United Way of King County's 2012 Spirit of Caring Awards Ceremony — with Mrs. Washington, Jessica Riggs and Mrs. Snohomish County, Angelique Ashton.
One year ago the United Way of King County caught my attention through Twitter. It was Hunger Action Week and there we’re many people tweeting about their progress. Although I thought what the UWKC was doing was a great idea and a positive way to bring attention to an important issue, I didn’t like the tweets and blog posts I was reading from participants. So first let me explain the Hunger Challenge to you. Individuals are asked to live on $7 a day or a family of five $26 a day for a week to see what’s it’s like to live on food stamps. This seems like a breeze to me because I was once living well below this (I was not on food stamps). Anyway, I saw tweets and blog posts complaining about not having their organic foods and lattes and was absolutely disgusted. I knew that was not the purpose of the hunger challenge. Yes, it was to show you have to live without those luxuries but not to complain. I did see many positive posts with creative recipes and talk of how hard it was and how people were starting to empathize. Those I could appreciate but the whining and complaining was insulting to me so I started to respond to those people and the UWKC took action and replied. They asked me to share my story and experience as to why I felt the way I did. I LOVED IT! It was real and I shared a lot of stuff that was hard for me since I had worked so hard to get out of that situation but it was worth it to show people what it was like and it is possible to overcome it. I am proud of sharing my personal story with Seattle as difficult as it was and I am proud to give to a cause that brings such positive attention to so many causes. Now I am going to ask you to participate in this year’s Hunger Action Week. It’s a great way to truly understand. If you would like to read my blog post from last year on the UWKC website click here. Thank you United Way for the opportunity to share my story and for helping so many people in our community.
My Crazy Random Life 