“Dare to be that Person”

 

There is an overwhelming sense of communal warmth lingering about the halls of the St. Therese Center in Henderson. The small lobby area is home to several large shelves brimming with loaves of bread and fresh produce. In another room, similar, well-stocked shelves line the walls.

Upon entering the St. Therese Center, one might mistake the modest structure for a small, displaced neighborhood grocery store. While the various food items found within the St. Therese Center are certainly meant for consumption, none are for sale.

Father Joseph O’ Brien O.P. founded the St. Therese Center in 1998 as a vehicle for providing assistance to local residents infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.

In its ten years of operation, the Catholic community outreach program has seen substantial growth.

What began as a single building has now blossomed into a network of three locations serving over 2,300 clients throughout southern Nevada.

According to O’Brien, the St. Therese Center serves at least 1,500 clients every month. Many of these clients are minors.

“We have 435 children under the age of 18,” O’Brien said. “70 percent of them are HIV positive.”

O’Brien said he is eager to serve a growing list of clients, but an overarching sense of sorrow comes with

each new signup.

“This month, we‘ve had 30 new clients. We’re getting one to two new clients each day.” O’Brien said. “This tells us the virus isn’t really going away.”

Two large quilts adorned with dozens of paper flowers hang prominently in the dining area. The names of deceased clients are written on each symbolic flower.

According to O’Brien, donations made to the food pantry allow individuals and families affected by HIV/AIDS to stock up on essential food items on a weekly basis.

O’Brien spoke of a particular family when describing the importance of the food pantry and other services offered by the St. Therese center.

“We serve a family of five, all of which are HIV positive,” O’Brien said. “How did they get the virus? It doesn’t matter. We are here to help them.”

O’Brien said the aforementioned family consists of two parents, two young children, and an infant who has recently began developing signs of the HIV virus.

Most clients are limited to one visit to the food pantry per week, but St. Therese center staff members often circumvent this rule when they see clients facing particularly dire circumstances.

“According to last month‘s statistics, we dealt with 12 homeless people.” O’Brien said. “We allow the homeless clients to come in and take from the food pantry whenever they need to.”

Although the food pantry is a large part of their outreach program, the organization provides a wealth of services to its clients.

The small back rooms of the St. Therese Center are nearly filled with various items of clothing.

In fact, almost every available room is used for storing these necessities. This includes the staff restroom, which is partially dominated by crates containing new socks and underwear. The tiny area of free space within this room is literally flanked by these crates.

The client restroom seems to the only area within the St, Therese Center completely devoid of hulking metal shelves or plastic crates.

The staff members and volunteers of the St, Therese Center can be found stocking these large shelves of food and clothing and preparing food for their clients.

In the kitchen area, Trinity Walker, was diligently packing brown paper bags with sandwiches for the upcoming lunch rush.

Ten years ago, Trinity was diagnosed with the HIV virus.

Trinity, now 31 years old, volunteers at the St. Therese center several days a week alongside her husband Christopher, who is not HIV positive.

“We encourage people with HIV to volunteer, it helps build their stamina and eventually lets them rejoin the workforce,” O’Brien said, “Many of our volunteers are HIV positive.”

While Trinity uses much of her time to help others affected by HIV/AIDS, she also finds personal solace within the walls of the St. Therese Center.

She revealed her close relation to the clients when she spoke of her first hand experience with HIV/AIDS medication.

“The medications are extremely harsh,” she said. “It is a constant battle if you don’t have a good support system.”

Trinity went on to explain the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS and the resulting feelings of abandonment.

“You lose more friends than you gain most of the time when you find out you’re positive,” she said. “You lose family members. They just turn away.”

In response to her revelation, Christopher simply placed his hand over Trinity’s and smiled affectionately toward her.

Both Trinity and her husband Christopher cited a lack of education as the primary factor behind the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS.

“It’s not just drug addicts who are affected, it is everywhere,” said Trinity.

Christopher went on to explain the fear and apprehension many people infected with HIV/AIDS deal with on a daily basis.

“Most people [with HIV/AIDS] don’t date. Most people don’t tell anybody,” Christopher said. “[People infected with HIV/Aids] just don’t reach out because a lot of people have so much shame.”

