M.I.ME
Meals on Wheels
It’s a regular day in Mimeland. Get the kids out of bed, rush through breakfast, make the kids lunches, hop into the car, pick up the carpool and get the kids to school. All of course by 8:30am! Never once stopping to think what that day would be like if there was little or no food in the fridge… if there was no car in the driveway.
Let’s rewind. Instead of getting up at 7:30am to be ready by 8:10am, we’d all be up at 6:30am. The day before I would have had to have spent an hour taking the bus to the food bank, lining up for 1.5 hours, then busing back home for another hour carrying the heavy cans so that there would be something for the kids breakfast and lunch.
Instead of their choice of cereal, toast or oatmeal for breakfast, they would have eaten whatever cereal or oatmeal packets I had been able to pick up at the food bank. For lunch it would have been bread (probably white) with peanut butter and maybe an apple instead of the nice chicken and pesto sandwich with packaged snack food, a banana or grapes and a juice box that I had made them today.
We would have had to have been outside standing at the bus stop at 7:30am waiting for the bus rain or shine and instead of being at school in 7 minutes, it would have taken close to 30. (plus wait time)
These are things that 190 000 people on welfare and over 330 000 working poor people in BC consider every day. (this is in a province of approx 4.5 million people) They don’t stop at the grocery store in the car on the way home from work to grab nutritious and/or fast convenient foods for the week. The parent often gives up eating the “good” foods themselves so that their children have something decent. They don’t worry about the rising cost of gas for their car, instead they are considering how long it will take for the next bus to get there and how can they make sure they are not late for their minimum wage job so that they are not fired. Or, so they are not late for a job interview, which they have to fit into their already difficult and tiring day so that maybe, just maybe they can get off of welfare and make a better living for their family.
All of this came very clear to me one Saturday evening. I had spent that week following the MLA on welfare interviewing transit authorities and the local Food Bank and learning dismal statistics. In Surrey where the MLA lives there is one bus for every 4000 people. To put this into perspective, Vancouver has 1 bus for every 1900 people, but Toronto and Montreal has 1 bus for every 1200 people.
When I lived in Toronto I spent many years taking the subway and street cars to work even though I owned a car. It was fairly convenient, but still abit of a drama if there was a slowdown for any reason. I would never have taken it if there were 2/3 less trains and streetcars and if I would have had to wait without bus shelters in the rain for long periods of time only for a bus to arrive that was already full.
Not to mention the cost. In Surrey from many locations it would take walking anywhere from .5 to 1 km to get to the bus, make 2 bus switches, then walk again another .5 to 1 km to get to a food bank. This would cost me $2.50. Then I would have to wait in a line-up that is often around the block for my weekly hamper of food and do all the walking and busing back home carrying the heavy food and spending another $2.50 for this privilege. More than 70 000 people use this one food bank every month. Food banks were started 30 years ago as a temporary measure but now more and more are opening every year.
But back to my evening. I arrived home around 7:00pm one Saturday evening after having been out working all day. I had told my 15-year-old son that when I got home I could give him a ride somewhere. I arrived home tired and hungry and he wanted to go down the street to meet his friends at a Tim Horton’s. No problem. Then he asked if I would pick him up again later around 11pm or 12am. I said no, I was too tired to stay up that late and he had been out most nights that week anyway, so he could stay home, or walk home or get a ride home – his choice. I wasn’t mean about it, just resolute. Well, he lost it. He yelled that all his friends’ parents give them and him way more rides than I do and it was my job as his parent to drive him around. I am a single mom and my son lives with me full time. He has a job for which he needs rides several times per week and I have to drive him to and from school daily. I also drive him at least 2 or 3 times a week to or from his friends homes as there is no convenient bus service to any of these places.
Wow! After just having seen how many people suffer on the bus for their basic needs like food and work, and how many single parents sacrifice just to feed their child and that child doesn’t get rides to places from them, or lots of clothes purchased for them, I just had to sit back and reflect. My son is awesome at buying his own things and never asks me for money (he has had a job for a year now) and generally speaking he is not spoiled so I’m happy to report that his little yelling session was not a usual thing, but still. I stood my ground and told him to be home by midnight as I did not want him walking by himself so late.
That week I told him my experiences with the food bank and public transit. I told him stories of mothers and kids who suffer and don’t have enough food for their daily nutrition. He apologized to me for his fit and I believe that he understood. I think all children of middle and upper class families need to be exposed to the realities of this country. I don’t believe that it serves them or anyone to keep our kids in the dark about the issues going on all around us – especially when the average middle income family is only 2 pay checks away from welfare themselves.
When my son was around age 10 I knew then that I would have to be deliberate about his “life” education. At age 13 I sent him to a 5 day personal development camp which was attended mainly by adults. There he saw how even older adults carried childhood issues with them and how these issues held them back from moving forward in their lives. He is also blessed to have the opportunity to go to Africa in afew months as part of a community development team. There he will see what a rich nation Canada is compared to many parts of the world, but also see how other cultures live, love, laugh, treat family, and I know he will grow wiser and more inclusive through this experience.
I encourage anyone reading this to take your kids and find a local food bank, or shelter or places that serve free meals to the underprivileged and volunteer. Meet people who are in need and serve them and learn from them with your kids. We are all human beings and its time to bring equality back into this country. This can only start with awareness and exposing our kids and ourselves to things that are going on around us every day. Besides, I know first hand many families who appear middle income but at night they are staring up at the ceiling and wondering how they are going to pay their bills this month. They are living quiet lives of desperation and while on the outside it looks different than someone living on welfare, inside everyone is suffering.
M.I.ME
