Least of our Brothers and Sisters

Last week Wednesday I went to a lecture series at my church called Least of our Brothers and Sisters. It's all about poverty and how we can make small strides to combat it, even though it's been a problem since the beginning of human existence. We watched a 20/20 movie about a town called Camden, New Jersey. Camden (at the time in 2005) was the poorest town with the highest crime rate in the country. The documentary followed 3 kids around for a year. Ivan, age 4 lived with his mother and brother and were homeless. The family bounced around from nasty apartment to nasty apartment and were always thrown out because they couldn't pay for it. Ivan went to kindergarten but had trouble because his mother could barely read. One super sad/interesting part was when Ivan sat down with the principal of the school and they were going through a book to see what Ivan knew. He could count to 3,  identify a few things, but when asked "what are the three meals we eat in a day called?" Ivan responded "Um... collard greens, bread, um..." but the principal talked him through "breakfast, lunch and dinner." So sad that he doesn't even know what meals are, let alone most likely eats about once a day- when he was at school that's when he ate the most and would sneak extra food for his brother. He also had to cover his head with his pillow at night to not hear the gun shots outside his window. This is mind blowing for me.

Another kid they followed around was Billy and he was 17 and the first person in his family to graduate from high school. He was close at one point to failing his english class. He also had to commute 1 hour to a neighboring town every day to work in fast food because Camden didn't have even a fast food job available. He worked 5 hours a day 3 days a week. He lived with his dad, siblings, and his nieces but none of them had a steady income so their house was infested with rats, cockroaches, etc. They barely ate and when they did they used food stamps but when the money ran out they had no food.

Then there was a little girl (I can't remember her name) who was 6. She was the brightest one in the class at first, but as the year progressed her family life impacted her school work. Her mother may have worked, but her dad was an alcoholic who spent all of the family's money on beer and liquor. The parents fought all the time. The little girl tried to tell her dad to get help, and he went to rehab 5 times but really just wanted to hang himself to be dead.

Camden is about 10 miles away from a town called Moorestown, an upper middle class town where 90% of the kids go to college and have cars and their only worries are if they will get into college or what sports team they will make. Hmm sounds like Forest Hills.

It just amazes me that poverty like this happens in the US. Although I feel bad about saying this, I know other places in the world have it a lot worse, but it is still crazy that people don't eat or have access to food or shelter. It also made me feel bad about buying things that I do and about the worries I have. I have plenty of food, water, and a roof over my head. I have a support system that would help me if I was in need. I didn't hear gun shots outside my window and have an education. Most of the people I know are in the same boat as I am. But a lot of people don't see these problems or want to do anything about them. They just want to move up in the world and be the best they can be. I want to be successful, have a nice house and a loving family but I also am realizing that helping those who are less fortunate than me, the least of our brothers and sisters if you will, is really important to me. I've talked about a few reasons why or what I want to do, but I want to figure out more ways to do this. So that's what I will look for in the near future.