“Society tells them ‘this is something God put on me’,” he said. “It is hard for them to even reach out sometimes.”

According to Christopher, beyond what small insight he had gained from classrooms and television commercials, he did not know much about HIV/AIDS until he met Trinity.

“When we first got together, I didn’t understand it at first.” he said.

This was five years ago when the two met in Abilene, Texas.

In the time since, Christopher said he has learned a great deal about his wife’s battle with HIV. The couple celebrated their second wedding anniversary last week.

Both Trinity and Christopher encourage charity in others.

“Lay your hands on something. Go out there and help someone,” Christopher said. “Dare to be that person.”

 

A Profile of Compassion

In her work with the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Newman Community at UNLV, sophomore Maggie Killgore spends much of her time assisting others. In fact, the 19-year-old education major seems to leave little time for anything other than philanthropy.

As a social justice peer minister at the Newman Center, Killgore organized the biannual Table of Plenty Food Drive this semester. With her assistance, the charity drive brought in an impressive 1,818 nonperishable food items. This surpassed the previous food drive’s total by over 300 items.

The food drive was held on campus through February and March and all proceeds were donated to the St, Therese Center, a Henderson-based organization that provides assistance to individuals and families affected by HIV/AIDS. For more information about the St. Therese Center, take a look at this in-depth post.

Killgore described her role in the Table of Plenty Food Drive

“I was in charge of getting the word out,” she said, “I put up flyers and sent e-mails.”

In addition to raising awareness for the event, Killgore regularly collected the donation boxes spread across campus whenever they became full.

I was always running around and picking up boxes,” Killgore said.

Maggie Killgore posing with some of the canned food donations from the Table of Plenty Food Drive 

 

Father Albert Felice-Pace O.P., the director of the Newman Center, had nothing but kind words when describing Killgore’s dedication to the charity drive.

“She has done a very good jon because we have increased our numbers significantly,” Felice-Pace said. “She is always there whenever we need her.”

He continued to highlight his employee’s commendable behavior.

“She was very excited about organizing the food drive and she was very dedicated to it,” he said. “She is very outgoing and always ready to help other people.”

While the food drive did not meet Killgore’s initial goal of 2,000 items, she remains impressed with the generosity of the UNLV community.

As a social justice peer minister, Killgore also serves as a counselor to many of her peers, helping them through a variety of problems.

Her willingness to help others expands far beyond her time at UNLV.

In her high school years in Gallup, N.M., Killgore served as a basketball and track coach to special education students participating in the Special Olympics.

“It was the most rewarding job I ever had,” Killgore said. “It made me want to teach special [education].”

This is what led Killgore to attend UNLV as an education major.

As a former resident of a small community, Killgore often finds herself missing small town hospitality while residing in Las Vegas.

People aren’t always friendly here,” she said. Sometimes I smile at people and they just look at me like I’m weird.”

Killgore also finds her ideals in conflict with those of her fellow UNLV students.

“I definitely have different moral values than the average college student,” she said.

“People always want to talk about how they got drunk the night before,” she said. “My life does not revolve around alcohol and drugs.”

The adjustment may be trying at times, but Killgore said Las Vegas is, in some ways, superior to her former home.

Growing up in Gallup, Killgore was one of the few white students in a predominantly Native American community.

While Killgore noted she was never excluded or taunted by her classmates, the blond-haired, blue-eyed woman said she “stuck out like a sore thumb,” while attending a private Catholic school in Gallup.

“I was the only white girl on my basketball team,” she said.

She said she enjoys life at UNLV because she is no longer instantly recognizable.

“I came to UNLV to blend in,” she said.

While Killgore said she wants to be another face in the crowd, a heightened sense of compassion seems to make the charitable sophomore stand out yet again.

 

 

 

UNLV Food Drive

UNLV’s St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Newman Center brought in an impressive 1,818 food items for the third biannual “Table of Plenty” food drive, which ended March 31.

The nonperishable food items were donated to the St. Therese Center, a Henderson-based organization offering assistance to individuals and families affected by HIV/AIDS.

The campus-wide drive began in February and according to Maggie Killgore, the event’s coordinator and social justice peer minister at the Newman Center, the drive surpassed the previous semester’s total by more than 300 items.

