This is a copy of Elke's speech that she read at the Full Souls event at Ten Spoons Winery where she joined the mayor and other supporters of the Missoula Food Bank. It was a delightful evening of shared stories, perspective, good food and wine, and beautiful ceramics.
I am very proud of many things we have accomplished with Mamalode, but most proud of the fact that we made something out of nothing, and then made that something special.
There is a necessary ingredient for being able to actualize a dream—belief.
I grew up between Missoula and Alaska. We were poor even in Missoula. When we first moved to Alaska, it was to a cabin with no electricity, no plumbing. We had to travel via skiff to a nearby town for school.
We used an outhouse. We heated rainwater. We read by kerosene lamplight. We chopped and carried endless amounts of wood. We burned coal gathered on the beach.
I remember that time as magic. It wasn’t until I went back as an adult and saw it through my friend’s eyes that I realized we lived in poverty.
I remember certain things, like shopping at the Salvation Army, showering at the laundry mat when we went to town for school, and the mean girl who made a very public and unkind spectacle about the fact that I was wearing an old coat her mother had given to charity.
I remember my mom hiding cans of peaches in the closet—just in case.
I didn’t understand our situation at the time. We were very lucky we never went hungry. We fished and hunted on a subsistence level. We gathered and foraged during the summer. We had each other. And never, ever did the idea of limits cross my path.
I think back to that time and of my mom. How truly scared she was to be hiding canned peaches, how clearly she saw what I did not: that we lived on the very edge poverty, that hunger circled us, that we lived in an old cabin with endless issues, endless chores and endless threats. She was so much braver than I knew. And she did a beautiful job of allowing us to have a childhood full of imagination, while she held tight to the reins of our reality.
My family and my community raised me, a child who did not always have enough, to believe she was enough, enough to chase any star and follow any dream. Like many people, the tough times were just that, times. Through much hard work and manual labor, our situation changed, but the chapter in the cabin was one of the most formative of my life.
I think Missoula and programs like the Missoula Food Bank give us an opportunity to keep the best of us moving forward, and by “best of us,” I mean our ability to make or break a child’s belief in what they have to offer.
If we give them enough, they will feel plenty, and we all have more.
But, back to that necessary ingredient—belief. Belief comes with confidence, which comes only with dignity.
We are stewards of each other’s dignity every day; how we give, how we take, how we are stretched, bent or broken by each other.
So Give. Donate. Volunteer. Share. Feed. Clothe. Hold. Acknowledge. Make eye contact. Greet. Really see the people who you pass every day. There is nothing more undignified than ignoring another human being. This discussion is as much about your own dignity as it is about theirs.
I challenge you to continue your support of the Missoula Food Bank and your support of kids, who need one of the simplest of things—food, so they can grow up and create things we cannot even see, cannot even imagine.
Giving with grace, receiving with dignity, and a community that does not need credit or headlines, commemorative plaques or strings attached…this is our chance.
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About the Author
September 2014's theme nourish is brought to you by ONE | Girls & Women
To learn about sponsoring a Mamalode theme contact: info@mamalode.com