The Options Committee of Making Kenora Home is proposing the sixth poverty challenge, A Walk in Other’s Shoes. This year, we have asked our local business community to take the challenge.

Participants have been asked to attempt to stay within a social assistance benefits’ budget. A single person on Ontario Works would receive $305 per month, $10.00 per day, or $50.00 for the five-day period. A couple would receive $468 per month, allowing a daily budget of $15.60 or $78.00 for five days.

The budget includes all food and drink, entertainment, some personal supplies and transportation costs. Each participant will be given a daily challenge card, which will reveal an additional challenge to be completed before the end of each day.

The participants will experience some of the hurdles that people living on social assistance face. It is hoped that the event will raise awareness and break barriers for people living in poverty. The challenge takes place February 16th until February 21st, 2016.

Friday, February 19, 2016

Day 4

A very busy day. I took my lunch with me: 1/4 of the second French bread loaf that Marion made, a carrot, some broccoli and half of a left over pancake that we made earlier.
Marion, the brains in this outfit, figured out that to deal with the medical appointment challenge in Winnipeg, per our daily challenge, we would call our Ontario Works case worker and they would provide a voucher for transportation and $100/night if we had to stay over. If we are not on Ontario Works and one of our much too large population of working poor, then it gets a lot trickier. We would ask a friend who has internet to post our need for a ride to and from Winnipeg and hope to catch a ride with someone. Failing this, Marion would ask her son who lives in Winnipeg to pick us up, a large cost for him.
Marion used up some left over rice,  beans and carrot, and mixed it with chopped onion and garlic and made it up like a stew for lunch.
We just finished supper and it was a pot of Spanish rice made like we did earlier in the week, except I forgot to add half a tin of tuna, and added sautéed mushrooms with onion and garlic. I used a half a cube of chicken bouillon in each of the rice and mushrooms for flavour.
Tomorrow is day five and we are sitting in good shape on food. Our inventory includes: 1/3 of our flour, 1/2 bag of rice, 1 tin tuna, 1/2 can of coffee, 1 packet of yeast, 5 1/2 packets of baking powder, 2/3 bag of oats, 7 eggs, 100 grams of mushrooms, 2/3 of our pinto beans (cooked), 3 onions, 1 crown of broccoli, 2/3 sweet potato, 3 cubes of chicken bouillon and almost a full bottle of oil. Total value of groceries left is $17. If we would have had to pay for bus fare this week to go back and forth to our volunteer "jobs" we would not have made it.
We are really looking forward to a real meal with real protein and not having to worry about whether we can afford it. How much would it suck to not have that to look forward to?
Our meals have been pretty decent, but we spent way too much energy and time dealing with food and food insecurity.
Now I want to read our poverty buddies' blogs and then finish up some homework left over from a busy day. Wouldn't mind sipping a libation while doing so. I guess that is still water for today. Again, we have something to look forward to and if we were in this for real, we wouldn't.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)