Elyse Kisner and Zoey Workman tried to be smart with their Smarties — they really did.
They juggled, shifted and re-shifted. They put off, rearranged and rethought.
“We just won’t have any fun,” Elyse said, after some consideration.
“We won’t go to the doctor,” Zoey decreed. “Unless we’re really sick.”
Subsisting on, say, two meals a day, both said, might be good enough (maybe) to keep their bellies from growling too loudly.
From the front of the chapel at Trinity Christian School, Zach Cruze stood with his arms folded.
The executive director of Empty Bowls Monongalia watched as Elyse, Zoey and other students tried to manage a budget, with Smarties, the popular candy, standing in for money and food.
Cruze knew what was going to happen before everyone else did.
The exercise was designed to fail.
No matter what, there was always going to be too much life, and not enough Smarties, to go around.
“This is what poverty is,” he said. “This is what food insecurity is.”
Dig in
Cruze, an archeologist by training, came to Morgantown two years ago for a job opportunity in his field.
It didn’t take him long to dig into the socioeconomic strata of the place.
He got himself to Morgantown City Council, where he represents the 3rd Ward.
And he joined the board of directors of Empty Bowls Monongalia before taking the full-time job as executive director.
Empty Bowls fights food insecurity across the region.
To be food insecure means you’re simply not getting enough food to sustain yourself, nutritionally.
Zach Cruze, executive director of Empty Bowls Monongalia, talks to students at Trinity school about food scarcity Wednesday.
Hungry numbers
That’s 1 in 5 children in West Virginia, according to Feeding America, the online watchdog group.
More than 2,000 children in relatively prosperous Monongalia County come under that category.
“It’s everywhere,” Cruze said.
Trinity teachers wanted to remind the students of the world at large.
This year’s Empty Bowls luncheon will be from 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Feb. 29 at Mylan Park.
Visit ebmon.org for more information.
Painting a picture
Trinity students will write public service announcements promoting the luncheon while also painting bowls that are the signature of the event.
Swirls and other artistic renderings adorn every bowl filled with soup for the cause.
You even get to take the bowl home with you, as a reminder of the Empty Bowls mission.
‘I ate all my Smarties’
Cruze, meanwhile, wants Trinity’s students to see the Smarties candies as a reminder now.
In the “Making Choices” exercise, if you ate one Smartie, that represented one meal a day.
Three Smarties meant three meals a day, or a trip to the doctor or dentist.
Two Smarties, translated to no car — but public transportation.
There are about 15 Smarties per roll, and more than 15 circumstances in the exercise.
“You’re gonna run out of Smarties,” he said. “There’s no way around it.”
And taking advantage of one household component means taking away from something else, he said.
Especially food, he said. Eating healthy means being healthy — a practice, he allowed, that many West Virginians can’t always afford to follow.
“So what did you guys think?” he asked. “It wasn’t easy, was it?”
“I ate all my Smarties,” one student said.
“And that was after I said I couldn’t afford to go to the dentist.”
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