Apr
I live in Seattle, and I love the alternative news weekly The Stranger. Mostly because I have a penchant for mouthy liberals who openly acknowledge and cherish their slant. Their blog the Slog is my #1 most read feed in my RSS reader.
Right now, the Slog is doing a series call Notes from the Unemployment Line, following the experiences of several individuals in different fields who have been laid off and are trying to stay afloat. Today’s installment rang a bell in my head about a potential upside to this down economy.
Sophia, the focus of the article, wrote about her interaction with a homeless pregnant teen living in her car.
Yesterday I limped my oil-hungry car past a teenage homeless girl, her hood pulled down low against the rain, her hand holding the requisite cardboard sign. The sign said: “Pregnant. Live in car. Need money for food and gas.” I couldn’t give her anything besides my Trader Joe’s Mixed Nuts, but I did feel blessed that I’m not in a situation like hers. And why is she not getting help somewhere?! Being unemployed and seeing all this stuff makes me want to go into social services.
Come to think of it, I see two potential upsides. First, the recession means that many people are accessing social services for the first time, or like Sophia, finally able to put themselves in the shoes of social service recipients. When they get back on their feet 6 months or a year or two years from now, they’ll have a much greater empathy for these folks, which is the starting point for them becoming a donor or a volunteer.
Secondly, people like Sophia are beginning to think about working in the nonprofit sector. There are so many barriers to being a happy nonprofit worker – low pay, long hours, minimal resources, the uncertainty of funding – that anything that motivates people to consider working at a nonprofit is a huge win for the sector – even if right now, we’re all complaining because our funding has gone down the toilet.
Keep it up, Slog. I hope someone else saw Sophia’s quote and thought about volunteering or donating to a social service organization because of it. I know I did. But then, I always am….