Amy Jo Hutchison got a standing ovation at the Community Leaders’ Breakfast for the United Way of Monongalia and Preston Counties on Friday morning – and that response echoed back to a certain visit she made to Washington, D.C., three years ago.
COVID-19 was one month away when Hutchison, a college-educated single mother of two from Wheeling, turned up to raise holy hell with the U.S. Congress over the plight of the working poor.
Feb. 5, 2020: Hutchison had motored from the Mountain State to the nation’s capital to testify before members of the House Committee of Oversight and Reform about a subset of the population she said is all but invisible across the country.
Especially, she emphasized, in places such as her native West Virginia.
She was talking about people who were employed and hard-working, but could still only exist from one paycheck to the next, just because.
People in economic limbo, like her.
“I have two jobs and a bachelor’s degree and struggle to make ends meet,” she said.
“The federal poverty guidelines say I’m ‘not poor,’ but I cashed in a jar full of change the other day so my daughter could attend a music competition with her school band,” she continued.
Hutchison confessed to the committee she went grocery shopping with a calculator – for the running total, she said – should something have to be put back on the shelf.
She was popping over-the-counter pain medication like breath mints, she said, because she couldn’t afford a dentist, while congressional members were receiving an annual outlay of $40,000 (adjusted for inflation) to redecorate their offices,
That amount, she said, was $360 more than federal poverty guidelines for a family of seven in America.
“Shame on you and shame on me,” she said.
“And shame on every one of us for not rattling the windows with cries of outrage at a government that thinks its offices are worth $40,000 a year – but families and children aren’t.”
United – in understanding
Three years later, Rattle the Windows is the name of the national grassroots movement that took its name from that line her testimony.
Its goal to bring economic equity across Appalachia and America. That’s why she was the keynote speaker at the United Way breakfast.
The event is the traditional soft opening of the annual campaign for the outreach organization, which benefits 27 human service agencies and 34 like-minded programs across its two-county region.
This year’s goal for campaign, which officially launches next Wednesday, is $1.3 million.
Some 100 business and community leaders came out for the gathering at Mon Health Medical Center.
Hutchison reminded them the campaign is just as much about real-world understanding and empathy – as it is simply asking for money.
Understanding, she said, begets empathy.
“One is that 86% of SNAP recipients really do work,” she said, referring to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
“We’re not all ‘sitting on our lazy a****’” she said.
“That’s what I hear from people: ‘Get off your lazy a** and get a job.’ Are you kiddin’ me? Sometimes I work three jobs, you know? And I’m still just scraping by.”
Redefining the donation
And it might be better, she suggested, to replace backpack giveaways for the start of school with something more lasting.
“Why does one child in elementary school need 25 notebooks?” she said.
What children in poverty need, she said, are “experiences” – free passes for soccer camp or music lessons, for example.
What families in poverty need, she said, goes back to her earlier mentions of awareness and understanding.
“Believe it or not, a lot of poor people don’t need to be ‘changed,’” she said.
“If we really start having relationships with folks we serve, I think we might start to love them. And when we start to love people, that’s when we start to fight for change.”
‘But do you really live here?’
Through the United Way of Monongalia and Preston Counties, that awareness is usually delivered through the organization’s annual Day of Caring event.
That’s the day on the calendar when volunteers go out to member agencies to help with fix-up projects and other enhancement work that might not get done otherwise, given the traditional tight budget of any nonprofit.
That’s how this year’s campaign chair, Monica Nassif Haddad, got involved years ago.
“We Make the Difference,” is this year’s theme, and it wasn’t chosen lightly, she said.
Giving to the United Way, means building up people – while celebrating them at the same time.
“And all the money stays here in Mon and Preston,” she said. “That’s so important.”
Organization CEO Brandi Helms agreed.
Donating and volunteering, she said, co-exist in the local United Way.
People here are inherently generous with their time and bank accounts, she said.
That’s why she always encourages newcomers to the community and the United Way to get involved and invested, by doing both of the aforementioned.
“We all live here,” the CEO will say. “But do you really live here?”
