themselves and exercise their ability to choose, since so many choices are just not available to them.
So, technically, the choice pantry is working, because people are choosing for themselves. This prevents food from going to waste most of the time. Today, it meant people leaving without some of their wants and some of their needs not being met.
I think giving out recipes might be a good idea, but we have to make sure that we aren't giving out recipes that require things like a food processor or other equipment that these families may not have. A recipe and ingredients with no way to actually cook the food is almost worse, because you know how to make the nutritious food but lack the tools necessary.
Recipes might be a way, along with small home gardens. Maybe a potted tomato plant or something else that's small and relatively easy to care for. Perhaps getting people invested in the food they're eating may make them more likely to eat it.
It's really difficult to think of other ideas to convince people to eat healthily. I can't be their parent and force them to eat well, and if I just give them the food they may throw it away. Recipes may be the best bet, or even cooking classes if the organization has the means.