While Killgore’s initial goal was set at 2,000 items, she said she was still impressed by the charity of UNLV students.

“We understand that students don’t always have a lot to give,” she said. “So we are very appreciative of the donations.”

Killgore attributed much of the food drive’s success to the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration.

The department received 1,000 cans, which constitutes the majority of the donation total.

Chair of the Hotel Management Department, Dr. Gail Sammons, said that all faculty members within the department were notified about the food drive and encouraged to raise student awareness.

Some professors, according to Sammons, went so far as to offer extra credit for students who donated. Others posted announcements to their classes using WebCampus.

While some student donations may have been motivated by the prospect of extra credit, Sammons said that the majority of donations were made out of a pure desire to give.

“I am proud of my department and I am proud of the students,” Sammons said. “I hope they continue to give.”

Father Joseph O’Brien O.P., the executive director of the ST. Therese Center, was also impressed by the large number of donations from the UNLV community.

“Every time they hold the drive [the number of donations] gets bigger and bigger,” he said. “We love it.”

O’Brien went on to explain the organization’s need for donations.

“The food drive really helps us tremendously,” he said. “We serve over 3,200 people and at least 1,500 of them come to us monthly in need of food.”

According to O’Brien, the St. Therese center distributed more than 48,000 pounds of food to 910 local households last month. 510 of the individuals served last month were under the age of 18.

While O’Brien was pleased with the large quantity of donations, he was equally satisfied with both the quality and practicality of the items received.

“I appreciate students donating because they are practical,” O’Brien said. “Top Ramen is a great meal for someone who is HIV positive and not feeling very well. It is easy and quick.”

The St. Therese Center accepts food, clothing and monetary donations, and can be contacted at (702) 564-4224.

 

Dinner: The Conclusion

This blog post covers the final meal of my experiment. In order to obtain a brief taste of life on food stamps, I limited my daily food budget to only $3.25. A full explanation can be found in a previous post titled The Experiment.

Maintaining a $3.25 daily food budget is no easy task.  With two meals down, I had only consumed 470 calories. In contrast, my previous meal yielded a excessive amount of sodium that would generally constitute an average person’s daily intake. It seems as though living on food stamps is not only difficult, it is also quite salty.

With dinner swiftly approaching, I began to develop a terrible headache. This trend continued as a feeling of general weakness swept over my body.  This was probably due to the small number of calories I had consumed, but I suspect another factor was contributing to my condition. 

With only $3.25 to spend, I couldn’t afford coffee or any other source of caffeine. Some people prefer alcohol or other behavior-altering substances; I tend to gravitate toward Folgers. Without my drug of choice, my head began to pound relentlessly.

I assumed my final meal would ease this headache headache.  Of course, I was wrong (this is becoming an incredibly prominent theme).

Frozen burritos were on the menu, and, yet again, the microwave was my instrument of choice.  After heating two of the small burritos, I sat down for my final meal of the day.

The burritos’ taste is quite reflective of their 33 cent price tag. While they didn’t dethrone the Kroger chicken noodle soup as the most inedible meal of the day, the burritos left a sufficiently objectionable taste lingering across my pallate. The innards of these foul creatures contains what can only be described as a substance painfully reminiscent of cat food.

Hunger trumped offensive flavor in this case. I ate every last bit of the two bargain-priced beef and bean burritos.

The burritos left me with a hunger-stifling queasiness that remained throughout the remainder of the day. In a sense, this was a positive consequence of choosing unhealthy, bargain-priced Mexican cuisine. At the mere thought of food, my mouth became watery and my stomach threatened to send back the burrito’s beef and bean entrails. I didn’t even think about food for almost an entire 24 hours following my encounter with the devious Las Campanas twins.

The burritos yielded an impressive 720 calories, bringing my grand total to 1,190. This is represents just over one third of the calories recommended to me by the Dallas Dietetic Association Calorie Calculator.

The bowl of chicken noodle soup I had eaten for lunch had already fulfilled my daily sodium requirement with 2.25 grams in a single meal.  The burritos supplemented this excessive number to this with an additional 1.1 grams of sodium. Luckily, my breakfast of plain oatmeal was devoid of the substance.

