Being a Service Project Recipient

Recently a group of people from the church where I attend came out to do a variety of projects at my home. The help was most welcome as it's not easy for me to do some things because of either physical strength limitations or knowledge of how to do a needed task. While I was able to assemble this chair, heavy landscaping and painting (among others) was beyond my scope. Being helped is both humbling and humiliating. It wasn't easy for me to sort through my emotions, and in general, I'm pretty good at pinpointing them. Imagine you are a person living in a high stress, chaotic home, and the emotions they may have. If I felt a little testy and upset now and then, I could understand another flying off the handle. Having someone come to your home, where you may be managing at a just-above-crisis level or maybe a little higher, then having them diagnose what you need done means differing expectations. There were three categories to describe how I felt. The first was what I knew I needed done and they agreed. Obviously, this was mutually beneficial and expectations were close to equal. The second was stuff I didn't think needed done but they thought needed done. This resulted in me feeling embarrassed that something I either didn't see or had a different level of it being fine the way it was but they saw it lacking. The third level was stuff they saw needed done that I didn't do, even though I could have done it. This also was embarrassing. In the third case, I had to own that it was my own lack of diligence (read-lazy). Sorting through the emotions: Feeling humbled is a good thing. We resist help because we want to be proud of being independent, among other things. We want to feel we can do things on our own. Facing we need help - that we need OTHERS - is an essential part of life. Isolation and self-reliance is not the way we were intended to live. Having a church family reminded me of that. While difficult, I recommend everyone allow others to help them, even if it's just helping you wash your car. It's good to experience this emotion. Feeling humiliated is not so good. On the one hand, I don't want to live House and Garden Beautiful, but others' expectations made me feel inadequate (and possibly trashy). It's good to avoid putting someone else in this position. On the other hand, letting some areas get trashy was my own fault and I had to face that. It's good for me to feel that way too, as it's a proper chastisement to motivate me to do better. During the morning, I had the opportunity to meet new people in an environment that was very comfortable - not the awkward moments of standing in the lobby with a coffee cup trying to come up with small talk. I stink at that. However, while occupied with a task, that's a topic of conversation that easily leads to deeper issues. I was honored to hear the stories of other people's lives. It is ALWAYS good to listen and remember that other people have areas that are difficult. By the end of the day, my property shined and looked restored and orderly. Looking at cleaned up, tidier areas make me feel grateful and relieved. Those are good feelings. This is only a small recounting of the day. If you are contemplating becoming involved with service projects, keep in mind what it's like to be on the other side. Here are some extra points that weren't necessarily a part of my experience, but can factor into a day. 1. Having someone show up before the project to evaluate specific projects and the necessary tools is very helpful. Each party should be clear as to who will provide what, resulting in as equal expectations as possible. 2. Respect each other's time. People in crisis are in crisis for a reason - usually they can't manage doing anything for a long period of time. Have a clear end time for the day. 3. Decide how, if at all, a person can show their gratitude. While some people can not afford to pay for the work being done, they may be able to pay for a small portion. Or, if they want to make some snack or provide drinks, let them do so. Allowing them to show gratitude in some way is part of their hospitality for the guests. At the same time, we can never repay the debt paid for us by Christ, and helping others is a demonstration of His grace and love. If there is a spiritual component to your group or why you help, be sure to keep this message separate from the hospitality element. Now, go help someone. Or, let someone help you!

