I got my two in a couple of days before the deadline, huffing them in from the car to the dusk-dim church kitchen, where the others stood lined up like so many dwarf goblins on the long counters and tables. I couldn’t remember how many we’d pledged to do up this year, but the number “40” stuck in my mind. If that was right, this was no inconsiderable chunk o’ change.

When the neo-con Ontario government did its level best to strangle the public school system, back when my own kids were in elementary school, one of the “frills” it cut was school supplies. No more free pencils. That little job got handed off to parents: pencils, pens, school binders, report covers, erasers, markers, scissors, the whole stationary store, all loaded (together with lunch bag and water bottle) into school backpacks, which also have to accommodate the second pair of shoes required for classroom wear. All paid for by parents.

Since said neo-con government also slashed welfare payments, this has turned into a Major Problem for poor families. The hell with Justin Bieber t-shirts and the correct type of runners: they have to pour about $50 worth of basic school supplies into a backpack, and a cheap backpack costs $20. (And will promptly fall apart; speaks the voice of experience.) Plus, of course, that required pair of indoor shoes. We’re pushing $100 a kid even if you’re a canny shopper with access to a good dollar store. That hurts.

My church is a-swarm with teachers, mostly elementary school, many retired, some still working, and so it was an obvious thought to assemble school backpacks for the needy kids at our local elementary school. We’ve done this yearly for about the last three-four years, and the number of packs we send goes up a bit each summer. The school tells us what’s needed. There is a sign-up sheet, divided by gender and grade group (primary, junior, intermediate, covering grades 1 to 8). The church itself kicks in any shortfall. I always sign up for two; this year, for the first time, I’d got intermediate girls, Grade 7 and 8.

This is not a big back-patting sort of outreach. We don’t do it for the publicity (well, the publicity doesn’t hurt — like all small churches, we desperately need new members). We don’t do it for any ideological or even theological reason, although I don’t think we’d have any trouble coming up with one. We do it because it needs to be done and it might as well be us as anyone else who does it. Kids need those backpacks. If they come from low-income backgrounds, they don’t need the additional humiliation of not having enough pencils.

Who knows why they’re poor, whether their families are deserving or un-, if there’s drinking or smoking or drugs or order-in pizza in the house? Kids aren’t answerable for their parents’ lack of economic common sense, even if that’s part of the problem (and in this economy, it often isn’t). It doesn’t change the need for those required indoor shoes. We can’t just write the need off as someone else’s responsibility or try to hand it back to the schools (already underfunded) or to the government. The kids need erasers, period. Also scientific calculators, math sets, and coloured pencils (decent quality; the cheap ones are useless).

I get cranky with those for whom the poor — or the rich, for that matter — blur into a de-humanized mass of disposable units, like so many disposable Bic pens. These kids are people, beloved by God, each one utterly unique and valuable beyond price. We should be sinking everything we’ve got into treasuring each child, ensuring that he or she has what she needs, dealing promptly with learning disabilities, bringing out their gifts. Elementary school is, after all, a kid’s first full-time job, lasting (to completion) from age 4 or 5 to 18, and it is a huge determinant of the kid’s sense of self. It is at least as important as parenting, I believe, and if we blow off the job, we pay for our failure later, although probably not as heavily as the kids do.

But then, children are a long-term investment and our society doesn’t think in those terms. Bottom line now, that’s what matters: max those profits, and if that means cutting back on social services, well, something’s gotta give, doesn’t it? And that something is not going to be my wallet. Besides, the poor should simply haul their socks up and get richer: easy. So those who already have most get more at the expense of those who have less, claiming that this trend just proves how much smarter and harder-working they are. How they justify this state of things, especially if they’re Christian, is a thing I do not understand and don’t want to. Probably they don’t need to justify, believing that prosperity is its own justification. This is a position that likely gives God the divine equivalent to the collywobbles, but I’ll leave that up to Herself to deal with. And She certainly will

Back to our backpacks…

We give to those who have little because we have more, enough to be generous. I find it bemusing that those who don’t rank high on this world’s list of successes tend to be far more generous, proportionally speaking, than those who could afford to give a whole lot without suffering the least personal pinch. The widow really does give her mite. Some of our backpack donors are on retirement income, or living somewhere between the median income and the poverty line. But the need is there and they step up to help meet it without a moment’s thought.

And why? Simply because it is the next right thing to do. It’s simple social practicality. There is a need; we can help fill it, therefore that’s what we do. We’re like one neighbour who joins another in sociable weeding (always much more entertaining than weeding one’s own garden). You don’t spout ideologies or engage in philosophizing or debate abstract economics; you just pick up the goddam hoe and have at the quack grass. And if you want to be truly, selflessly helpful, you accept your neighbour’s offering of zucchini.

Yes, some will abuse charitable giving, just as some abuse our much-abraded social safety net, but I’m with Lettice Lady Falkland who, when her friends accused her of encouraging layabouts by her philanthropy, replied “with spirit”: “I know not their hearts. I had rather relieve five unworthy Vagrants than that one member of Christ should go empty away.” I’m not even so particular about the recipient’s faith identity.

The girls who get my back packs will have no idea who bought the stuff, nor should they, and they are not obliged to shine academically or behave like little ladies because they have received my charity. Ideally, they won’t lose all the pencils before the end of September, but how am I to know?

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