Food for Thought

I wrote not too long ago about our desire to remove every barrier that we can as part of our poverty informed practice. I've written more about that idea (Declaring the Movement) before, but I'd like to share what it looks like in practice and what we've learned from it. For those of you who have been reading this series of articles (and thank you for doing that), you will recall I committed to having food in our lobby for anyone to take. It's just snack food, but it's something. We admire our friends at Amarillo College and their culture of caring and this is one small attempt to emulate it here. There's a picture up above from Monday morning. It's hard to learn if you're hungry, and this helps a little, but in reality, having food out is more poverty informed than I knew.

People in the crisis of poverty have some remarkable qualities. One of which is a generosity and a sharing culture that I remember from my childhood and admire to this day. Food in our lobby is a small way of acknowledging that we value that quality and that we welcome you to our "home." Surviving poverty requires an interdependence that means when times are good you help others, because when times aren't good, they will help you. This is our way of saying times are good for us and we know it's our turn to help. We do so without judgment and without question. We do it because that is what people do. Food has created community for ages and watching people stop by for a snack before class and engaging them in conversation is just another opportunity to build a relationship. We believe that relationships are paramount in being poverty informed and food helps that happen. Oh yeah, and people are hungry, this was the bowl three hours later.

I came across an interesting post on Dr. Donna Beegle's Facebook page about a week ago. it said "What does someone have to do to be worthy of your help? Reflecting on this question will help you identify subconscious bias." This felt like an idea I have written about before about deciding who "deserves" (Things not to say) our help, but now we had a live lab to uncover our own bias. Earlier, well-intended, discussions about student hunger had produced emails about making sure food is "just for students in poverty." But that doesn't feel like building community to me and how would we verify? There is so much judgment around poverty and food. A recent graduate working her way out of poverty shared with us that she was grocery shopping and bought a bunch of fresh produce. When she pulled out her EBT card at checkout, another patron remarked it must be nice to be able to afford that stuff on the taxpayer dime... The same student shared that if she had come up with a cart of cheap junk food, she would have been judged harshly for that as well. Poverty can be a no-win proposition. Our food is simply for guests. We also have fantastic office staff, but I knew that I needed to give them explicit direction to not correct or chastise students for taking too much or too often. This is an exercise in letting go of judgment and letting go of how people "should" behave. My staff has followed that direction, but we have had people express frustration about people "stocking up." This led to great discussions about how we don't know who they are taking it for and we don't care. We do not worry about who deserves food, lots of people deserve food, and this isn't charity it is hospitality and community. But it's been an interesting way to uncover and discuss our own biases. We are better for it. I think the last poverty informed practice here is that we don't tell them who provided the food and we don't ask for gratitude. We do not require you to be grateful to be worthy of our help...

Other cool things have happened since the Sunday night I bought trail mix and granola bars and put them out. Other people started bringing things in, which was nice but not surprising (teachers are good people). We also had cash donations from staff and when we started to share our story on social media, we had donations from the outside. The health promotions director from a regional health system wants to partner up and I need to make that happen. Our hope has been that our poverty informed division will spread to a poverty informed college and community and that is starting to happen! We have a great stash of snacks that are out for the day and we refill when we run out. I see students stopping every hour and they are pleased and engaged. I also made a point to tell staff these are community items and if they are hungry to help themselves. A poverty informed program leverages relationships at every opportunity and if a large bowl of snacks creates community, all the better! I believe it has also started to shift our focus on students. We can see them more as guests and people.

Being poverty informed is a tough concept to define concretely. So much of what we are trying to do seems like just being a good person and several people who have read these articles have given me that exact feedback. And they are absolutely right. Poverty Informed practices and solutions are solutions for just about everyone! That's why we don't think of what we are doing as just being the right thing, it's the smart thing. Everyone we serve benefits from being treated with respect, from being seen for accomplishments and strengths, from a relentless future focused approach, and from a place of belief. Having snacks in the lobby has started to change our behavior, our language and our conversations. It is a small thing that may have powerful ripple effects. I'd encourage you to consider it. Every Barrier That Can Be Removed Should Be Removed.