Grocery Alternatives: Kroger's in Athens OH

You've probably heard the news by now: The only grocery store in the county I live in, Vinton County, Ohio, is closing.  Several years ago, I decided to buy all of my groceries at this local store, McArthur SuperValu. I felt that if people--meaning me--didn't support the store it would not survive. And now this has come to pass. I have been surprised by how disturbing the loss of my local store is to me.

For several years, I have not shopped for groceries anywhere else.  My choices were a bit restricted, but my needs for basic food and nutrition were met. I never went farther than a mile from my house for groceries. When gas prices went up, my friend Linda joined me in this decision. We shopped together almost every Saturday morning at the SuperValu. (I don't know why we always called it "the" SuperValu, but we did.)

Last Saturday, Linda and I were both hesitant to go for groceries at the SuperValu. What would it be like in there? Would we find what we needed? And, where would we go the next week? Where was my food going to come from?

The store was clean and bright. All merchandise was neatly fronted. But many of the shelves were bare. Almost all perishables were gone--no bread or meat at all. To see the meat cases shiny and empty was the biggest shock. It just looked wrong. The soon-to-be-unemployees put on brave faces. I held back tears the whole time I was in the store.

That evening, we decided to go over to Athens for a nice meal out. I know I felt like I needed something to lift my spirits. And, of course, we drove right past Kroger's. We yes-no-yessed about stopping in, and finally did. I was astounded. I felt like Dorothy stepping out of my shabby hovel into rich, colorful, sensory-overloaded Oz. The lighting was beautiful. The produce area stretched for miles, it seemed, looking more like a landscape than a storescape. My eyes didn't know how to focus on this wonderland.

My first thought was, "oh, this is where the rich people shop." So much opulence, such care in the presentation of the food and merchandise, and so much selection, infinite selection. Forty kinds of bread. Forty different brands of frozen pizza. A great wall of China of breakfast cereal. All beautiful. All so conveniently arranged. I ran into things (and people) with my cart...I couldn't take it all in.

It's always disorienting to go to a different grocery store. Products all seem to be in the wrong places. I backtrack to find stuff I missed. I soldier bravely through aisle after aisle looking valiantly for...well, in this case it was electrical tape. I braved this extravagant world for prosaic old electrical tape.

The absurdity of it all overwhelmed me. Is all this luxury necessary to the procurement of food? What part did the pampering of the patrons play in their affection for the store? Back home in McArthur, it was my affection for my friends and neighbors that made the SuperValu so attractive, not displays of wealth (food IS wealth). How many choices of cream cheese does one really need? And, does it really matter? If people want sun-dried tomato pesto cream cheese, why shouldn't they have it?

I felt I had strayed into another world, to another planet. And I had. I had somehow landed in middle class land, from which I had banished myself so many years ago. And now I'm back. Soon, I will be inured to the choices and style, the delectability. I will think this is normal. I will stop thinking there's something wrong with this system that leaves poor people foodless while others wallow in excess. I'll forget how privileged I am to have a reasonably OK income (from three jobs) and a functioning car and gas money to travel 30 miles to get groceries. I'll start going to the post office and farmer's market somewhere else.

A lot of the life is leaving my community with the SuperValu. My sadness is like background music of cello, low and profound. A small town is a fragile place, always threatening to shimmer out of existence, out of reality. Ghosts and shadows all that remain. I hope that whatever entity moves into SuperValu's building will help hold us together. But Oz beckons. No Auntie Em remains back here to lure me home.

Vinton County United Way Joins Chamber

A few weeks ago, I was assigned the task of signing up the United Way of Vinton County (UWVC) for membership in the Vinton County Chamber of Commerce.  The Chamber has a reputation for representing the best in our community—the best businesses, the best values, and the best attitudes—and the United Way is proud to participate.

