Poverty Simulation

On Friday afternoon, Mercy College and Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks hosted a Poverty Simulation at Mercy College in Toledo.

A Poverty Simulation is an interactive event that helps participants understand what life is like with a shortage of resources and an abundance of stress.

We had about 30 people attend. Each person was assigned an identity and got a packet with information about themselves and their family group. Included in the packet were any resources the family had, like cash, transportation passes, food stamps, social security cards, household goods, etc.

Every family was different and had different circumstances, but each had to figure out how to feed their family, pay their bills, and get around to different appointments or businesses during the simulation's four, 15-minute "weeks."

I participated in a poverty simulation back in December, but this time I got to see it from the other side of the table -- playing the role of a community agency or business that the participants would need to visit to accomplish their tasks.

I was the bank. Here's me with my money pouch.



More people were cashing checks than paying off loans, so I ran out of cash pretty quickly. There was a lineup of people needing money, so I started "minting" money to meet my demand. Pretty sure that's illegal, but hey.


Other busineses included:

The General Employer, aka the workplace where all adults with jobs had to go and sit for 7 minutes each "week" in order to get paid. This is Amy, my replacement VISTA for next year at the Food Bank in Toledo.

Quik Cash, aka check cashing with interest and transportation passes for purchase. This is Kylee, another new VISTA at the Food Bank in Toledo.

Social Services, aka Job and Family Services (for food stamps, welfare). This is Veronica, a VISTA from Advocates for Basic Legal Equality in Toledo; Maureen, who is going to hate this picture; and a volunteer from the community.

School/Day Care, where all the kids had to go or risk getting in trouble for truancy. This is a volunteer from the community.

Pawn Shop, including Guns For Sale. This is one of the new VISTAs from the Food Bank in Lima.

Utility Company. This is Ina, one of the new VISTAs from the Food Bank in Lima.

Community Action Commission, aka a resource for food vouchers and free bus passes. The CAC is one of those hidden resources in a community. Most people were buying bus passes from Quik Cash and didn't realize or think about visiting the CAC where they could have gotten bus passes for free. This is one of the new VISTAs at the Food Bank in Lima.

Grocery Store. This is Jacki from WSOS community action commission in Fremont.

Beth (Oak Harbor High School graduate and VISTA at WSOS in Fremont) was the sheriff. Sharon (VISTA at the Food Bank in Lima), looking appropriately shady in the back, was the "criminal element" of the simulation. Her job was to deal drugs, swipe any cash or household items left unattended, and generally create an element of chaos. Sharon, who is very sweet and unassuming in real life, was surprisingly good at this! Also, by the end, Beth the sherriff in cahoots with Sharon the criminal. I personally witnessed several illicit transactions. Police corruption!

If people didn't pay their rent or mortgage on time, they got evicted.



Sometimes agencies were randomly closed.



Beth had a gun and handcuffs...

...and she wasn't afraid to use them. This family was in trouble with the law practically the entire time, this time for their child's truancy.

At the end of the hour, we had a group discussion where everyone shared how their family fared during the simulation and any thoughts about the experience they wanted to share.



It was a lively discussion. Comments included:

Wow I learned a lot. This was hard!

I can see now that there were better ways to do things. But you don't always think clearly when everything is happening all at once and your kid is in jail and you're getting evicted and bills are piling up and you just lost your job.

Several people commented on the frustration of transportation passes. Each time you visited an office you had to surrender one. So going here and there trying to figure out the right process or office, or having to come back for another appointment cost you a pass each time.

One man noted that it's all about timing -- if he would have understood the system from the start and handled things in a different order, he might have come out even or possibly ahead. But a few mistakes and missteps compounded and he ended up losing his job for being late, which left him with no money to buy bus passes to go find a new job or for his kid get to school so he gets arrested for truancy issues, and so on. I didn't realize I could get fired in this simulation! he said.

Be your own advocate, be informed and refuse to be a victim, and that can not only help you but empower and teach those around you. Many low-income families believe what authorities tell them. For example, several families got evicted and accepted it. But, in reality, it's illegal to evict someone with no warning and they should have called the mortgage company out on that. Only one woman thought to protest the eviction.

