My daughter recently joined the Girl Scouts. She had her second troop meeting tonight, and the side conversation going on with the parents is what really caught my attention.
We live in a very small town and the local school is kindergarten through twelfth grade with less than 400 students in total. A few of the other Girl Scout parents happen to be teachers at the school.
The topic came up between parents about all of the things our troop can do over the next year. Our first badge earning project of the year is to make donations to Goodwill. Easy enough. Well, with the winter season coming up, the local school also needs donations for winter clothing.
One of the teachers spoke up about how the need at the school is worse than most people would believe. Even with as few students as there are, a large amount of them have parents who have come to the school in seek of winter help. What I am left wondering is how many other students need the help but don’t have parents who are willing to ask for it…
Anyway, she pointed out that the school gets a lot of donations for the younger kids (not enough, but still a lot), but that they get almost nothing for the older kids. She said that the sad thing is that the high school kids at my daughter’s school make up the majority of the ones who need help.
The teacher was almost in tears as she was telling us about this, saying that she’s given away everything that she can and has done everything she can afford to do, but that it’s breaking her heart because it will never be enough.
As a low income family myself, I never thought about how many other people in the area could be in worse situations. I don’t think anyone really thinks about those types of things unless they are forced to.