A funny thing happened on the way back from the food pantry
On poverty and resources
Yesterday I was sitting in my car with the windows open, enjoying the slightly less rainy fall day at the tail end of a nor’easter. I had just picked up groceries at my local food pantry, which I started using when my SNAP benefits were cut earlier this year. I was thinking about community resources, and my thoughts turned toward unofficial community fundraising events, i.e., things like TikTok fundraisers that go viral. I’ve been spending more time than I probably should scrolling TikTok, and there have been more and more people trying to raise money on there, whether as creators paid through TikTok or just through a link to their Venmo.
I’ve been fascinated by the concept of things going viral since it first became a phenomenon in the early 2000s. Remember the dramatic chipmunk, and Charlie bit my finger?
I’ve also been fascinated by communal care and support, well, since I was a kid reading my little Bible, really. Proverbs 19:17 says that whoever is kind to the poor lends to God, and God will reward them. And in Acts 2:45, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the believers gathered together in community and, “They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” I saw my parents modeling this kind of commitment to share resources. And one of my favorite songs at vacation Bible school was The Magic Penny, which my little autistic brain didn’t exactly take literally — I knew the magic penny was a metaphor for love — but between that song and what I was reading in the Bible, I also grew up believing that actual money worked that way:
Love is something if you give it away,
Give it away, give it away
Love is something if you give it away,
You end up having more.
It’s just like a magic penny,
Hold it tight and you won’t have any,
But spend it, lend it, you’ll have so many,
They’ll roll all over the floor!
Over the last few years I’ve also been learning a lot from Black and Indigenous authors and activists about mutual aid, and bell hooks’ idea of Beloved Community. (See bell hooks’ Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, among others.)
I’ve become intrigued by the way this communal care plays out, not only in-person within local communities, but also at a state and federal level (the SNAP benefits, for example), and also in the extended online community that social media can create. I’ve watched people, time and time again, rally together to help someone whose rent is due, whose fridge is bare, or who needs medical care not covered by their health insurance. I’ve seen (by the way, Christians and non-Christians alike) give sacrificially to their friends and to internet strangers. I’ve seen folks with plenty give plenty, and that moved me deeply, but I’ve also seen folks who didn’t have enough themselves give all but their last $10, and that moved me even more.
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Jessica Kantrowitz
The poor are generous
according to many studies
and my own eyes
They pass the plate
pass the same $10 back
and forth on CashApp
Now rolls of toilet paper
now homemade soup
Knowing need, they fill need
If the rich were as generous
proportionally
as the poor
There would be no poor.
In Massachusetts, one in six people uses SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps) to buy groceries. My local food pantry is used by 5% of residents, and that number is increasing. A lot of us need help to make ends meet. And there is, and should be, no shame in that. The volunteers at the food pantry are so happy to be helping. They are my community members. I am theirs. We belong to each other.
The internet, of course, is a weirder creature. But I have seen such displays of kindness and community there that I can’t dismiss. I have given, and I have received, to and from friends and internet strangers. I have seen what happens when virility and generosity happen together and lives are changed. Yesterday, as I sat in my car, I was thinking about those viral fundraisers, and how nice it would be right now to be the recipient of one. I just lost another part time job, and while I’m not in dire straights, I am hustling to pay the bills these next couple of months.
And I was thinking of one of my favorite comedians, Charlie James, and a video of his that went viral. I can’t find a link to it — I think he took it down — but I made my own TikTok in my car yesterday talking about it:
I shared this with the caption, “Just kidding, mostly,” because I wasn’t sure if I was kidding or not. It would solve a lot of my problems if my video were to go viral and hundreds of people sent me $10 each. In one sense, I do need help — I am grocery shopping at a food pantry and donating plasma for the financial incentives they offer. I don’t have rent money for December. But I have it for November. And something else that I learned from the Bible, my parents, and from nature is that we are only given our daily bread, no more.
So when my friend replied that they wished they could help but that they needed $800 themselves, I sent them $10. Then one friend in real life and another I only know online sent me $245. You see? Love is a magic penny. We take care of each other, whether that is through small amounts given with great love, or voting for our taxes to go to resources like food assistance and health care.
The great lie of capitalism is that we are each alone in life — individuals or, at best, families trying to pay the bills, buy a home, invest for retirement. Millions of individual bank accounts deciding whether each person lives or dies, succeeds or fails. But I believe we are bigger than that. I believe that our purpose on earth is not to build private wealth, but to take care of each other.
Would it take away a lot of stress if I had private wealth or a six figure salary? Sure. Would I complain if I got a big advance on my next book? No. But I’m glad I’ve had this chance to see the truth of things, that I need others and that I am needed. That I am not an island, however independent I may be. That I, too, am a part of the beloved community.
With love and hope,
Jessica
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