One of the United Way’s goals for membership was to let more people know about our local United Way. We are small, but committed to sustaining the work of non-profits in our community. Recent recipients of funding include:

·         Shepherd’s House domestic violence shelter

·         Care Outreach food pantry

·         Truth food pantry

·         Sojourners Family Development foster care day camp

·         The American Red Cross of Athens County,  which serves Vinton County

·         Big Brothers/Big Sisters’ school mentoring program in Vinton County

·         Vinton County Senior Citizens

·         RSVP Vinton County activities

·         Last summer’s summer feeding program administered by Sojourners

UWVC’s board of directors is committed to investing its money in Vinton County. We keep our overhead costs low (we don’t even have a physical location), paying less than 3% of our earnings in administrative costs. Our income arrives, for the most part, from outside the county. UWVC’s main goal is to change the ratio of where the money comes from to reflect stronger support from the county for the county. Toward that end, we have successfully signed up many county employees and school employees to contribute through payroll deduction.

The decisions about who will receive the $18,000 in investments UWVC made this year involved many tough decisions for the board of directors. They received nine excellently prepared proposals and worked with thoughtful consideration.

The investment committee works with Maslow’s Hierarchy in mind. Maslow devised a pyramid of human needs, with the most basic needs—food, shelter, clothing, safety—on the bottom. He said that unless the needs at the bottom are met, a person (or community) cannot move up to the next level (which might include education, meaningful work, and so on). UWVC invests mostly in that bottom level of Maslow’s pyramid. Our people need food and shelter and safety—especially the youngest and oldest among us. When we funded school mentoring last year, we were aware that for the first time in a long time we were investing in a “next level up” activity.

If you are interested in the work of the United Way of Vinton County, please give me a call at 740-591-6279. I’d be glad to talk with you about our investment priorities, how to make a donation, or how to set up payroll deduction so your employees may contribute that way if they wish—at our suggested pledge level of $1.00 per week. A dollar at time is how we’ll make a difference.

Poverty Sim: Walk in My Shoes

Why am I interested in the poor?

First, I've been pretty poor at times, getting closer to the fire than I ever dreamed. Imagine Star Trek's Enterprise skimming the outer edge of a planet's atmosphere, feeling the heat, but pulling out just before being burned to a cinder. That's me and poverty. I've never really  had to land on that planet, live its culture, get wet from its rains, experience the upheavals of its plate tectonics. I've just skimmed. My parents were poor and I was raised poor, but Mom and Dad managed (through hard work and amazing self-sacrifice) to keep the nose of the ship just above the re-entry burn.

Second, I live in an impoverished rural area and work with low-income families. I am curious about the values and practices that are common to my home. And, from study (thank you, Ruby Payne) and observation, I see that most of the "help" that is applied to my region is misguided and sometimes damaging. There's nothing like help that feels like a smack in the face or that makes no allowance for local conditions, desires. My favorite image for the help applied to Appalachian communities is butter spread on cold toast. It just don't soak in. Interventions must be guided from within, not smeared on from without. Low-income people will tell us what they need. Will we listen?

Third, I am aware of my own good fortune and assets. My mind is good. I went to college. I have people who care about me. I have enough--I can move to the next level, enhancement. At the same time, I am aware that I am about two months away from full-blown poverty if I lose my job, need expensive medicines, or add a child to my household.

Fourth, humans have always been explorers, and I hope to be part of that long tradition. As a writer of fiction and non-fiction, I see that each person is his or her own planet, developed in response to very specific conditions; and yet we are all part of a phenomenal spider web of connection and commonality. (Thanks, Darwin.) If you would cross a concert harp with a spider web, you'd get a sense of the concerto of interdependence I'm talking about.

So, exploring other person-worlds and community-worlds and walking in the moccasins, pumps, trainers, wing-tips, steel-toes, flip-flops, fluffy pink house shoes, and plain old bare feet of this world is my favorite hobby. And, might as well start at home, right here in poverty-stricken but incredibly rich Vinton County, Ohio. That's why I'm interested in the poor. That's why last week I attended an exercise called a poverty simulation, in which a group of non-destitute middle Americans did a guided role-play of being poor. If you ever get a chance to participate in one of these, please do it. You'll be richer for a better understanding of the poor.

About 60 people filled up the social hall of the Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Ohio, to do a sort of being-John-Malkovich slide into someone else's--a poor person's--skin. The edges of the room were lined with tables representing community entities--Job & Family Services, a bank, a daycare center, the Quicky Cash vendor, utilities, the mortgage banker, a school, a workplace, Community Action, the homeless shelter, and jail. Inside this ring of tables were chairs grouped into any number between one and six chairs.

