Day 18 -- Robin Hood

Today the LA Times ran a story on the dramatic increase in numbers of homeless people in area shelters.  Agencies are scrambling to adapt their facilities in order to cope with the surge.  In part this is because of the cold – numbers are always greater during the cold weather shelter season – but most years the seasonal shelters carry the increased burden.  Already, thought this winter’s numbers have exceeded the entirety of last winter.  Sobering. Most would cite the economy, the mortgage crisis and all of the other ills coming on the horizon as fueling the spike in homelessness.  Meanwhile we are running around to Christmas party after Christmas party.

And it is worse globally.  A friend of mine who runs a project for AIDS orphans in Nairobi, Kenya shared his organization was facing dramatic increases because of the soaring cost of food.  This is another soap box; but as I understand it the cost of food is directly connected to the cost of fuel most especially when food crops are being converted for fuel (ethanol).  We don’t feel the pinch the same as the starving child in the developing nation on the other side of the globe.  We are instead killing one another to get a cheaper flat screen TV at Wal-Mart (BTW, spell check recognizes Wal-Mart) on black Friday. 

To make matters worse, non-profits are feeling the pinch worse than any other business sector save for the auto industry.  Charitable giving has fallen dramatically at precisely the moment when charity is most needed.  I read a story around Thanksgiving where standing in line for the free Turkeys were in some cases those who had previously been giving them out.  Again, a sober reminder we are all a paycheck away from homelessness.  As someone who has worked their entire career in the non-profit world, I would like to continue and specifically work toward poverty relief.  I hope I can but with all of the scale backs – what if I can’t? 

Dave Egger’s What is the What tells the story of one of the Lost Boys journey from Sudan to the US.  According to the book, the founder of the Lost Boys Foundation, Mary Williams (adopted daughter of Jane Fonda) never received a paycheck for her work.  She was simply committed to the cause.  Of course access to the Fonda Fortune didn’t hurt. Another humanitarian, Greg Mortenson, founder of the Central Asia Institute that builds schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan (Three Cups of Tea), similarly received no paycheck for his work.  He was driven by his sincere belief in the cause.  Mind you, he was a bit crazy and for long stretches of time lived in his car and showered at the hospital where he worked as a nurse.  He scraped together money for the schools initially by type-written letters and living as meagerly as possible so as to use as much as possible from his nursing salary.

These people, and I am quite certain there are many others like them, didn’t let a lack of a paycheck stop them from pursuing their passions.  I would like to think I have the gumption to also do that but fear my need to pay my rent might trump my altruism.  If only I could be a modern-day Robin Hood.