Giving Thought To Boiled Potatoes

By
Wentao
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6
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Note: read my article on what the hunger dinner is before reading this one. 🙂

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The Hunger Dinner was very inspirational, I would say. No, that sounds a bit too generalized. We’ve finished promoting this event and the fruits have blossomed!

How do I start? F0od perhaps?

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Getting the right post-it under your plate gave you better meals. The green was the third-class, the blue second, and the orange the comparatively lavish first-class.
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Third class meal – boiled potatoes :O
Second-class meal - soup and bun :)
Second-class meal – soup and bun 😛
First-class meal - lasagna , salad, and soup
First-class meal – lasagna, salad, and soup 🙂

Talk about differences there. Sharing is caring, though.

Alice was the guest and Alice is part of our committee hosting the event! I’m leaving you dazzled on purpose. What makes it even more confusing is that they are both YAA bloggers too.

Alice on the left hand side was a guest and Alice on the right hand side is the one among us hosting the event :) Confusing, eh?
Alice on the left hand side was a guest and Alice on the right hand side is the one among us hosting the event 🙂 Confusing, eh?

YVC volunteers, remember the bowl making project?

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That was the light-hearted side of things, the team bonding, seeing guests enjoy their dinners, all that. Here’s where the actual brainstorming began.

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There were quite a few speeches from representatives of organizations, including the Alex health clinic, who founded a Youth health clinic (good job!) from last year’s donations, Social Venture Partners, and of course Youth Central. I was particularly was moved by these quotes in the address by John Rook of the Calgary Homeless Foundation. They only add up to my bank of knowledge about poverty.

Our youth speaker was very motivational; Theo Dillenburg was a drug addict for 7 years starting when he attended high school, ending up in homelessness. He found his way out of addiction, but only after he realized something, as he accounts it, that “homeless does not discriminate.”

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This is what he had looked like 6 month’s ago.

Homeless, in his eyes, is not a “character defect” as the stigma says. He expressed gratitude for those that helped him out of it, out of his trouble in Hastings in Vancouver, who assisted him in stepping out of poverty here, such as miracle workers and the Exit.

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What does this picture symbolize? This was John Rook’s analogy to Poverty as a whole. He mentioned that instead of a recycling bin, he wanted a picture of a bear-proof garbage bin to display how people who are impoverished are forced to step out of their natural ways to gain food just like bears who scavenge in towns.

While only 5-10% are "chronically homeless, the ones we often deem as those who search garbage cans, all suffer from hunger.
While only 5-10% are “chronically homeless, the ones we often deem as those who search garbage cans, all suffer from hunger, whether temporarily for a few days or a few months.

That’s potatoes for thought.  We are now in our fifth year of the Ten Year Plan to End Homeless, aren’t we? A big applause to all of the speakers for their contributions.

A big thank you too, to the entire YVC steering committee (maybe not myself since I was so lazy), especially the Hunger Dinner sub-committee!

Teamwork!
Teamwork!

DAPHNEEE

6 COMMENTS

  1. I made two bowls! Too bad I was busy on the event day, otherwise I would have gone! Sounds like it was a great success 🙂

  2. You could’ve come and taken pictures with me! 🙂 At the end there were a pile of extra bowls and each of us on the steering committee took like three each. What if I took a bowl of yours?
    OHHHHHH I JUST REMEMBERED TOO, THE BOWL MAKING PROJECT WAS WHEN I FIRST MET YOU!

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