There was plenty of untouched food left over from my experiment.  Nearly an entire container of oatmeal, a can of soup and one frozen burrito remained. I could have easily consumed additional calories, but with my budget-priced food came copious amounts of sodium. If I had consumed an additional can of soup, it would have brought my daily sodium intake to an incredibly unhealthy 5.6 grams (5,600 milligrams). 

Can a person survive with a daily food budget of only $3.25? Sure, but as my findings indicate, many cheap food items offer poor nutritional content. I cannot imagine what havoc would accompany months or years of this low-calorie high-sodium diet.

I am not so pretentious as to propose a solution to this problem. Feigning the diet of an individual on food stamps for a single day has not left me with a comprehensive understanding of the struggles such a person faces. I had only a brief glimpse into the harsh reality of life on food stamps; a humbling experience I will not soon forget.

 

Lunch: An Unholy Amount of Sodium

Breakfast had satiated my hunger until about 2:30pm. While the oatmeal was far from a culinary delight, it was leagues ahead of the approaching midday meal.

For lunch, I had purchased cans of condensed chicken noodle soup. Two cans of soup would have been overkill at this point, so I stuck with a single can. According to the label, a single can of the soup contains 2.5 servings. A single serving may be been an appropriate portion when the consumer has a side dish of some kind, but a paltry $3.25 food budget left me with no such luxury. I cracked open the can intent upon devouring every ounce of the bright yellow substance flecked with chicken bits.

Again, the trusty microwave was the utility of choice for my culinary disaster. The soup was lacking vegetables or any noticeable spices, but this is expected of an item costing less than 50 cents. Unfortunately, the soup’s budget price proved to be indicative of its overall taste. After mixing the can’s content with water and a mere four minutes of heating, the meal was ready to be eaten and subsequently criticized.

In short, the soup was salty. In fact, the broth was salted in such a manner that it was nearly inedible. The sodium-laced entrée sucked every ounce of moisture from my mouth. Before I surrendered my spoon to the soup’s infinite saltiness, I had already consumed two large glasses of water. At this point, I had not yet analyzed the actual sodium content of the meal, but my dry mouth argued in favor of a substantial figure.

The can’s label confirmed my suspicions. Each serving contained 900 milligrams of sodium. Having consumed almost an entire can of the soup, my lunch was home to 2.25 grams of sodium. To put this figure in context, the American Heart Association recommends a daily intake of less than 2.3 grams of sodium for “healthy Americans”. In one meal, I had consumed a full day’s worth of sodium.

To make matters worse, the entire can contained only 170 calories. With two meals down, I had only consumed 470 calories. According to the Dallas Dietetic Association Calorie Calculator (A link from FDA.gov), I man of my height, weight, age and activity level should consume roughly 3,200 calories daily. After consuming less than 15 percent of my recommended calorie intake, I had only one meal to remaining.

 

The Ugly Mug of Breakfast

This post chronicles the first meal of my experiment. In order to obtain a brief taste of life on food stamps, I limited my daily food budget to only $3.25. A full explanation can be found in a previous post titled The Experiment.

9:15 am: I woke up Sunday morning and cursed myself for not eating a hearty meal the night before. I was ravenously hungry at this point, so I dove into the experiment and sat down for the first meal of the day. The entree: a lonely bowl of plain oatmeal.

The bowl of Kroger 100% Whole Grain Oats was, by far, the best-tasting meal of the day. Since oatmeal is renowned for being completely devoid of flavor, this is indicative of the quality found within the remaining meals.

Since I had foolishly purchased no other breakfast foods, I opted to eat a double portion (One cup). One cup of oatmeal provided only 300 calories, 12 grams of protein, 2.5 grams of fat, and 0 milligrams of sodium.

The meal itself looked strikingly similar to wet cement. In fact, it was a runny abomination of oat and water. Despite the meal’s rather horrifying appearance, it was surprisingly edible.

While I would love to proclaim my culinary expertise and condemn product’s manufacturer, I can blame only myself for the breakfast’s ugly mug. In a persistent effort to uphold the stereotype of a 20-something college student, I used a microwave to cook the oatmeal. As you can see in the picture above, Julia Child would not be proud.