Summarizing Two Weeks of Food Desert Eating

Once again - technology has triumphed - I have no idea why this is publishin as a giant chunk of words instead of the beautiful paragraphs that I typed in the draft. When I began this experiment, I thought I'd be somewhat miserable, hungry, and very sad about not having high quality olive oil and vinegar on my salads. Fortunately, those things did not happen. I ate 37 meals at home at an average of $.98/meal. At the end of week two, my remaining inventory of food purchased in just the two weeks of shopping is: 1/2 gallon milk, 1 apple, 8 oz. of cheese, 3 cans of tomato soup, 1 can diced tomatoes, over half the bottle of olive oil blend and 1 pound of pork that I put in the freezer. Nutritionally, food tracked revealed I stayed within range for healthy portions of fat, calories, carbs and protein. The exception to this would be the day I ate a ton of the pork/carrot sloppy joe mix with a load of cheese (I missed cheese!). That day I went over my fat grams. The total cost of the meals I ate at home added up to $36.10. What does this mean? In this rural county, access to a grocery store where affordable healthy foods are available is NOT an issue. Since these are the fundamental definitions of "Food Desert," I believe the term doesn't apply for this particular area. My experiment doesn't reveal what the obstacles to healthy eating really are. A normal family is busy so often fast food is a choice of CONVENIENCE. A family in poverty operates at a level of CRISIS as well. In both of these areas, managing a food budget by careful, strategic planning doesn't occur. It's also been suggested to me that many people truly do not know how to COOK. When I turned my carrot soup into sloppy joe with leftover pork, this wouldn't be something that would be easily done. Certainly COST of food goes up and takes a big chunk out of a budget. Healthy food can also be pricey. However, healthy food generally keeps a person more satisfied than "junk" food or food that is centered around a lot of carbohydrates. If more food is eaten in those scenarios, then healthy food is still less expensive. Since I have a significant amount of leftovers and feel that the point of access and affordability have been made, I'm going to end this portion of the food desert. However, I am interested in learning more about the issues of hunger in this county, as well in other areas. I'd like to end with a story that first impacted me on kids and healthy eating, families in crisis, and how to address these problems effectively and accurately. A local church was having their annual Vacation Bible School. Any child in the area was welcome to participate and since it was almost a full day's schedule, lots of parents took advantage of "free child care" by sending their kids. The kids brought their own lunches. The group I'd been assigned were 7-9 year olds (I think). During the lunch break the first day, one little boy unpacked his "lunch" which consisted of ten colored candy canes. Keep in mind, this was in June. I dug around the church kitchen and managed to get the kid a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The next day, his lunch had three tiny Jimmy Dean sausage sandwiches. Later that day, something happened and the child became completely hysterical. It was awful. He had to be sent home and he wasn't back for a few days. Later I learned this child's story. His mother was dying. There were four other boys in the trailer in which they lived, brothers and half brothers. The dying mother also had her brother and boyfriend living there. It was chaos on a whole different level. The mom died not too long after VBS ended. I went to the funeral and sat by this little boy. I had no words, I just held his hand. No local farmers market will solve this problem. Lower produce costs won't and neither will having free fresh veggies at the local food pantry. How does this problem of poor nutrition and subsequent health problems get solved? I don't know but it looks like getting "our hands dirty" by talking to people we want to avoid may be part of it. And I'm not sure how to even do some of those things, let alone do a blog experiment on it. I'll continue to update this blog periodically as I read and ask questions. As always, your comments are welcome.

Days Eight-Ten; Sharing My Feelings

If you've ever been on a diet, you know that when you pass a restaurant, donut shop, or coffee house, you take an inventory of what you want to get there. Even if you don't normally go there, suddenly you WANT a pumpkin donut (oh, I want a pumpkin donut).

Even though I have not been hungry, knowing I'm staying strictly on what I have purchased makes me want everything else.

Isn't being human wonderful?

I forgot to mention that I weighed myself on Monday and I was at 141.0, so I've lost a bit more than a pound. I also did 7 hours of Zumba last week.

Sorry to keep you hanging as to what I purchased with my $25. I took advantage of sales on cheese and milk, tuna, tomato sauce, apples and red potatoes. I spent a total of $21.98. The cashier probably thought I was deranged when I got a big smile on my face.

The big purchase was pork loin. It was a bit confusing to read the label. On one end, it said "Certified Angus Beef" and the other read "Pork Loin."

Of course, this is a different issue here in the food desert.

Sunday I made a rather pathetic attempt at carrot soup. Fortunately, the addition of cheese made it rather good.

Monday's menu was oatmeal, salad that was the last of the lettuce and chicken from the previous week and a smoothie - $2.28

Tuesday - oatmeal, carrot soup with cheese and a roll, pork loin with roasted carrots and red potatoes. (sadly, I ate the rest of the potatos when I came back from Zumba) - 2.55

Wednesday - oatmeal (and extra milk, because I miss drinking coffee), a salad with pork and apple and a smoothie - 3.52

From the number crunching, the cost of the cheese and pork is the same per ounce (.19). I made some sloppy joe today with the leftover pork, adding shredded carrot and the leftover carrot soup (I'm weird that way). That on a bun will be about $1 each. If I had beans (and there are some in my pantry, but I am ignoring thme), I'd add those too.

Other things that could be made with what I've got: tomato soup and toasted cheese ($1.36), tuna on salad, tuna salad on bun (.87), salad with cheese and apple, etc. There's about 12 ounces of pork leftover and I'll freeze it and use eggs for salad. There's really a lot to choose from this week with our good friend fromage on the menu.

Food Desert - Week One Report

With the help of oasis, I made it through the first week of the food desert. The total I spent on groceries were just over $33. Breaking down and estimating each meal and totalling it reveals I spent $16.39 on 19 meals for an average of .86 per meal.

While it may be considered a "cheat", I met family for dinner Saturday night and had the leftovers for lunch Sunday. While someone else paid, I'm subtracting $10 from this week's grocery budget. And while my salad was delicious, it was not a decadent meal.

Affordability report for week one - pretty darn affordable. Nutritionally - I neither fell under or exceeded my limits for protein, calories, fat and carbs except for Friday when I met with friends.

I'm very surprised at what I had leftover at the end of the week.

There's also a whole bag of carrots (plus a couple more in the first week), a whole container of orange juice, milk for 2-3 more days, lettuce for today's salad, yogurt for 2-3 smoothies, 3 bananas (which I sliced and froze for smoothies), 3 cans of tomato soup, 1 can of diced tomatoes, half bag of raisins, and about 7/8 box of oatmeal.

