Experiencing a Taste of Poverty
Per the assignment we were required to live off of a budget of $11 which is the daily allowance that The Census dept. feels that a single individual under the of 65 should be able to survive off of. When I first saw the assignment on ANGEL I was in complete shock that some people actually have to survive on a full day of meals on that amount. I couldn’t believe that people truly had to live off of this minimal amount, but I was up for the challenge. The only thing left to do was to decide which day I would begin. Significantly enough, I decided that February 1st would be the ideal day. February 1st because it marks the beginning of Black History Month and I knew this assignment would be a great way to humble myself as well as syncing myself to some of the struggle that many people have and continue to face. Hunger is something we can all talk about from a distance but it’s completely different when it’s directly in your face.
My Saturday began at 9:30am where I began getting ready for my PT job. As a barista at Starbucks, I knew it might be a hard day because we’d just began our launch of new food La Boulange products. However, it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I worked from 10-4pm with a single lunch break. As a Starbucks partner, we are allowed three free drinks throughout our shift. On my break I decided that instead of eating, I would drink a Venti Iced Skinny Caramel Macchiato with extra caramel drizzle. I chose this drink because the caramel is so thick that when you drink it, it’s almost as if you’re eating a caramel candy. As I rejoined my team on the floor, I realized how uncomfortable it was that I was serving people drinks which range from $5-$36 each when I could even afford one on my own budget of $11 to survive off of all day. I couldn’t tell people my opinion of the new La Boulange products because even with my Starbucks partner discount I still couldn’t afford it. After work, I went to the local corner store where I searched through the aisles for nearly 20 minutes trying to piece together what I would afford to buy and what would keep me full the longest. In another class that Friday, we watched the documentary A Place at the Table which highlights the links between obesity and hunger as well as some of the big issues of hunger in the United States. While I stood in those aisles looking at the food on the shelves, all I could remember was the young woman Barbie from the documentary. Barbie was the Hispanic woman with two kids who was struggling to provide for her family. One of the things she said was that it was easier to give her kids junk foods because that’s what was the cheapest. The aisles filled with