One woman commented that she felt low-income men trying to raise children alone are at a disadvantage because many social services are set up to help women and children, and the man may not have the benefit of "knowledge of the system" passed down matralinerally through the generations.

Viva Latino!

On Thursday, Maureen, Amy, Kylee and I attended a half-day training at United Way called La Conexion: The Connection to Latino Family Resources.

The training was modeled off one of the most useful trainings I have attended this year, No Wrong Door, except this one was specifically focused on Latino services and cultural sensitivity training.

No Wrong Door is the idea that every local service agency will be familiar with what every other agency does, so that when someone calls looking for help, even if it's the wrong number for a particular service, the person can be pointed in the correct direction rather than told no and sent away with nothing and no idea where to turn next.

The event opened with a skit meant to demonstrate how misunderstandings can arise between two people who speak different languages, whether a language like Spanish or English, or the hidden languages of different classes or systems (ie between a JFS caseworker spouting acronyms and a low-income client who doesn't understand the system).

An English speaker was having a conversation in Spanish with a Spanish speaker. The English speaker was able to keep up fairly well, but slowly the conversation got too difficult for him to follow. But even after losing the flow of the conversation, he kept nodding and agreeing to the questions and statements spoken by the Spanish speaker -- unknowingly agreeing to get a pie smashed in his face, which brought chuckles from the group.



The best part was watching part of "Which Way Home," a 2010 nominee for Best Feature Documentary. The film follows several unaccompanied child migrants -- some as young as 9 -- as they journey alone from Central America and Mexico en route to the US, largely by freight train. They are all looking for a better life or hope to somehow meet up with family who are already living there.



It's a long, dangerous journey. Many die, and many get caught and deported back home. According to the film, around 100,000 children are caught trying to cross the US border and sent back every year. Who knows how many actually make it.

We didn't get to watch the end of the film, so I don't know what happened to the main characters, but the presenter said most were caught...

They served delicious-smelling Mexican food for lunch, but tragicaly we didn't know there would be food and had eaten just before...Such a waste.

New VISTAs!

Kylee (left) and Amy, the Food Bank's two new VISTAs, arrived on Thursday.

Amy is my replacement, but our terms of service are going to overlap until I'm done in August. Which means she is going to inherit my phone and my email account and I will basically be there to help her learn the ropes and make the transition. At your service!

I remember feeling so confused my first week, having no idea what I was supposed to do or what anyone was talking about when they threw around acronyms and agency names. I was really glad to have Tonya and Brie there to ask questions. So hopefully I can help her feel a little more at home in Toledo and with Ohio Benefit Bank.

Kylee isn't replacing anyone. She is a brand new VISTA position, so there will now be three VISTAs at the Food Bank instead of two (and four (!) for the next two months, until I am done). Kylee was actually already a trained and experienced Ohio Benefit Bank counselor before she applied for this job, so, unlike most new community trainers, she is coming in with a big jump on the steep learning curve.

Anyway, I'm excited to get to know these two girls :)

Welcome Amy and Kylee! Here's to an awesome VISTA year!

Here are the beautiful resource binders I put together for Amy and Kylee. Even though they are more boring than Sharon's, I am pretty much in love with the festive tabs :)

Rainy Block Party

On Wednesday, Maureen and I were jazzed for a Block Party cleverly disguised as a Health Fair.

The event was held at one of the subsidized housing project buildings in downtown Toledo, just down the street from the food bank. As we arrived, the music was blaring and the food smell was already wafting off the grill.

The only thing not cooperating was the weather. The day was drizzly and overcast, and for a minute it was iffy if the event would even happen.



But happily, it went on as scheduled with only minor necessary modifications, like moving the agency tables under an overhang.

All the agencies under the building entrance overhang, out of the rain.

Grilling went on outside as planned. Mmm burgers.

Kids in line for burgers.

Even though it was stormy, it was muggy and hot. Our "Helping Ohioans" fans were greatly appreciated by building residents and agencies alike.

And this is just for Mo. Who somehow took this without my knowledge. To prove that I am willing to put unflattering pics of ME up here as well, and not just her :)

Fatal Tornado

Earlier this month, a set of tornados tore through northwest Ohio, killing 5 people (one more died several days later at a hospital), leveling a high school and police station, and severely damaging or destroying about 100 homes.