This is probably sufficient to keep me going, that wouldn't be very interesting for this experiment. Friday I received this week's food circular (I've never been so excited to get it!) and am trying to decide between ground beef, which is on sale, or the pork sirloin roast, which is a better deal.

I know, the suspense is killing me too.

Comment Response

It's truly humbly that I can't respond directly to a comment within the comments. 

Bean asked in the last post why it was okay for me to accept tomatoes and not leftovers or eggs.

Good question.

While there is no official method to my madness, I thought out the following.

1) Nearly every person in this rural community has access to fresh tomatoes.  They are so plentiful (even in bad years, which this one was), that they are left in public places and are "fair game."

2) It was the night before our first frost and the thought of not having a fresh, delicious tomato until next summer was sad.

3) I only took two red and they were small (I picked the remaining green for the future).

Also, it's a bit more unusual for a person to get fresh eggs (though not that hard) from a friend (and my friend doesn't charge me).  Taking leftovers from a party seemed tacky (though normally that doesn't stop me) and also didn't seem fair for this experiment. 

Further, the tomatoes, while healthy, aren't a significant portion of a day's nutritional needs.

I did however, take the leftover Greek salad from dinner Saturday night and had it for lunch Sunday.  But more on that later.

Thanks for asking!

Food Desert - Importance of Community - Days Five and Six

Friday I went to a party.  There's a group of us who gets together for monthly "Fun Fridays" where we eat, drink and be merry (though there is no one there by that name).  Sometimes, if we're really forward thinking, we have a theme.  This month, not surprisingly, it was something along the lines of "pumpkin" and "harvest."

What a feast - pumpkin soup, pumpkin rolls, pumpkin bread, pumpkin chocolate chip pie (uh-yum!).  There was cider to drink (along with Skinny Girl Margarita-the best dressed at the party).  And Carrot, Pumpkin's skinny triangular cousin, made an appearance as the token fresh vegetable.  The theme could actually have been "Carbohydrates on Parade."

Assessing what I had from my week's shopping to take, I considered taking my carrots, and trying to come up with a dip related to the yogurt (plain).  I was hesitant to use the yogurt because it's both expensive and something I use for a protein source (my ability to make a dip is also questionable).  The other thought was to boil up the last six eggs and make deviled eggs - again with the yogurt.  This would deplete most of my protein sources until shopping day (Sunday).  Since pantry staples are fair game, a friend suggested I make crackers (for the pumpkin soup).

Dough and my arthritic hands are not good friends.  However, I tried the food processor (also suggested by friend) and low and behold it worked!  Here's the recipe that I used:

1 c. flour    1/2 t. salt    2 T. butter 3 T. water  - Put all in the processor and let it whirl.  Roll them out super thin and put on a floured baking sheet.   You can add herbs and Kosher salt on top but adding it to the dough  may be a better idea.   Bake at 400 for 10-15 minutes.  Let cool and break into pieces.

Easy right?  It was!  Except I sort of burned them.  Fortunately, I could crumble off those edges and the rest looked sort of funky in an earth-muffiny, "I-sell-these-at-the-local-farmers-market-to-yuppies-for-big-bucks" kind of way. 

Cost?  Um...practically nothing, save the butter.  I'm not sure if anyone ate them, though.  They tasted okay, but look at the competition:

Yeah.

Total cost for the whole day's meals totalled about $2 (oatmeal and salad with chicken).  I ate darn well at the party, I can tell you that.

Today I had an orange juice/yogurt/banana smoothie (.79).  It tasted very good after too many carbs and sugar of last night.  Lunch will be a boiled egg and carrots (.35).  Tonight I'm meeting family for dinner at a Greek restaurant.  This obviously will be the biggest splurge, and I'll shop with $10 less in my budget in order to do this.

The bigger point in all of this is having friends and family gives a person more options.  Community is important for every person.  And that means face-to-face, not virtual, community.  One of my friend's from last night gave me the last of her red and green tomatoes before our frost today.  I thought these were fair game.  However, I had to say a very painful no to the offer of some of another friend's fresh eggs.  Leftovers from last night were also declined.

Having other people to share costs with stretches a tight budget.  Bulk items are often expensive and a person or family that lives week to week can't always buy cheaper meat, olive oil, apples in bulk to save money.  If there are friends and family to share costs, everyone wins.

Community is a commodity in short supply these days. 

Lack of community is not access nor is it affordability, though both can be eased by being in community.

Comment on Comments

Thank you for the comments.  For some reason, I'm unable to respond through posting my own comments.  It is some mysterious technical issue that is obviously beyond me to repair (despite my feeble efforts).

I'm sorry I'm not savvy enough to fix this.  Nergh!

Jennifer - thanks for bringing up a good point about the ability to do long term thinking.  When a person is tired and stressed, considering the future implications of food decisions made in the heat of the moment are not always good ones.  (The same could be said of other decisions made in the heat of the moment)

Szecua- you've said something I've often thought - eating seasonally is more affordable and certainly more delicious.  Eating a tomato in January is always a bad idea.