Showing posts with label children. Show all posts

What's Wrong with the World?

So I'm sitting here reading my trending news and getting started with my day.  A friend tagged me in a meme that started my mind working.

Artist/Photographer - Unknown

I had a good laugh and shared it on my business Facebook page.  I then decided to head over to see how Nichole's Fundraiser was going for her class.  Nichole is a teacher in Baltimore County and has started a GoFundMe Page to raise money for flexible seating for her class. Flexible seating encourages collaboration and creativity and has been seen to improve health & learning in school settings.  You can find more information on it here. 

To my surprise I found that she still had only one donation.  I have seen it shared several times but really was shocked that no other donors had come forward to help with this very attainable goal. 

We all know there have been some pretty relentlessly stupid Go Fund Me pages created and just a quick google search will show you that people have collected money for personal makeovers, to help pay for the  wedding for the sister of Dillon Roof, the racist shooter of nine people.  Each of these campaigns raised money.  You can see a few of these here.

My mind bounces back to the image that I was tagged in. Perhaps drinking from the skulls of my enemies could help bring things back in line but really, really what is truly wrong with our society is that people toss money at these crazy ideas and do nothing to help support teacher's who are just looking to do what is best for their students.  In this case I'm using Nichole's page as a real world example but you can see this in all sorts of Go Fund Me's out there.  

Our society needs to find tribalism.   We need to find a way to go back to making sure the lady next door has a fan when it is 100 degrees outside.  We need to make sure that the kids at our schools have lunch and a decent learning environment.  We need to make sure that we are taking care of our own. And by our own, I mean earthlings.  Everything that lives on the earth.  

This is a lot to take in and maybe I'm being a bit too philosophical about it all in trying to create some sort of oneness for us all to latch on to.  But still...

I know money is short and times are tough but if each one of us takes a tiny bite, that elephant will be gone in no time.  Maybe you pass on that Starbucks coffee or skip the movie and donate that cash to a cause you believe in.  For me, I took my monthly budget to buy new silver and donated it Nichole's Go Fund Me.  If we all did that we could blow these goals away in no time!


Image Credit - Screenshot GoFundMe.com






Posted by at No comments
Labels: , , ,

I'd Like to Teach the World....



Over the last week I've seen several stories regarding children and school lunches.  I was so blown away by some of the stories I decided to do a little research.

In April 2013 four food workers in Massachusetts were fired for making crying school children toss their food in the trash after it was discovered they did not have enough money in their prepaid lunch accounts. 





September 2013- New Jersey – Fox and Friends panel support the idea of having children go hungry to teach them a lesson.  There’s no such thing as a free lunch.  Per the video, the child psychologist says, don’t toss out their food… give them a cheese sandwich and an IOU.

January 2014 – A Utah School instructed cafeteria workers to “confiscate” the lunches of 40 schoolchildren who did not have enough money to pay for their lunches.  That food was thrown in the trash while the child going hungry, watched.

What in the actual hell is wrong with people today? Is society as a whole channeling Maria Antoinette?  As we saying, let them eat cheese sandwiches? 





Ok so I do know that she never said that, but really what is wrong with us?

Growing up in rural North Carolina, with a father in the penal system, my family was a recipient of public assistance.  We received food stamps, free lunch, participated in the commodities program and any other free food program we could get into.  My mother, who was pretty much worthless, made sure that all the money that did come in went directly into the pocket of her drunkard husband who systematically physically, mentally and sexually abused us.

I remember stealing food from grocery stores and sitting in the corn field eating frozen dinners.  I remember standing out by the trash can eating the “scraps” of food when I was supposed to be cleaning up dinner dishes.  I remember sneaking into the houses of people who lived near me and taking food from their freezer.
I had breakfast and lunch at school and dinner at home.  Sometimes my mother would fry a chicken for dinner.  I would get a drumstick, some instant potatoes and maybe some green beans. A sister would get the other drumstick, a second two wings.  The thighs would go to the asshole and my mother would get both chicken breasts.

You know, because it’s always a good idea to take the two biggest pieces and eat them yourself and not share them with your children.  One of the worse spankings I ever got was for sneaking the skin off her chicken breast.  No wonder I have issues with food. But I digress...

My point is, we don't know the family situation of these children.  We do not know if this may be the only meal they are getting today.  We just do not know.

We’re living a world where we have people who have more money than their grandchildren’s grandchildren will ever spend.  Why is it so difficult for the lot of us to understand that we can change this?  There is no reason why children should go hungry.  There is no reason why kids should not have food in their bellies.

A Houston man decided to check into his local school and found that there were 60 children who were back on their lunch bills.  He took $465.00 of his own money and paid off the accounts.  He wasn't a rich man.  Just someone who saw that kids were going hungry and decided to do something about it.

What can we do about this as a society?  I've been looking at information around a resource based economy.  Jacque Fresco, a futurist and scientist offers a great idea to come to terms with some of these issues.




If we could just come together, we could change the world.  I'm not a scientist.  I'm not a financial expert and I try to know as little about politics as I can.  This idea of taking what we all have and putting it together, finding a new way to look at our world.  Taking care of our planet and loving each other.  It sounds, well... kinda cool to me. 



It takes a village....

Blessings
Sosanna
)O(


Posted by at No comments
Labels: , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)