My parents live in Ottawa County near where some of the damage occurred, but thankfully were not affected.

Among the victims were a mother and her 4-year-old son (the whole family was sleeping upstairs when the tornado struck -- the father later died at the hospital, leaving a 7-year-old girl, who recovered, an orphan); the father of a high school valedictorian who had been preparing to address her classmates the next morning at the school that was leveled; a woman hit by airborne debris as she drove; and a 20-year-old mother of a 2-year-old boy, killed as she tried to seek shelter in a police station. (The police station was destroyed by the storm; her son and boyfriend survived.)

Here is the Lake High School valedictorian, whose father was killed by the storm, graduating later that week.

This is from examiner.com:

Packing winds of up to 175 mph and tearing a path more than 8 miles long, the tornado that caused five deaths in Ohio on June 5 has been rated an EF4 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale. The twister was one of dozens reported across the Ohio Valley causing millions of dollars in damage.

For fifteen short minutes, the monstrous Ohio tornado ripped through Ohio’s Wood and Ottawa Counties. Touching down just east of Perrysburg at 11:20pm the twister moved east-northeast eventually causing its greatest damage near the town of Millbury.

The National Weather Service’s assessment said that an EF4 rating was warranted due to “extreme damage to structures.” Lake High School was one scene of extensive damage where busses had been tossed about like toy cars and other extensive damage was realized on the northwest size of Millbury.

In addition to the EF4 twister, an EF2 tornado with winds of at least 111 mph and one-mile-wide struck in Fulton County near Colton. Multiple houses were damaged or destroyed and trees were debarked from the ferocious winds.

(Please excuse the cheesy music.)



Several days into the cleanup, the United Way of Fulton County asked our VISTA group if anyone might be available to help coordinate volunteers at the volunteer headquarters that weekend. I said sure.

I've been at the scene of two other disasters: a flood in northeastern South Dakota in 2007, where I volunteered with the cleanup of basements; and another northeastern South Dakota town damaged in 2008 from straight-line winds (basically tornado-type damage, but without the funnel clouds), which I covered as a newspaper reporter.

So, even though I'd been inside emergency volunteer headquarters before as a volunteer or an interviewer, I'd never been on the other side of the table.

As it turned out, I did no volunteer coordination or any other real "job" in Fulton County, but I did get "adopted" by some of the head organizers, who basically let me shadow them all day as they held meetings, handled situations that arose, and continued surveying damage.

So, while what I did really didn't feel very USEFUL -- at times I was itching to stop TALKING so much and get out and do some actual work -- it was very interesting to see the operation function from the inside.

I also had a few opportunities to talk about what I do with the Ohio Benefit Bank, and made a few good face-to-face contacts in Fulton County, one of whom is going to attend our Fulton County Expo coming up next week! Yay!

These two guys let me follow them around all day. Jason, the man on the right, is part of a group called Morman Helping Hands, which brought in volunteers from across the country. Their yellow shirts were everywhere you looked. We had a lengthy discussion about welfare and how the Morman church takes a special offering to assist needy families in their churches, so Mormans generally never enter the federal assistance system.

The other guy who let me follow him around was this friendly, unassuming guy (seated) everyone called JT, who I knew worked with the Fulton County Emergency Management Agency, but only gradually realized he was actually quite the bigshot -- Justin Thompson, the EMA director! He graciously let me ride along with him as he toured damaged sites and also took the time to sit down and explain exactly what he does, both day-to-day and when disaster strikes.

One of the houses JT and Jason took me to was this one:



Luckily no one was hurt, but the storm also hit their barn and I heard they lost their horses...

That damage was caused by this toppled tree:



In case you can't tell how huge it was, here are some of the volunteers for scale:



Driving around we saw plenty of damage:

Trees broken by the twister. According to JT, you can tell it was a tornado that did it because they look twisted off. If it had been straight line winds, they would have been snapped off straight.

Dented silo

You can see the swath in the trees that twister passed through.

Several houses had handwritten Thank You signs out front for the volunteers who had helped them.





