The First Half of Day Three was....

Eye Opening.  That is the best way to describe today.  To begin the morning, we played a game to show the value of team work, and how to get the "ravens" out of the work environment- be aware of how we act, how hard we work, and what we say.  Then, we talked with Mr. Plumber about the farming he does with the local juvenile delinquent center, and how the systems work within that setting. One fact from the things he said stuck out to me- the center is given $0.19 per meal per head.  That is 57 cents for a day. We are complaining about $4.32. Suddenly, the meals we are eating are seeming a lot better. It still isn't easy, but $0.57? I literally do not know how that is possible. Definitely, they go hungry more than they are full.  If you want to think about this logistically- the hungrier you are, the more irritable you are, so there isn't going to be a very "improvement minded" community forming in these locations, which could almost be causing more harm than good.
After we talked about this, we walked to Mount Tabor Church that is near campus to donate 3 bags of turnips that some of us had picked yesterday.  Something that I noticed upon walking through the doors was that the majority of the people in the room waiting for food were elderly or handicapped in some way. I have always had the mentality that the majority of people who rely on food pantries were just using that to tie over what they could buy from their earnings to meet what they actually needed.  But in actuality, it seemed to me that this was the main form of food for most of the people in the room, simply because they could not work. I also noticed that everyone one was very appreciative of turnips- like, that is a food I would never want to eat, much less enjoy receiving.  As we were leaving, people were asking for some because they hadn't gotten any.  People want good, healthy options that are not available to them.  I have always been under the impression that grocery stores do not want to move into lower income areas because they do not believe that they would make profit, or that they would not have demand for anything more than what the corner stores have to offer. That mentality is incorrect- every person, regardless of where they are located, will want to be able to eat produce. And will more than likely purchase it. There has to be a profit to be made, if that is the issue, because people are going to eat. And if you put a store here, it would be shopped at.