At the Frontier

Did you hear? It is Christmastime, and in The Salvation Army, it's one of our favorite times of year.

For us, smiles make the greatest gifts.

From physical needs such as grocery, utility and gift assistance, to emotional experiences including holiday events and traditions, to spiritual guidance that provides healing and hope, we work to assist the whole person through gifts that serve the body, mind and soul.

We know the holidays can bring added financial and emotional stress to families living in poverty. That's why The Salvation Army's mission shines brightest at Christmastime.

We are out to make Christmas merry, and you can help.

For one, enjoy listening in to this episode as we asked real people donating to a Salvation Army red kettle why they do it. (and p.s. there's a few other holiday treats to follow.)

You might have a story of your own of why you choose to give to The Salvation Army, and if you do, you can help by sharing with your friends on social media and tagging us @caringmagazine so we can share it too.

Finally, if you're out this season and see a red kettle or an Angel Tree or some other Salvation Army presence in your community, consider giving what you can. Every single little bit helps and you can give knowing you are making Christmas merry for someone in your community.

If you don't want to wait, you can give now at caringmagazine.org/give.

And know every gift stays in your community to do good all year.

So listen in, and join in. It is, after all, the most wonderful time of the year.

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Welcome to the kickoff of the merriest time of year. And no, it's not too early because Christmastime has already started in The Salvation Army. Yes, The Salvation Army is hard at work to make the holiday season a little brighter.

Of course, most people know us for our Red Kettles, our Angel Trees, and our strong presence during the Christmas season—but we support local families all throughout the year.

The donations we collect in those red kettles during the holiday season not only help us provide gifts to children who would otherwise go without, but they also help us provide food, shelter and utility assistance to those who need it most every day of the year.

In essence, it's a critical time for The Salvation Army and a busy one, too.

On the show today, I'm joined by members of the Western Territory's Community Relations and Development Department: Director of Communications and Brand Management Deb Knutson, Public Affairs and Communications Manager Kathy Lovin and Territorial Director of Corporate Engagement Maria Todaro.

They're entrenched in the Christmas effort and here to share more about how every dollar dropped into a red kettle helps give local families the Christmases they deserve and the yearlong support they need.

There's plenty of ways to get involved, whether you put a present under someone's tree today or help keep a roof over someone's head tomorrow. Whether you want to help brighten Christmas morning or the hardest nights for hardworking families, you can help us carry the spirit of Christmas throughout the year.

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As I mentioned in our last episode, there's so much going on in our world and we want to address it here in a way that's valuable for you. You've seen the news. You know what's going on.

If you feel like you're living through history, well, you are.

A global pandemic crisis, a global financial crisis, a crisis in Ukraine, and now a crisis in Israel and Gaza. War.

If there's one thing we know it's this: there will always be problems.

And yet some feel incredibly hard to navigate.

But, as Kelly Rodriguez will tell you, it's really important we do.

Kelly is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in California. A wife and mom of three, and a psychotherapist in private practice, Kelly is trained in maternal mental health, family therapy and trauma modalities to support individuals and couples.

Today, we're not only living through history, we're practically watching it unfold before us on our screens.

How can we best care for ourselves in an emotionally taxing world?

How do we address what's going on in a healthy way with our kids?

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Quick programming note: We recorded this episode before recent events unfolded. It doesn't address the current war in the Middle East but we believe this episode still holds value so we're sharing it today as planned. Then we'll be back with an added bonus episode this week with a family therapist on how to care for ourselves in an emotionally taxing world and how to address what's going on with our kids. Be sure to subscribe to the Do Gooders Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and you'll be the first to know when that episode drops this week.

What would it mean to you to see the scenes of Scripture, the places where Jesus walked and talked and performed miracles, right in front of you?

To survey the land and picture the people, to take in the detail of a setting we so often study?

How would it affect your understanding of the Bible?

Of the legacy you want to leave as a follower of Jesus?

Emily Anderson is here to answer these questions after recently returning from the Holy Land.

Emily is the Social Media Editor for Caring Magazine.

So while she's usually behind the screen, interacting with you on our Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest, today she's sharing more about her time seeing the setting of Scripture come to life.

And she's reflecting with us on what the experience means for her moving forward.

After the episode, be sure to follow Caring on Instagram and send us a DM with your favorite Holy Land experience or what you would most want to see if you go in the future.

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In the words of French writer Antoine de Saint Exupéry, "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

In other words, cast a vision of what could be.

That's exactly what Dr. Matthew Desmond is doing in his latest book, "Poverty, by America," because the end of poverty, he says, is possible.

Dr. Desmond is a professor of sociology at Princeton University. He's the author of four books, including "Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City," which won the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, Carnegie Medal, and PEN / John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction.

His latest book, already a #1 New York Times Bestseller, reimagines the debate on poverty, provocatively challenging all of us that the reason it persists in America is because so many of us benefit from it.

As he writes, "some lives are made small so that others may grow."

But we can end poverty, he argues, and each one of us can become a poverty abolitionist.

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We talk a lot about The Salvation Army's fight against hunger, homelessness, against poverty.

You might remember back to our series on the Pathway of Hope, episodes 88-93. In that series, we explored in depth The Salvation Army's initiative to break the cycle of crisis and vulnerability for families—the effort to meet immediate needs and have a lasting, intergenerational impact by addressing the root causes of poverty and helping a family find a new path.

So what does it look like in action?

Today, I'm sharing the story of Ruth and her family. When Ruth left an abusive relationship, she found herself the single mother of six children, and she was struggling.

