Retreat Reflection from J. Provoznik, LCCC

Our Athens retreat brought me back to remembering that our country has absolute poverty, too. We just hide it really well whether it is out in the country or in the city isolated. I also learned the extreme differences of battling poverty in a city verse in the country. Transportation is always a problem, but the extent of the transportation issue is huge. With Friends and Neighbors, people were coming from West Virginia to get food!

Retreat Reflection from K. Kugler, Defiance College

Thoughts on Poverty. Some people earn a $30,000 a year income and have set themselves up with a healthy financial arrangement. Others make hundreds of thousands, they still aren’t satisfied, and, worse, they are the ones making the decisions that keep some financially rich and some financially poor. If you earn piddle but love life, open your arms to others, have integrity, and are generous, many would say you’re financially struggling but are rich in happiness, despite your financial level. If you make $400,000/year, but still aren’t satisfied and hoard your money, keeping others from getting any, many would say you are financially set, but could use a real paradigm shift. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how much you earn; it’s what you do with what you earn. Other times, such as is the case in Appalachian Ohio, people just plain need money; most would make good choices with it—they just need some desperately. So what is “poverty?” There are governmental guidelines which focus on how much money a household brings in and how many members are in the household. If you make a couple hundred or thousand dollars over the limit for your household, you aren’t eligible for benefits, when aid might have helped you stay above the poverty line for longer. Sometimes, the system won’t help people until they’ve fallen down, so-to-speak. Is poverty a state of mind? If you save on electricity by turning the lights out in rooms you aren’t using, don’t use the clothes dryer from March to October, and wear your good clothes and shoes until they aren’t your best anymore and wear them ten more years around the house because they have plenty of life left in them, are you considered poor, or are you thrifty and economical? If you update your entire wardrobe every year, drive your gas-guzzler to town and back just for one chore even when gas prices are skyrocketing, and purchase pricey brands at the supermarket instead of store brands, are you considered middle class, non-poverty level, or do you just have no control of your money-spending habits?

Reflection from K. Kugler, Defiance College

Can we really “change the world”? Can federal Volunteers really “change the world”? Why are individuals charged with the responsibility of “changing the world,” when corporations and governments could do so much more with their financial and legislative power? Why are we fed the line that charitable doings and giving stuff will “change the world,” “especially the “obligatory holiday stories that make it seem as though charity will solve the problem?” (from All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America? By Joel Berg, Seven Stories Press, 2008, pg. 223 emphasis mine.) Why are they obligatory? To make those of us who have feel so guilty about those who have not that we really have to give? If one person makes an improvement in the life of one other person, has the first person “changed the world”? Or do you have to do something more “awesome,” or “amazing,” those hot key terms right now, to be considered “changing the world”, for example, starting even more non-profits instead of perhaps strengthening those already created. There are already all kinds of foundations, organizations, fundraisers, non-profits, community action agencies, special interest groups, individuals who have created their own specific special interest groups to meet what would seem to be every conceivable need on planet earth, and then some. Everybody’s idea of how the world needs to change is also different. And then, what do we mean by “the world”? A foreign friend of mine teases me that Americans think of the United States as “the world”, limiting our scope to this country, when there are so many others out there. I don’t want to say that giving is bad, that non-profits don’t do great work, or that people shouldn’t give around the holidays or any other time. I do say that we should give this some more thought. Or rather, that some of those who have the most should give a lot more thought to it than they have done. Although, if it weren’t for those few folks, we wouldn’t be blessed with the art museums, new hospitals, and improved facilities for institutions that further the education of our scholars and improve the public welfare overall. What a choice the rich must have to make, between some peoples’ financial struggles and others’ needs for community enhancement and beautification. But that’s a topic for another blog. When you use expressions like “changing the world,” you subscribe to everything that phrase and others, whether antiquated clichés or not, means.