For the last few days I have been
taking part in a nation-wide fundraiser to help bring awareness to poverty
throughout the world. For this week,
everyday people and celebrities alike (with me included…in the every day people
category J)
agree to feed themselves below the global poverty line of $1.50 a day. It has been an interesting, eye-opening
experience to say the least. I wasn’t
expecting to get so much out of it.
·
You can eat and not go hungry on $1.50 a day,
but it is not healthy and it is boring as hell.
I won’t be eating rice and beans for a little while. You can’t afford fresh fruits, healthy cuts
of meats, or really anything more than commodities like beans or carbs like
rice. I’m sure I could have had more
actual food but after the great lent ordeal of 2012 I was allotting part of my
$1.50 a day to a bulk purchased can of diet soda. I know…judge all you will, I’m fine with it.
·
You have a lot of time to think when you aren’t
focused on meals. I found myself
contemplating what I value a lot. What
would a sacrifice like this mean in a long-term commitment? How could I live my life differently and help
other people if I were willing to sacrifice some of the luxuries I have come to
believe were staples? When I told a work
friend what I was doing, she told me the story of a man she knows who
contributes 60% of his salary to a food bank in DC. He has donated over $1 million to this charity
to date. It go me thinking about the
small changes I could make that would add up.
What if I survived on $5 a day, what are the possibilities?
·
I thought about my circle of friends and
family. If I am willing to do this for
strangers I have never met, what more could I be doing for the people I love
and cherish? It made me think about my
pride and those people in my life that I love but who are presently at a
distance because I am too proud to know how to fix it. And those that have just drifted away who I
could easily just call or go see. Why is
it sometimes easier to try and fix the world’s problems rather than those right
at home?
·
It opened me up to unexpected
conversations. The seeds of a plan have
been sown for me and a family member to do a missionary building trip to Haiti. There have been so many ways people I care
about have come to me and I have gone to them for help and support over the
last days. I don’t know if that would
have happened under other circumstances.
·
And finally, people are quick to loose their
minds. I have had several friends offer
to buy me meals (If you don’t have to pay, it doesn’t count, right?) And for those people I say thanks for trying
to be supportive. But I wanted to stay
true to the cause and taking a $6 sandwich would be cheating. I’m not actually
(at this moment) broke. (I really think
they forgot). Yet still there were
others who offered to allow me to eat after their leftovers. As if I really was a child living in the
streets of an Indian slum. (I won’t be eating all of this potato, so if you
want to come by my desk and “find it” I would be ok with that). I don’t know
what to do with those folks. I’ll chalk
it up to good intentions.
Overall,
it made me think about what I value. What
I am willing to give up, and what I don’t, won’t, or can’t live without. Amazingly, the live without column ended up
being a lot shorter that I realized it could be. And I was surprised by what was actually on
that list.
If you
haven’t yet, please consider making a donation to my page at:
Your BC Girl – below the line
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