EDITORIAL: Area author's book forces us all to face local poverty problem
The droning recession has affected the way we all live. The way we shop. The way we celebrate. The way we give.
And perhaps most notably, the way we view poverty. It is all around us.
With many of us knowing at least one person who has been laid off, or feeling just one paycheck away from poverty ourselves, this issue touches most every Waco family.
So we’re glad that One Book One Waco has selected The Summer Kitchen — a book by Clifton author Lisa Wingate that deals with poverty — as this spring’s big Waco read.
Although the book is set in Dallas, Wingate says The Summer Kitchen is based on Waco’s own Gospel Cafe. For those unaware, the downtown Gospel Cafe at 825 S. 10th St. serves lunch three times a week to anyone, regardless of ability to pay.
Lines form hours before the piping-hot meals are dished up. Volunteers come from many area churches and are spearheaded by the small CrossTies Ecumenical Church.
No questions are asked. Smiles abound as volunteers serve some of our city’s poorest. But more than just passing them a dish of pie, they connect with them.
The main character in The Summer Kitchen, who is from a wealthy Dallas neighborhood, faces a similar reality of not being able to turn a deaf ear to the poverty around her when she inherits a property in a poor part of town. What she does will move readers and may inspire some of us to help out.
“The book is a statement about the whole concept of living in our own bubble,” Wingate told the Trib. “The theme for the book is poverty, but in a lot of ways the wealthiest character has the most poor of spirit. And she eventually learns that everyone’s story is valuable. Just because someone doesn’t come from the right side of town doesn’t mean they don’t matter or are unworthy.”
Waco leaders have put poverty in the forefront. It was the subject of the 2009 education summit and a chamber workforce summit, plus last week’s homeless outreach. Still, in 2008, 20.5 percent lived in poverty in Waco.
We hope folks will read this book and step out of their bubbles to find worth in all of us.
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