In the early 80’s, I saw my first Will Work for Food sign. I was riding in the back of a car; conversation was going on in the front seat, and no one else noticed. I was so horrified I couldn’t speak.
I had been “hungry.” I spent a month living on nothing but potatoes and bread; I took 248 pennies into Burger King for my single meal of the day one time; my friend Ronnie, who worked in the university cafeteria, used to give me breakfast for free on the sly when she could get away with it. But I’d never been in a place where I imagined standing out on the street with a sign like that.
When I was younger, wandering men who would work for food (whom we called hobos in the South, as opposed to tramps who stole or begged for money) turned up sometimes on our doorstep. They would ask my mother for work, and she would always say we had none (that was a lie, but she was a woman alone with a child and didn’t want strange men around the place). But she would always offer them food, and they would always accept. She had them sit on the front porch steps, and she took out to them a plate with a peanut butter sandwich, or a baloney sandwich if we had it, and a big glass of milk. They would say thank you, and eat the food, and bring the plate back to the front door when they were done. One time, I answered the door to take the plate, and the man said to me, Your mother is a good woman. And then picked up his things and went away, knowing that however good we might be, there was no more help for him here.
I don’t give money on the street, but I buy food for people who are begging for money. I’m ashamed that it took me a few experiences of this to remember to ask what they would like to eat, as opposed to just deciding. These people are mostly men, and some of them are bugnut crazy, and some of them are sad, and some of them are wary; but they always say thank you, and they always eat the food.
The thing is, I’m pretty sure that buying meals like this, and donating food to the food bank, is the limit of my help. And most of us have limits. It’s good to help other people when we can, and it’s everyone’s right to draw boundaries on how much energy they give to strangers. And it’s easier to intervene on an individual, situational level. It’s a lot easier to buy fried chicken and a cup of coffee and a bottle of water for a guy on the sidewalk than it is to fix hunger problems in my city.
Or so I thought, until I came across the article I posted yesterday about ending hunger. I’m still thinking about it. If you haven’t read it, please do. I’ve been trying for a couple of hours to find the right person in Seattle city government to send it to, but the city’s website is broken (hah, isn’t that just perfect?). Perhaps you can forward the article link to someone in your local government. Because it would be great if people on the street didn’t have to depend on people like me, who only help to the extent of the next meal. Maybe “will work for food” should mean that we will work to feed each other, instead of assuming that we should all just feed ourselves.
I don’t often believe in system solutions, because I often think they don’t work and sometimes even make things worse. But it makes sense to me that local governments should put systems in place to see that people don’t starve. I would much rather have a food system than a brand new sports stadium, for example. But hey, that’s just me.
What do you think about boundaries, about helping, about system solutions versus individual interventions?
