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T or F: 2 f/t incomes frum USA, no one is starving for food
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True or False: In 2 full time income families (no kollel)(food stamps and food packs count as "income" for this post), no one is starving for food. (not referring to having enough money for other expenses, only food.)
True  
 76%  [ 110 ]
False  
 23%  [ 34 ]
Total Votes : 144



amother
Bronze


 

Post Wed, Oct 31 2018, 12:03 am
amother wrote:
A few of you mentioned you can't look at just food in a vaccum, what about electricity, gas bills, that's true, but food is a basic need before electricity even.
Is there anything that will enable these families to provide for themselves? Can community organizations help with anything for them. Can the families do anything differently to help themselves?


Things that would help:
1. A livable minimum wage. If you can't live on less than $35,000 a year, you shouldn't ask your employees to.
2. Instead of fundraising for bigger buildings, great speakers and new sefer torahs we should make sure that tomchei shabbos is well funded and everyone in the community has a roof (yes there are homeless jews. There are many more who are couch surfing. Sometimes with kids)
3. More of a mentality of "but for the grace of G-d, there go I" and " I am my brother's keeper" than "what a great stimulating shiur I went to"
4. Are you fixing something in your home? Hire a contractor from the community. Need credit card processing ? Use someone from the community. Support community businesses because there is enough anti semitism out there to hit the margins of business a few percentages here and there and we can make up the difference by keeping our money in the community. Sometimes 5% is the difference between staying afloat and not. Besides. It supports our community institutions as well.
5. Teaching our children a way of earning a decent living. And teaching other children in the community as well if their parents can't
6. Training programs for adults who need to change careers/learn new skills
7. Daycare paid for for single mothers who need to work. Or better yet, pay them an allowance to stay home with kids under 4.

If these families could help themselves, they would. Dontcha think?
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Goldie613




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Oct 31 2018, 12:43 am
I think we also need to define what "working full time" means. A household with two doctors or accountants is very different than a household with two adults teaching full time in yeshiva.

And I am one of those who voted "false" - I know families who at various points in time wouldn't have had enough to eat without family/chesed support they were getting from others. Many people who receive Tomche Shabbos fall into this category.
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amother
Seashell


 

Post Wed, Oct 31 2018, 1:30 am
Goldie613 wrote:
I think we also need to define what "working full time" means. A household with two doctors or accountants is very different than a household with two adults teaching full time in yeshiva.

And I am one of those who voted "false" - I know families who at various points in time wouldn't have had enough to eat without family/chesed support they were getting from others. Many people who receive Tomche Shabbos fall into this category.
I was referring to people who don't have even after tomchei shabbos, programs. By full time I meant any full time position within their capabilities.
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amother
Seashell


 

Post Wed, Oct 31 2018, 1:32 am
amother wrote:
See number 1. Yes. I know 2 income families without enough food.
As in go to bed hungry because there's not enough even for bread, potatoes, milk, beans?
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blessedjmom




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Oct 31 2018, 3:49 am
Not everyone that needs- gets Tomche Shabbos. Some because they're too ashamed to ask/be seen getting.
Some because I assume you can't just get onto TS list. They do have a budget/limit...

And I agree that with smart spending strategies no-one should go to bed hungry. Some ppl just don't know how . Or are so stretched to the exhaustion limit that they mentally/physically cant.

I do think that financial advisors would be a great!! Thing! Biggest mitzvah to get someone standing on their own two feet without needing chessed. BUT. One needs to want to make that effort in order to be helped.
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Mommyg8




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Oct 31 2018, 7:38 am
blessedjmom wrote:
Not everyone that needs- gets Tomche Shabbos. Some because they're too ashamed to ask/be seen getting.
Some because I assume you can't just get onto TS list. They do have a budget/limit...

And I agree that with smart spending strategies no-one should go to bed hungry. Some ppl just don't know how . Or are so stretched to the exhaustion limit that they mentally/physically cant.

I do think that financial advisors would be a great!! Thing! Biggest mitzvah to get someone standing on their own two feet without needing chessed. BUT. One needs to want to make that effort in order to be helped.


I know someone who went to Mesilah. They showed them their finances.... Mesilah told them, I'm sorry there is nothing we can do to help you. Financial planning can only go so far - at some point there is just not enough money.