The chairs represented families. Out in the waiting area, each attendee was given an identity card. When the doors were opened, participants searched around until they found their "home" and met their "family." Each family had a packet of information, telling them all about themselves--age, medical condition, mortgage/rent obligations, placement of children, employment status...a demographic souffle. To simulate the money spent on transportation, each family was given transportation vouchers that had to be spent at EVERY stop they made. Lots of play money floated around.

The facilitator (from the Ohio Association of Food Banks) announced that the simulation would last a month--a month of 15-minute weeks. She would blow a whistle to announce the beginning and ending of each week. If you went to school or work, you had to spend 7 minutes there each week before you could go about your business. During the month, the family was to keep itself fed and housed and serviced with utilities. Week 3 was summer break from school. (One woman lost her "job" because she couldn't find daycare for Week 3.)

The groups dug right in, sometimes talking right over the facilitator in their urgency to get a plan together, to somehow make sense of their new lives. What do we do first? How do we get baby Jill (a 50-year-old man with a full beard) to daycare? Should we go for food or for transportation first? While you go to work, I'll drop the boy off at school, pick up my unemployment check, and go pay the mortgage... Oh, their plans sounded so great, logical and clear.

Except. Meet me, Joy the mortgage banker, one of the "providers." We had packets, too, giving us a set of activities for each week in the simulation. I had a "closed" sign. I had warning notices. I could evict. The careful planning blew up when the line was long at the bank and by the time you got to my office, the "closed" sign was out and I was walking through the community handing out overdue warnings. When I got back to my place of business, I could see a participant eagerly pushing through the crush to get to me. Then the whistle blew. That's one week late on the mortgage.

The simulation was loud and pushy. Common courtesies vanished. Raised voices. Arguments over who was next in line at the bank. One of the saddest reactions I saw (several times) was tired resignation, like when I refused to take a housing voucher because they were no longer accepted after Week 2 of the month. There was no flexibility in the rules. My mortgage banker self developed more rapidly than I thought possible into a confrontive and snotty worker. By Week 4, I was (to my shame) flipping groups of chairs over with a grim glee--the signal for eviction. When the evicted participants came to me to ask what was happening, I found myself saying (with shockingly smug superiority), "You're homeless--the shelter is right down the street."

One participant started an argument over getting incorrect change at the Quick Cash place, with police involvement. The police, of course, sided with the business owner and off the cheated man went to jail. While this argument was diverting everyone's attention, another participant, without even thinking, cleaned out Quick Cash's cash drawer and tripped merrily over to me to pay the mortgage. Stealing really seemed like a rational act. The thief could feed and house her family. The man who sought traditional justice got screwed. In real-life, the thief is a respected member of the community who probably never even gets pulled over for speeding.

Several families in our group did not manage to feed their families. In fact, a couple of families had not managed to secure food for their families during the entire month. The facilitator worked her way down: who had managed to get food all four weeks; a decent number of hands went up. Three weeks out of four; a larger number of hands. Only two or one of the weeks; several hands up. No food; a smattering of hands. When the connection was made to children and families going without food for a significant amount of time each month, the whole group sobered up. This wasn't just a game about poor people--it was a regular experience for many of them.

These types of insights were happening all around the room. Even in the wrap-up, people were angry because the bank didn't have enough tellers. The simulation was still playing out inside them--the stress lasted.  It was a high blood pressure experience.

Some of my insights (these are not unique or special--most people in the group had these insights).

INSIGHT 1: Many of the behaviors associated with poor people, such as pushiness, hostility to authority, and not paying the bills on time, spring from the conditions of poverty, not from the personalities of poor people. Most of the "nice" people participating in the simulation rapidly developed these traits.

INSIGHT 2: Poor people do not have leisure time. They are our modern hunter-gatherers, always on the go, on the move, just to fill the most basic needs of their families. Poor people are either working or exhausted. Throw a parent-teacher conference into the mix and the whole structure of the week may collapse.

INSIGHT 3: Helping kids with homework (oh, those middle school "projects") and tending to your key relationships is something there is little time for. The participants I was with gasped when the facilitator asked whether they had interacted with their families in any way other than urgent problem solving. None of them had.