I kept hearing the largely rural storm victims say the same thing I've heard them say at every other disaster site -- all of them rural -- that I've been to: We're so thankful it wasn't worse, hesitant to accept aid because someone else had it worse. Amazing.

There was one lighter note to the day: We drove past one house whose back barn still had a massive tree smashed across it, but no one was working on cleanup -- instead everyone was in the front yard under tents having what looked like a graduation party. So that gave everyone a bit of a chuckle. Storm be darned -- we're still having this party!

Deep-Pocket Donors

Last month (yes I know...I'm so behind in what I've been meaning to write about...), I listened to a webinar conversation between Bob Ottendorf, the CEO of Guidestar, and Sean Stannard-Stockton, the CEO of Tactical Philanthropy.

It was interesting to listen in as these knowledgable guys talked about their experience with "deep-pocket" donors and what they've found such people look for when they give. It doesn't really have anything to do with my current job, but donors are how most nonprofits survive and so it was still interesting.

One portion of the discussion was about reasons why deep-pocket donors give.

Many people think they are motivated to give solely for tax breaks or other self-serving reasons, but a research poll (a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Study by the Center on Philanthrophy at Indiana University) actually shows that most report they give for emotional/emphathetic reasons, and say they need to feel convicted that what they are giving will make a difference.

Hence, charitible appeals need to appeal to both the head AND the heart. A long-term donor is going to be someone who has both a passion for your mission as well as an impression of your project has being effective, with a high social return on their investment.

According to the poll, 81.2 percent say they are motivated to give in order to give back to the community, 70.7 percent support the same cause or organization annually, 70.4 percent give for social beliefs, 51 percent for religious beliefs.

Get this: 48.1 said they gave because they were ASKED.

Only 5.3 percent reported giving for public recognition or business interest and 2.7 percent for career interests.

Another big thing they talked about was the importance of nonprofits being transparent so that donors feel comfortable working with them. In this age of "Google-ization," nonprofits can no longer be the sole gatekeepers dispensing information about themselves. Information and opinions -- good or bad -- can be shared, sorted and mixed by anyone, so it's important for your agency to be transparent in addressing any concerns that arise.

Effective nonprofits:
1) Base programs on research about what WORKS
2) Actively collect information about program results
3) Systematically anayze this information
4) Adjust activities in response to new information
5) Operate with absolute focus on producing results

The bottom line? Organizations win by doing great work, being effective, and maintaining strong donor relationships.

Henry County Expo

A few weeks after the Wood County Expo, we hosted a similar event in Napoleon, in Henry County. This Expo was actually part of a joint venture with the Reentry Coalition of Northwest Ohio.

The Expo portion was smaller than Wood County's, with three attendees, but the Reentry side had a big turnout. I'd say about about 25 ex-offenders showed up to hear from community agencies as well as apply for assistance and get one-on-one help with polishing resumes and applying for jobs.



Doing outreach beforehand for this event was something of an adventure. We visited a whole bunch of small Henry County towns that I'd never been to: Deshler, McClure, Holgate, Hamler.

Some I'd never heard of. Some of them, like Hamler, I didn't even realize I was in at the time. Enroute between two planned stops, we would sometimes see a promising church or other agency and stop to drop off information, only knowing we were somewhere between Deshler and Holgate. Only later, when looking up the address, did I realize there was a town called Hamler and that's where we were.

At the event, most of the people I talked to already got food stamps, or lived with a full household of family members whose collective income was too high for food stamps, but I did help a few people register to vote.

The first guy I helped apply for a job was pretty computer savvy. He already had a decent resume, but I got to exercise my picky copy editor's eye to make minor stylistic changes to help it look more consistant and readable throughout. I helped him attach the resume to an online application for a truck driver job and he was pretty excited about his prospects when he left, smiling wide and thanking me profusely and shaking my hand.

Another guy I worked with, on the other hand, was starting pretty much from scratch with computers. He was a one-finger pecker and needed detailed explanation even for moving and clicking a mouse.

I helped him set up an email account and it was amazing to see his face light up when he finally got the hang of scrolling and just laughed and said, "Wow! Will you look at that!" as the words on the web page streamed by.