A scenario I can think of where this may happen (not enough food) even if there is a decent income is when the family has a medical emergency. Then the priority goes for doctors and medicine, and there may not be enough left over Sad.
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amother
Yellow


 

Post Fri, Nov 02 2018, 12:32 am
Wow, this thread. Judgemental much? I could have written some of these posts while some other ones put a knife through my heart. People here need a reality check if they think rice and pasta is satisfying a family in need of food. My children have gone to bed hungry. Last night my little one cried because we had cereal but no milk and I had nothing else to offer her. People here are clueless. We did not have bread for a few days already. My children have been eating gal gal crackers with PB for breakfast. Dh always says Hashem helps. The last time he said that after a food shopping trip my kids came home from school the next day to the water shut off. So the next week we paid the gas bill and skipped food shopping. Tomchei Shabbos can only stretch so far. It's not a daily occurrence at all, but it does happen. There are days I daven not to be pulled over during my work commute because my car insurance lapsed yet again and payday isnt for a few more days. We receive an eviction notice every few months and my kids were denied entry to school until a generous cousin undertook to pay their monthly tuition. If my kids don't go OTD from the stress it's a miracle.
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amother
Seashell


 

Post Fri, Nov 02 2018, 11:38 am
amother wrote:
Wow, this thread. Judgemental much? I could have written some of these posts while some other ones put a knife through my heart. People here need a reality check if they think rice and pasta is satisfying a family in need of food. My children have gone to bed hungry. Last night my little one cried because we had cereal but no milk and I had nothing else to offer her. People here are clueless. We did not have bread for a few days already. My children have been eating gal gal crackers with PB for breakfast. Dh always says Hashem helps. The last time he said that after a food shopping trip my kids came home from school the next day to the water shut off. So the next week we paid the gas bill and skipped food shopping. Tomchei Shabbos can only stretch so far. It's not a daily occurrence at all, but it does happen. There are days I daven not to be pulled over during my work commute because my car insurance lapsed yet again and payday isnt for a few more days. We receive an eviction notice every few months and my kids were denied entry to school until a generous cousin undertook to pay their monthly tuition. If my kids don't go OTD from the stress it's a miracle.
I'm so sorry about your situation--no one should live like that. Do you feel comfortable posting where you live or maybe Yael can verify and we can pay through a go fund me page or we can call your account in the supermarket and add money? Going forward is there any way for your dh or you to increase income? If you post where you live and what kind of job you and dh do, maybe someone can tell you about opening for a higher paying job. Regarding insurance, please don't drive without it, pretty hefty fines and consequences for others. Is there any way you can catch a ride with a coworker or use public transportation?
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southernbubby




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Nov 02 2018, 12:17 pm
amother wrote:
Wow, this thread. Judgemental much? I could have written some of these posts while some other ones put a knife through my heart. People here need a reality check if they think rice and pasta is satisfying a family in need of food. My children have gone to bed hungry. Last night my little one cried because we had cereal but no milk and I had nothing else to offer her. People here are clueless. We did not have bread for a few days already. My children have been eating gal gal crackers with PB for breakfast. Dh always says Hashem helps. The last time he said that after a food shopping trip my kids came home from school the next day to the water shut off. So the next week we paid the gas bill and skipped food shopping. Tomchei Shabbos can only stretch so far. It's not a daily occurrence at all, but it does happen. There are days I daven not to be pulled over during my work commute because my car insurance lapsed yet again and payday isnt for a few more days. We receive an eviction notice every few months and my kids were denied entry to school until a generous cousin undertook to pay their monthly tuition. If my kids don't go OTD from the stress it's a miracle.



Part of the judgementalness comes from never having to actually experience it and another part is possibly from going into homes where there was no food but a 6 pack of beer for the dad or where a mother and child are in the check out line and the mother has to choose between the cigarettes for herself and milk for the child but she chooses the cigarettes.

Then, as much as it is the children who suffer more than the adults, the charitable public blames the parents and doesn't want to enable smoking and drinking. You see people with professional manicures but hungry kids and that might not have been the choice that we would picture ourselves making.

I don't know what goes on in all communities but I have seen people here collect tzedukah for anonymous people with hungry children. Like I said before, there are 2 food banks here for the kosher community but it is often no cholev Yisroel or pas Yisroel and maybe a rav has to be consulted when there is an actual danger of starvation.

I have seen people get help from Jewish family service and Matan b'seser which is a frum cause. I almost always donate when I am in the check out lane in a kosher store but I am not sure how many people even attempt to give a dollar.

Maybe everyone who reads this thread should make an effort to give at least a dollar to whatever food relief exists in your community that the local kosher store cooperates with.
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amother
Mustard


 

Post Fri, Nov 02 2018, 12:26 pm
B"H I am not one who is going to bed hungry or sending my kids to bed hungry (Although my dinner last night consisted of pasta and peppers.) I am not posting the following b/c I am doubting someone's word, but hopefully, out of ignorance. How can a person be posting on this site without access to the internet and a device which allows someone to use that access unless they are at a friend's house using her computer or at the local library? I am not saying this is the case, but it may be. And if they are posting while at work instead of doing their work, well that is a whole nuther story. Unfortunately, people who don't have the money for basic necessities like food are using it on "necessities" that are not necessities at all. And please don't say a smart phone is a necessity; I don't have one and manage fine without it.

Unfortunately a lot of this also goes back to what do people do when they have money instead of saving it for a rainy day.

Why should students whose tuition is not paid for be allowed to stay in school when other families are making HUGE sacrifices so there kids' tuition is paid. This is the real world.
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