INSIGHT 4: A low-income or part-time job can be more of a liability than an asset--it greatly increases transportation and daycare costs and, given the structure of our business culture, may bar you from all of the activities that are only available from 8:00 to 5:00.


Conclusion and INSIGHT 5: Making assumptions is a human way to simplify the data each of us deals with in our lives--but assumptions make an ass out of u and mptions. Please add imagination to your assumptions--try on someone's dollar flip-flops and see how it feels. Sign up for a poverty simulation. Read any book by Ruby Payne. We can't afford to write off a whole group of people--any group. Put your "ass" in compassion instead of assumption.

Live from the Wild Turkey Festival 1

The significance of this photo will become clear by the end of this post.

Ridin' the rides at McArthur, Ohio's
Wild Turkey Festival, May, 2012;
more photos at end of post

Hot and muggy...banks of clouds rolling in with rumblings...but passing over our little street festival here in the metropolis (population 1300) of McArthur, Ohio. The United Way of Vinton County is having its first event in more than a decade as we wake the sleeping beauty organization and get her up and walking. In short, we have a booth at McArthur's annual Wild Turkey Festival (and yes, the initials are WTF), which coincides not with breaking out bottles of Wild Turkey liquor, but with wild turkey hunting season. There's not much meat on them, but they're apparently fun to hunt.



          Our booth is in the "craft tent," although no crafts are being sold there this year. The booth next to us is selling fanatically pro-gun t-shirts, catty-cornered to us is the rifle raffle booth, and just down the way is hunter's paradise bed'n'breakfast and the mildly vigilante Community Crime Watch. United Way and the local community college are strange bedfellows with these neighbors, but true to the spirit of this place, we all just get along anyway.


          Good-heartedness is part of the nature of this underpopulated rural county. The local pro-gun secret-KKK-member redneck will still stop and change your tire for you, or pull over to the side of the road to help you carry a piece of furniture up the porch steps, or chip in a quarter for your cup of coffee at the Quick Stop if your're short on change. That's the side I focus on. That's the side I'm depending on for United Way of Vinton County.
          Everyone's been a client at some point in their lives...gotten food from a pantry, spent a night or two with the domestic violence shelter, had a ride from the RSVP volunteers, or had kids in the mentoring program at school, or had a mom or dad get Meals on Wheels from the Senior Center. This is the United Way. These are the non-profits we fund, serving the young, the old, the sick, the hungry, the scared, the needy in our community. I am counting on local good-heartedness to establish a tradition of local funding for the United Way.
          The Wild Turkey Festival is hot, loud, countrified, well-gunned, cammo-clad, confederate flagged, stroller pushing, corn-dog eating, country music listening, karaoke singing, pick the dropped sucker up off the ground and give it back to your kid doing, rides whirling, political glad-handing, neighbor greeting, good old fashioned fun. The media is different from 100 years ago, when people came in by rail from neighboring towns and the parades featured horses instead of SUVs, and we have the illusion of Little-House-on-the-Prairie wholesomeness, but I bet the feeling and mood are more similar than different.
          I suggested a booth at the festival two months ago at a board meeting, wondering which way they would go. The UWVC board is pretty genteel, but also pragmatic. The support for the booth was enthusiastic (if not unanimous) and every single board member who committed to something for the booth carried through with it. As I write, the booth is being staffed by board members--there will be a board member there for every hour of the festival (working either in pairs or with me). And they are selling split-the-pot tickets and chatting with old friends and new and chucking little babies under the chin, and ignoring tattoos, and actually having a good time.
          The support of the board has been wonderful. I am struck again and again by how badly they really do want to wake Sleeping Beauty with a big old smack on the lips and get our little local United Way on everyone's agenda. Their support makes it fun for me, too, and completely removes the sense of martyrdom with which I anticipated the project.
          We may make some money from our split-the-pot raffle, but the real goal is to talk to people about what we do. To switch children's literature references for the third time, we are the littlest Who from Horton Hears a Who. We're shouting strong and together: "We are HERE! United Way of Vinton County is HERE!"

Rifle Raffle

French fries by the bucket.

My friend Mindy, representing
both the pregnant women and
the stroller-pushers--you rock,
Mindy

Karaoke contestant
on the main stage

Examples of shirts sold next to us