To practice getting a message and responding, I sent him an email that read "Congrats! You just checked your email!" and when he finally oriented himself to the screen and realized what I had written, he laughed and painstakingly replied "Thinkyou."

So clearly there is a long learning curve ahead.

We went through the steps to opening a window, typing in an address, and logging in to his email account several times, but I still think he'll struggle with it when I'm not there helping...

But I could tell what we had done was enough for one day and the event was wrapping up anyway, so we never ever got around to making him a resume or applying for any jobs.

As he was leaving, the Reentry coordinator was yelling after him to be sure to check Craig's List, or this posting, or that online, etc, etc, and he nodded and wrote down the addresses, but I'm sure he had no idea what she was talking about. (Who is this Craig, and why does he have a list?)

So I don't know how far he'll get with his job search alone...but hopefully his granddaughter he lives with can help him or he can find a computer class locally.

Wood County Expo

The photo above is from the Wood County Expo in Bowling Green back in May. It was held at First United Methodist Church, who graciously waived their room use fee for us.

While the Regional Meetings we have planned in the past are meant as updates and new information for existing Ohio Benefit Bank sites, Expos are meant for potential new sites or interested individuals. They are an informational introduction to what OBB is, how it works, and how it might fit into their agency's existing services or operation.

Wood County was the first of three Expos Maureen and I were planning and hosting, and I thought it turned out well. We had 14 people show up, and many of them left excited about OBB and very interested in becoming OBB sites. A couple of them are already moving through the process. Yay!

This event was also my first attempt at brewing coffee. As a non-coffee drinker, it turned out very thick and probably awful. Hah. But people were gracious :)

Maureen greatly enjoyed putting together folders for our guests with agendas and marketing materials. We made a whole day of it.

Catch-up

Wowzers. It's been a while since I've updated. I've been meaning to, but somehow never got around to it, so it's time once again for a cop-out catch-up post.

First, a story I've been meaning to tell.



A while back, I had a really frustrating training.

These two ladies basically contradicted everything written in the training manual. Whether from personal experience or the experience of someone they knew, they just shook their head and pronounced, "Nope, that's not how it happens" after every program description.

They were insistant that the book might be the way things are SUPPOSED to happen, but it's not how they happen in real life, and they wanted me to corraborate how it REALLY happens so they could tell their clients correctly.

Sigh.

It's hard to argue with someone's personal experience, like one woman's son who she said got kicked off food stamps when he enrolled in college, or the other woman's friend whose whole family got kicked off Ohio Works First (cash assistance/welfare) once she reached the 36-month time limit (kids are supposed to have no time limit).

But several of their statements just didn't add up. What's in the book ARE the rules. And if that isn't what happened, it's because they weren't telling the whole story OR they need to contact Legal Aid because something went wrong.

But regardless I felt kind of weak and helpless to adequately respond to their statements. But both of them were supernice and thanked me for the training, so, while it was uncomfortable experience, it could have been worse.

I definately understand the desire to know the ins and outs of how a complicated system "really" works so you can give clients accurate, helpful advice and information.

But one of the counselors especially made me a little nervous because she worked with reentry (ex-offenders coming out of prison) and seemed like she was basically prepared to advise people not to go back to school because they would lose their food stamps. A) Not necessary true and B) Don't encourage people not to go back to school just so as not to lose food stamps! For God's sake. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater improvement of life! Food stamps are not meant to be forever! Yeesh...

Plus, as my boss Gayle later pointed out, by all rights they shouldn't be trying to manipulate answers or even figure out what is going to happen. Their job is simply to simply enter accurate information and let the software and JFS caseworkers make the determinations.

Also,



I FINALLY finished the book I borrowed from Maureen and started back in January, an account of life in poverty-stricken North Philly during the welfare reform of the mid-1990s. As I said in this blog at the time, I tend to enjoy books written by journalists, and this was no exception.

And, after a few aborted efforts, I finally connected with the guy whose back taxes I started back when I did his 2009 taxes on April 15. We finished up his 2008 returns and he was super-grateful for the help and said it felt good to be squared away with the government again.

Also, I finally took some vacation days!

Went camping in northern Michigan.

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io

Road-tripped around the South, including Pensacola Beach before the oil got it.



Oh yah, and...