Almost minutes after eating breakfast, the whole grain oats sunk to the pit of my stomach. While the oatmeal provided only 300 calories, it was quite filling, and kept me free of hunger pangs until mid-afternoon. In fact, I didn’t even think about food until 2pm. The experiment was going well at this point. I was left without my usual dose of caffeine, but I still felt good at this point in the day.

 

The Experiment

Last Tuesday, in my Advanced Reporting class, my professor clarified the harsh reality of food stamps. She said the average Nevada resident relying on food stamps is allotted only $91 per month by the program. This boils down to a meager $3.25 per day. As we discussed the limited possibilities such a person would have, I began to wonder how I would fare if presented with a similar food allowance. I imagined endless pangs of hunger and the cold sweat of caffeine withdrawal. Of course, this did not deter me from conducting such a ridiculously masochistic experiment. I wanted a small taste of what food stamps had to offer. On Sunday, I restricted my food budget to $3.25.

Before I get ahead of myself, I feel it necessary to explain the limits of food stamps. There are strict guidelines as to what can and cannot be purchased with food stamps. The USDA Food and Nutrition Service website explains the rules.

“Households CAN use food stamp benefits to buy:

Foods for the household to eat, such as:
	- breads and cereals - fruits and vegetables - meats, fish and poultry; and - dairy products
Seeds and plants which produce food for the household to eat.

Households CANNOT use food stamp benefits to buy:

Beer, wine, liquor, cigarettes or tobacco
Any nonfood items, such as:
	- pet foods; - soaps, paper products; and - household supplies.
Vitamins and medicines.
Food that will be eaten in the store.
Hot foods “

With $3.25 in hand, I took a trip to the supermarket after work Saturday night. I was preparing for Sunday, the day of my experiment. I had a rough outline in mind, but I felt somewhat lost as a scampered about the aisles of Smith’s Food and Drug searching meticulously for the cheapest possible meals. When I finally stumbled upon the breakfast aisle, I grabbed an 18 ounce package of store brand oatmeal (Kroger 100% Whole Grain Oats). The oatmeal was priced at one dollar, so I moved on to lunch. After much consideration and idle staring in the canned food aisle, I decided to buy two cans of Kroger chicken noodle soup. The two cans set me back another dollar, so it was time to find a hearty dinner. I spent some time pondering the possibility of bread, but, since I had nothing to fill the void between the slices, I came to the conclusion that dry toast and bread sandwiches would not make a respectable dinner. Instead, I made the terrible decision to wander down the frozen food aisle. It was in this unholy place that I was reunited with an old friend from my high school years; the frozen burrito. The Las Campanas burritos were only 33 cents each, so I grabbed three of them (two beef and bean, the other bean and cheese) and headed for the checkout line.

As I checked out, the cashier (Rebecca, according to my receipt) asked me for my Fresh Values card. As usual, I did not have one, but Rebecca graciously swiped the store’s card and saved me 33 cents. This brought my total to $2.77, leaving me with a surplus of 48 cents. I momentarily considered going back and spending my change, bit I figured I had plenty of food to sustain my existence for the following 24 hours. The items (and my change) are pictured below.

Since my word processor tells me I am well over 500 words at this point, I will break up the findings of my little experiment into individual posts for each meal.

 

A Frightening Reality

Earlier this week, CNN’s website ran a story about Patricia Guerrero, a single mother who, after being laid off from her job, went from earning $70,000 a year to relying on a local food bank to support her family. The article places partial blame for the woman’s dire financial situation on America’s unstable economy.

The story goes into gritty detail when telling Guerrero’s story.

She’s already burned through her savings to help make ends meet, and is drawing unemployment checks. She has had to take extreme measures to pay for her interest-only mortgage of $2,500 a month. In fact, her mother moved in with her to help pay the bills. Guerrero even applied for food stamps, but was denied.

The story reeks of the omnipresent “This could happen to you!” style of reporting, but, in this case, the fear for readership approach may be a positive force. Cases such as Patricia Guerrero’s might scare CNN’s audience into acknowledging the current economy and mortgage crisis.

