A Gallon of Milk

Late afternoon at the grocery store.  My Tato is watching his wnuczki while I run to the store and buy some milk, bread, frozen lasagna, and some ready-made salads for my lunches.

I'm waiting in line behind a Hispanic couple.  The woman has a child on her hip, thumb in her little mouth, less than 1 year old.  There are two other children in the plastic red car shaped shopping cart.  None are old enough to be in school yet.

They have a gallon of milk and bread for their purchase.  That's all.

The man is trying to pay for the food with a WIC check.  He's confused.  The woman is quiet and looking on, you can see she is stressed.  Their clothing is mismatched, stretched, the way clothing looks when you are given final hand-me-downs.  The woman doesn't have makeup on and you can tell she tried to do the best she could with her hair with an extremely limiting budget.  They only speak Spanish.

The check is old, it expired a couple of days ago.  They flip through their WIC folder with the cashier.  There are no new checks.

I feel uncomfortable.  I'm not sure how I understand the conversation.  Body language, Dora the Explorer, an insane amount of curiosity (or am I too proud to say that I'm nosey?).

They pull to the side and start talking to one another in whispers.  The cashier starts to ring me up while another worker goes to put their items back.

"Stop.  I'll buy their milk and bread."

The workers pause, look at me as if I have three heads.  I blush.  I gesture to the family and tell the cashier, "I don't speak Spanish.  Could you please tell them not to leave?  I need to buy their bread and milk."

I mean it.  I need to.

What is $5?  Perhaps dinner for that family.  A family that lives in my community.  A family with three small children and two parents who are obviously just trying.

I'm still blushing.  I toss a smile on my face because I know the last thing that family needs is a look of pity and I'm not sure what my face is communicating.  I don't feel pity.  Pity means you can't relate to the person but still feel sorrow for them.

And I can relate.  That mother and father, they are in the same position as my parents were years ago.  And nobody gave a shit when my parents were at the store and unable to buy something as simple as bread and milk for my brother and I. 

The cashier walks over to the mother, talks to her in Spanish, gestures to me, and I put my hands together, almost in prayer. 

My thoughts...

Please, just let me.  It's only milk.  I need this as much as you do.  Please.

The mother looks at her husband, he glances, shrugs his shoulders in a way that men are so capable of doing.  He looks down at his feet, turns slightly so that his shoulder is pointing at me. 

His body language says it all...

I'm embarrassed.  I can't provide for my family.  But we need this.  Don't make eye contact with me, don't see the look on my face.

But he knows as much as I do, children come before pride.

I'm mentally kicking myself.  I just embarrassed them.  It wasn't my intention.  But I needed to help.

The mother walks up, nods her head at me, takes the milk the cashier hands her.  She refuses the bread.  I understand.  That would be too much pride lost.

It's just a gallon of milk.  But it's infinitely more.

They walk away.  I take a deep breathe.  I say a mental prayer.  For them, for me, for everyone and everything.  God, give us strength to give help and to accept help.

Na razie...

Wisdom from My Six Year Old on Charity

I have always made an effort to expose my children to the concept of "Charity", of helping others however you can, even if it's only a small gesture.  That repeatedly, small gestures turn into something bigger.  That we can help make this world a better place if we care and keep trying. 

It seems to be working.

My six year old's school has a bake sale often to help fund various academic programs.  Each item is usually 25 cents for a cookie, small cupcake, brownie, or other home baked goodies.

We usually give her $1 for the sale and tell her she can buy 4 "goodies" or buy one or two and share the money with a friend who has none.  I stress that it is up to her.

When she gets in the car at school pick up time, I always ask her how her day was, asking questions like, "So, what did you buy at the bake sale?"

Yesterday, she made me so proud with her response.

"I bought two cookies, Mommy.  They were really yummy.  I ate one and gave one to [another student's name] who had no money.  I had two moneys left so I put them in the jar for helping the poor people.  I do that every time we have a bake sale."

She then started laughing at her sister, who had been stretching her little hand toward her big sister while being strapped in her car seat.

They started making frog sounds back and forth to another and I drove to the house, passing a pond with geese and ducks on the way.

Soon, I plan on telling her more about charity.  How we can donate money, and help raise money, to make a difference.  To give an underfunded school a library, to build a monument to a local hero so that the community can continue to be beautiful and feel inspired to strive for better, to give shoes to children who have none, to bring about changes in laws so that children and the environment can be better protected.

For now, I'll keep donating with them to local organizations that help immigrants, being a lunch room Mama and Classroom Mama while they accompany me, cooking for local fundraising events, baking cookies for the nursing home, growing our own garden, and helping them work out in their own minds what they can do in this world to make a difference.  Because I know they can.  I know they will.

Na razie...




Related posts:

Another Immigrant Family

Tzedakah

Wordless Wednesday:  Adam & Eve and My Older Daughter

Our Start to 2012

My husband participated in the Lake County Polar Bear Plunge at Waukegan Beach.  "Proceeds from the Waukegan Polar Bear Plunge go to the SRSNLC- Waukegan Scholarship program. This program helps individuals with disabilities participate in camps, athletics, health and fitness programs, and much more."

He walked in up to the lifeguard, went underwater, and walked back out.  Our toddler told him she was cold and we went home to change and go out to eat at a restaurant some friends suggested.  I won't waste any time talking about that restaurant as it was... disappointing.

We are all now taking naps and snuggling together in pajamas, planning the next charity event he will be participating in and our next outdoor adventure on the prairie.

