You never know sm
Posted By: I try to be open minded on 2009-02-16
In Reply to: How do you feel about Food Stamps/Welfare? - Not Political, just a general question
I live in a small town. There is a sweet gal who lives here, and one I like. She is a waitress at one of our little local dives. I walk in with anyone, and there is an ashtray instantly on the table and my favorite soda filled to the top with 2 straws in it. She never seems to mind waiting on me and always smiles and greets me by name. This is not her only job. She bartends a couple of nights a month too. She does some cleaning when she can get the work.
She drives a beat up heap that gets her to and from work. She lives in low income housing. She wears old clothing that is not attractive and does not fit because that is all she has. She has two little kids, like 4 and 7 and her mom watches them while she works and sometimes they come to the restaurant with her. They are clean and decently dressed, with good shoes on their feet, where their mom wears flipflops year around even in this very snowy and cold place.
She is on food stamps, but not welfare. She was married to her father of her kids, but he walked out when the youngest was a baby. She can't find him to divorce him even if she had the $75 to file. He doesn't pay a dime of child support, never has.
I found her last summer in the gas station paying with change to buy a half gallon of milk for the kids' breakfast. She apologized to my daughter who was working that night and said she had not yet gotten her food stamps and all she had was tip money.
She works, and works and works, does without so her kids have. She is not skilled in anything and she is stuck in a tiny town with few jobs. I don't begrudge she and those kids anything! Food stamps are intended for the working poor...like she is.
When she is in there and I am buying supper, I have a couple of times handed her $5 or $10 for a tip. Once I had gotten a great new job (still have it) and I have nearly double what I need every month now...I handed her $10 and told her I was celebrating and wanted her to share my joy. Of course, that was before I knew how hard it is for her. I see to it that I tip well because she is an excellent waitress. In a big city, she would make good money as a waitress, but here...she just scrapes by.
I know another gal, a good friend, who works full time and had food stamps. She won't work extra when she has the chance because she has a 15 y/o she is trying to keep tabs on, and her daughter is what I would call fast. She had lost her virginity over a year ago and runs with a fast crowd. I can't blame her for needing to keep tabs on the kid. She has no working car and we use mine to get to the grocery store and Walmart. I have watched her shop with her food stamps. She reads every price, every label and counts every item she buys and plans every meal that her food stamps will buy. Everything is Walmart brand. She will take even $25 extra money she has and buy food from the dollar store, the off brands, the very cheap stuff to keep a back stock of food. She buys her clothing second hand too. She is the working poor. She has a husband from whom she is separated. He won't agree on a divorce, he won't contribute a dime for the 2 kids still at home and is always trying to mooch a meal.
Plenty of able-bodied people work hard for a living and can't afford to eat because wages are low and food is high. I have been in the shoes of both of these gals. I know what it is not to be able to buy enough food to feed your family.
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