I am curious to learn of stories similar to Guerrero’s. So far as I have heard, Las Vegas has not been immune to the nation’s shaky financial state. Perhaps there are similar stories waiting to be told.

 

The Holy “Street Retreat”

 Since creating this blog, I have come across quite a few stories involving individuals feigning homelessness. In previous posts, I mentioned a book written by Adam Shepard, which chronicles his attempt at simulating extreme poverty. I was somewhat surprised to run across yet another instance of this somewhat unsettling behavior. While Shepard’s experience as a homeless American was defined as a “social experiment” by the author, a small group of Christians in Austin, Texas are simulating homelessness for an entirely different reason.

An article linked and summarized by Newser (A source noted for its quality by API’s Journalist’s Toolbox), originating from a local newspaper, claims seven men spent  three days on the street in an effort to attain a greater sense of spiritual enlightenment in what the author refers to as a “street retreat”. Apparently, this practice is repeated on an annual basis. The original report explains some of the event’s intricacies.

Each year during Holy Week, which began a week ago on Palm Sunday and concludes today on Easter, Alan Graham, 52, a co-founder of the homeless ministry Mobile Loaves & Fishes, leads a group on a three-day retreat on the streets, an opportunity for Christians to connect with God. To strip away the comforts of home and the assurances of a full wallet and clean clothes. The participants leave behind their money and cell phones and set out with a knapsack and a sleeping bag.

One might ask, “How does this practice enhance their spirituality?” The report continues to explain.

They are struggling to live out Jesus’ call to love others and to understand the sacrifice he made on the cross. They’re not expecting a grand revelation, but, they say, they feel they must walk among the poor as Jesus did. Doing so, they say, gets them closer to grasping the power of the resurrection.

I have no idea why the Austin American-Statesman fails to explain exactly what “the power of resurrection” is, or by what means such an important-sounding ability is generally obtained. For those of us who are not theologians (myself included), a quick Google search directed me to a quote from the Good Book explaining the aforementioned power as the ability to live after death.

It seems as though people mimic homelessness for a variety of reasons. While I doubt most these people are experiencing the full severity of homelessness, they are probably left with a substantial taste of what poverty has to offer.

 

A Shameful Preface

Wow, my initial “About” post is becoming increasingly obsolete. In the interest of journalistic transparency, let me divulge a little hypocrisy before I flood this place with unemployment statistics. Here is an excerpt from my first post:

I will try and refrain from relying solely on numbers whenever humanly possible. These statistics are certainly useful in many situations, but they can sometimes lead to a callous brand of storytelling devoid of human elements. I intend to focus on the individuals and their unique stories rather than the various graphs and spreadsheets in which they are represented.

Okay, now I feel better. Let us delve into a brand of storytelling completely devoid of human essence!

While I was cruising the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics website (which I often do), I came across some startling unemployment numbers. Apparently, Nevada is not doing so well when it comes to employment percentage.

A survey conducted in January by Bureau of Labor Statistics found Nevada to be among the states with the highest percentage of unemployed workers. With 5.5 percent of its labor force unemployed, Nevada ranked 39^th on the list (well within the bottom tier). In comparison, South Dakota, the state ranked number one with the lowest unemployment percentage had only 2.6 percent of its labor force out of work. According to yet another BLS survey, 4.9 percent of the entire US labor force was unemployed in January.

The BLS defines Unemployed persons as:

persons aged 16 years and older who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work, except for temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons who were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off need not have been looking for work to be classified as unemployed.

It is probably not fair to compare Nevada to South Dakota, so I will take a look at some of the Silver State’s neighbors. Utah ranked fifth on the list with only 3 percent unemployed. New Mexico was tied for sixth with 3.1 percent. Arizona occupies a spot closer to Nevada with 4.3 percent unemployed.

In all fairness, Nevada’s economy is entirely divergent from the aforementioned states. The only other state with a pronounced gaming presence is New Jersey, which also ranks above Nevada.

More shocking were the statistics for Las Vegas, where 5.7 percent of the labor force is unemployed. Another report approximated 55,726 of the 979,576 workers in Las Vegas were jobless in January.

These numbers are troubling. I was led to believe that Nevada was home to a booming economy that offered plenty of jobs. Perhaps I was led astray.