The View from the West

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

When everyone knows you're poor

Truly dark side of child poverty is the humiliation

By: Suzie Bonk

Posted: 12/21/2008 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Every day about 250 people take a meal at Agape Table, some of them kids. They arrive with their parents to have soup, some bread and a hot beverage. We're grateful for the opportunity to feed these kids -- not what they should be fed in the morning, mind you; we serve soup, not cereal -- but we struggle with the reality that we have to.

Our guests graciously receive what we offer, but it's nothing short of heart-wrenching for our staff and volunteers to serve children. It takes strength and courage to serve a child her soup, and even greater courage for the child to take it.

We believe there is something fundamentally wrong when soup passes for a child's breakfast, potentially the only meal for the day. A child who comes to Agape Table won't arrive at school on time because it took until 10 a.m. to get breakfast at the soup kitchen. When he gets to school, he won't have a lunch, so he'll tell friends he forgot it -- again.

Later that afternoon hunger pangs will take hold, he'll get restless and irritable. He'll lose focus, act up and get in trouble. Hungry kids don't know how to explain that the reason they can't concentrate is because they haven't eaten all day, or that their second-hand runners aren't fit for gym class. Even if you could explain that to a teacher, would you want to?

This is the truly dark side of child poverty; the isolation, degradation, exclusion and utter humiliation of it. Everyone knows you're poor.

Children in these circumstances are survivors, adept at providing for themselves, as well as younger siblings. They're often pressured into joining a gang for their own security. A sense of belonging is a fundamental human need and a powerful draw for children. Any nagging doubt about the morality of crime and violence is quickly erased by the sense of identity and significance -- as well as income -- gangs provide.

An eight-year-old can't get a job at McDonald's, but he can run drugs. This is the sort of opportunity available to impoverished children in our community.

So what do we do? Poverty is a complex problem with no single solution. The enormity of it is immobilizing. There are those who say organizations like Agape Table offer nothing more than a Band-Aid solution to poverty -- the person we feed today will be hungry again tomorrow. So what's the point? The point, as far as we're concerned, is that we place nutritious food into the hands of parents desperate to feed their children healthy meals. The program impacts a family's income, enabling them to put more of their small budget toward new clothes, school supplies and better housing in a safe neighbourhood.

At Agape Table we embrace the opportunity to change the outcome of children's lives. We believe it begins with families, with providing for the youngest and most vulnerable of our community. We know that a successful day at school begins with a breakfast at home, lunch to carry a child through the day, and a satisfying dinner for a good night's rest.

We believe that food is a basic, essential need, and that it shouldn't be a privilege to eat. A child who can focus becomes a child who can learn and an adult who can earn. That reality benefits everyone, loosening the grip of gangs on our inner city, reducing crime and allowing our children to reach their full potential as productive citizens. Fundamentally, food is the first step on the path out of poverty. And that's no Band-Aid solution.

What those children need is us -- all of us. And we need them. Our children are our future, and every single one of them matters.

Suzi Bonk is Chair of Agape Table Inc., in Winnipeg.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 21, 2008 B6

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