I hope your 2012 started with as much fun and excitement as ours.  Happy New Year!

Na razie...



Disclaimer:  No compensation was received for this post



Related Posts:

Father's Day (one of several "mud run" marathons my husband participates in)

Lake Michigan

Tzedakah

About a week ago, I met a wonderful family visiting our local library from the South Side of Chicago.  We began talking about the local libraries, schools by us, work, the usual conversations parents of the "working class"* talk about. 

For several years, on the East Coast I had heard about the economic and social situations of the South Side of Chicago.  How schools were being closed, police stations being closed, high rises where residents lived being torn down and slowly replaced with more expensive (and priced out of the reach of the current residents price range) housing.

It was heartbreaking listening to this family's story.  They wanted better for their children.  You could tell.  Their children were clean, intelligent, well mannered, and like other children.  There was nothing about them that made me feel they deserved less than my children deserve, nothing about them that made me feel they deserved less than the children in the (extravagently wealthy) village near me deserve. 

Their parents sounded level headed and trying to figure out where in the US to move to in order to provide a better future for their children.  When I told them about the town I had left, which was a decent neighborhood and had it's typical problems, they were concerned if there was gang activity, drug activity, how the schools performed, how expensive it was to live there, how difficult was it to find work.  Not, as some might think, to see if it was a place worth going to in order to spread crime, as I had heard from more affluent and wealthy people about South Side residents.  But, to find out if it was a better place for their kids.

In other words, they were human and wanting better for their children.

I left them, having heard from first hand about the situations in the South Side.  Hearing about how schools were being closed and not replaced for children to attend, how buildings where students studied were unacceptably maintained in a substandard manner (no child should have to study with drop ceilings collapsing on their desks ), how this would never be accepted in suburbia.  I asked whether CPS was funded by the whole of Chicago (including the wealthy neighborhoods), whether funds were supposed to be evenly distributed, whether new schools were being built. 

The same with police stations.  I was told that in the most crime ridden areas, the stations were being closed.  I am not sure how that is supposed to help with crime.  It's nauseating to imagine my child living in such situations.  Could this all possibly be true?

Could what is highlighted in documentaries such as "The One Percent" be true?  In this country?  Where all men are created equal and should be given the same opportunity for success or failure? In my beloved America?

I felt feeling more determined in my belief in Tzedakah.

I skipped taking my children to McDonald's, deciding instead on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch, and went to our local Salvation Army.  I spent about $2 and a few cents on a jumper for the local school and put it in my daughter's closet.  When the school year begins, I will be donating it, as I did last year, to the local school.

I remember how confused the secretary was when I presented several pieces to them.  "I bought this and wanted it to be given to a student who can't afford a uniform, please."

"Thank you!  I know a student who could use all this.  But... why?  You don't need this?  For your daughter?", she asked, gesturing to my own school age daughter, as though this was such a strange thing to do.

"Not as much as some other child would need it," I said and walked away.

What, in the end, is $10 for us, versus a family struggling to eat?  Even with our own financial situations?

If you feel you would like to help the less fortunate but think you don't have the money, here are some ideas:

• If you can afford Starbucks every day, perhaps you could instead bring coffee from home and take that money to buy school supplies for a child in need.  Donate it to your local underfunded school.  The staff will know who is in need.  Or contact your local school board to see if they have a school supply drive going on.
• If you can afford a manicure weekly, you could instead skip it for a month to buy some uniforms for a child in need.  Again, see the first suggestion where to donate.
• If you can afford a pedicure, you could instead purchase some winter jackets and either donate to the Burlington Coat drive or to your local school or daycare.
• If you can afford to eat out every week, you could instead use that money to feed an underprivileged family for a week.
• If you can afford to buy your child a toy every week just because, you could instead go with your child and drop off some toys (new or used) at the doorstep of a less fortunate child.  If you aren't sure what house, pay attention around your neighborhood and look where children live and it looks as though "ends are not being met" or donate to Toys for Tots
• If you can afford a new pair of shoes to make yourself feel better, perhaps instead buy new shoes for a child at a shelter.
• We don't need new bathing suits every single year.  Perhaps instead this year, donate some books to your local library or underprivilegeled school.
• Instead of buying steaks for dinner, you could buy dry and non perishable items and donate to your local food bank, soup kitchen, church, shelter.
• Instead of buying lobster, you could buy the ingredients to bake cookies with your children and drop them off at a local nursing home

If you can't afford any such luxuries, sometimes it takes a moment of reflection.  Look around.  We are so lucky.  Flat screen tvs, our children own video games, some own their own computers, brand name clothing, nice relatively new SUVs.  There is no need to feel guilty to have such things.  We should instead feel inspired.  Couldn't we take a couple of dollars out of our obviously fortunate lives to give to a child who is hungry? 

Whether you feel an adult is responsible for their situations in life, children never are.  We can take care of them.  It takes a village to raise a child.  And in the United States of America, where many of us are fortunate enough to be able to afford cable television, no child should live in hunger and cold.

This idea has nothing to do with being Jewish only.  Christians and Muslims and other religions, such as Buddhists, are also called to do this in their religions.  And whether you are Atheist, or whatever, I think it's not a terrible thing to say that it can be called our duty as humans to do this.  To care for the less fortunate.



*I say "working class" not in the way politicians use it, as a way to pretend to candor to "blue collar" voters, but the real sense of the word, we are the workers of America.