Then, she met The Salvation Army and finally found hope.

Listen in to hear Ruth and her family tell their story. We originally told this story in video so you can also watch it. Just head to the show notes for today's show.

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People call him "Ragu the Plumber."

But these days Ragu Razo doesn't work as a plumber. Six years ago, he swapped his old nine-to-five job to drive a refrigerated truck for The Salvation Army in Mesa, Arizona.

Every weekday, Razu collects food from five different stores on his route in the East Valley. The food is still good, but it won't be sold anymore at stores because it's reached the "sell by" date. Once Ragu's loaded up the food, he brings it back to the Mesa Citadel Corps so it can feed hungry families in the area.

It's all part of the Grocery Food Rescue Program, a partnership between the United Food Bank and The Salvation Army.

Ragu's efforts help feed about 50 families a day. And it's not just canned food. The corps is able to offer meat, poultry, fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, bread and other food staples to clients.

Not to mention, the program helps keep food that is still good out of landfills. Each year, some 119 billion pounds of food is wasted in the U.S., according to Feeding America. That equates to 130 billion meals and more than $408 billion in food discarded each year.

That means that nearly 40 percent of all food in the U.S. is wasted.

That number's even more concerning when you consider 34 million Americans are living in food-insecure households.

That's why food rescue programs like the one Ragu helps out are more important than ever.

Today, we talk with Ragu about his "second career," what fuels his desire to give back, and what it's like to see firsthand just how much food is being saved in one community.

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How do you define poverty?

Oxford describes it as "the state of being extremely poor."

Webster says it's "the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions."

While poverty does cover a wide range of material problems related to daily life and survival, it's also psychologically threatening to those experiencing it because it leads to shame.

When it comes to poverty, shame can take many forms. For instance, being unable to meet your own necessities is often accompanied by a feeling of shame, even more so when it comes to the needs of your children.

Poverty-induced shame can have many negative consequences, including low self-esteem and withdrawal from society, often perpetuating the vicious cycle of poverty even more. Researchers from the University of Oxford concluded that such shame not only hurts but also undermines individual agency, which adds to the negative experience of poverty and its perpetuation. In the worst case, it can lead to depression and self-harm.

Diane O'Neill has written on the subject of poverty-induced shame, particularly as it relates to food insecurit—but not in an academic sense. She didn't publish a dissertation or a master's thesis.

She wrote a children's book. It's called "Saturday at the Food Pantry."

It's about a little girl named Molly and her mom, who pay their first visit to a local food pantry. When they get there, they see one of Molly's classmates in line, embarrassed that her family needs help.

The book was recently deemed among the Best Picture Books of the year by the Chicago Public Library and won Parents Magazine's Book of the Month.

If children's literature seems like a surprising place to tackle such a complex issue, perhaps it shouldn't be.

One reviewer said the book "gently destigmatizes food insecurity without being preachy; soft illustrations show friendly shoppers and workers, making the pantry look like a welcoming place."

Diane, who lives in Chicago, has worked in the field of disability rights and services for most of her professional life. She remembers going to a food pantry as a child. She wrote "Saturday at the Food Pantry," in part, to eradicate the stigma and change the way in which people judge and relate to people in need.

Today, we're talking to Diane about the inspiration behind her book, what she remembers about the first time she stepped foot in a food pantry, and how destigmatizing poverty can help create more empathetic humans — regardless of age.

Because as she writes in her book, "Everybody needs a little help sometimes."

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Did you know in the last three years, the demand for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has skyrocketed? In 2022, one in eight Americans — or more than 41 million people — received SNAP benefits.

Those benefits were expanded in the early days of the pandemic, as the country faced unprecedented uncertainty around the economy and the grocery supply chain. During that time, recipients were offered the maximum aid for their household size.

Earlier this year, that program expansion ended, which meant monthly benefits were cut by an average of $90 per recipient, with some households losing $250 or more in benefits.

At the same time, we see consumer debt has been steadily rising, with over 20 million Americans currently behind on their utility payments and nearly 25 million behind on credit card, auto loan or personal loan payments. That's the highest number since The Great Recession.

So without enough money to pay for food, a lot of people are forced to make difficult decisions. Do you pay for breakfast or the electric bill? Lunch or the prescription? Do you default on your loan payment or just go hungry altogether?

Food insecurity experts are saying the SNAP cuts are pushing the country closer to a looming "hunger cliff."

What does that mean? And what can we do to mitigate the impact of these SNAP cuts for households in need?

To help answer these questions, we're talking with Eric Mitchell, Executive Director of the Alliance to End Hunger—a network of companies, nonprofit organizations, universities, foundations, and individuals. He is working to build the Alliance's advocacy capacity on Capitol Hill and in local communities, to build the public and political will to end hunger in the U.S. and around the world.

Because, as he said and I doubt anyone would disagree with, no one should go to bed hungry.

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We're kicking off our state of the issues series today with the state of hunger.

According to the USDA, more than 34 million people, including 9 million children, today in the United States are food insecure.

Across the country, The Salvation Army operates more than 1,500 food pantries, and annually serves more than 171 million meals, which includes prepared meals and some 6.4 million food boxes that contain 20 meals each.

To help set the table for this series on hunger and food insecurity, we're talking today with Captain Angel Amézquita, the Corps Officer and director of the Los Angeles Central Corps and Red Shield Community Center, located in the heart of LA's Pico-Union neighborhood.

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