by Loreen McFaul, Director of Public Relations
Yesterday I went to the Christmas Bureau, as I do every year, to work at the ID table. I asked people somewhat personal questions, because, in running a charitable event, we need to have statistics to show Spokesman-Review donors that we are reputable and just how far their money goes. How many children do you have? How old are they? What is the size of your household? And finally, What is your monthly income?
They’re pretty straightforward questions. This year, though, I noticed a difference. As usual, moms were excited to talk about their children. Good parents will always put their children first, which is what brings them to the Bureau. But this year, when I asked the income question, I saw the vulnerability and despair leak out with a rawness I haven’t seen before. People had tears in their eyes, and the desperation was almost palpable. “My husband got laid off.” “My hours have been reduced.” “I don’t know what’s going to happen next month.”
How many families are in that place, or close to being there? And how many people are too proud to come to the Bureau? How many people aren’t we serving that we could be, should be, because they don’t have the bus fare to come to the Bureau? Or because they’re hanging onto that job and can’t get free? We’re doing the best we can with the resources we have. I truly believe that. There are a lot of charities asking for money these days, and it’s important that we give to the charities that make the money go the farthest. If the bottom falls out on the charitable organizations, it puts this whole vulnerable population at a greater risk, because we know how to do this work, and we do it well; and they truly have nowhere else to go.
Volunteers at the Christmas Bureau sort toys
Tags: charity, children, Christmas, income
- Brian Estes, Jesuit Volunteer
While I would say I have a healthy appreciation for the four full seasons one lives through in a year spent in eastern Washington, it is no secret I am a son of the summer. Native to the deserts of the Mid-Columbia Basin in the southeastern corner of the state, I have yet to experience a heat wave in Spokane that has compelled me to stay indoors. The cold which creeps in by mid-October and sticks around until springtime, however, does other things to my system. I can handle Spokane winters, know there are worse elsewhere, and, having spent an endless equatorial summer abroad this time last year, can certainly appreciate the fullness of a place in which one can experience green turned golden, of gold turned brown and grey, and finally turned green again. Nonetheless, the first cold has always been a shock, and its late March lingering has always felt a thoroughly unwanted and overstayed houseguest.
Knowing this, I felt it a bit of folly for me to take on the position of manager at the St. Margaret’s Shelter Community Garden at Vinegar Flats. Sure, I would have a solid 5 months to harvest by hand and by spirit the sun-drenched abundance of a well-cared-for quarter acre. But with the fall, killing frost would come, and I did not have much faith in my pampered “What, were you born in a greenhouse?” upbringing to withstand the loss of the vitality of a late-summer veggie patch. When on September 1st temperatures down at the garden (nestled in micro-climate cold pocket alongside Latah Creek) dropped to 27 degrees, I knew both I and my charges were in trouble. The cold didn’t leave, and while the low thirties in Spokane-proper of the last month have been enough to chill me at home, it is nothing compared to the mid-teens down on the creek bed.
Already Thanksgiving, the season has assuredly changed, and with it the appearance of the Vinegar Flats garden. The shift I did not expect, however, was the one that occurred internally; the season which I once understood to plunder has revealed to me a deeper purpose in the decay. By the middle of September, both the garden and I were weary. In fact, while I cannot speak for the garden, I was not only weary, I was close to exhausted. Autumn may have snuck up on us, but it also came just in time. The garden lies fallow, and all around fallen leaves and “dead” plant matter begin a slow rot into the soil—after a season of taking from the ground, this death is its needed rebirth. So I too, have been able to rest—taking a vacation—my first 48-plus consecutive hours off since I began my work at the garden in April. I have turned indoors, returned to old relationships and to relationship building at St. Margaret’s and in our vibrant community here in Spokane. While I lie fallow, a part of the oft-ignored other harvest—the soil’s season of return to itself—I begin the quiet cycle of regeneration and preparation, moving patiently toward the sowing and reaping of the sunny season soon to come.
Tags: community, garden, seasons, St. Margaret's Shelter
