Welfare: Earn vs Entitlement

There was an interesting article in today's newspaper.

It was a story about a local shelter that provides free meals and temporary housing to area families in need. As might be expected, many of the shelter's visitors are repeat "customers".

The article relates an incident in which one of the volunteers offered a gift card to a needy customer. The man rejected the gift card because he did not like the store. When the director heard this, it caused her to stop and think. She noticed that many of the people coming in for free meals, clothing or housing had begun to take the food & shelter for granted and seemed ungrateful. Some had even begun to complain and were bad-mouthing staff members when someone got a bit extra here or there. Clearly a case of the gimmes, entitlement.

The director came up with an idea. The shelter was not going to be a place where people get but never give. It is a well-known truth that when people get something for nothing they often quit fending for themselves.

The director came up with a plan where members would earn items such as clothing or food. Customers could earn points or dollars as they were called, by cleaning the kitchen or the bathrooms or running the front desk. Her plan included members picking up trash around the neighborhood thereby giving back to the community that donated to the shelter.

Her plan worked. She noticed a difference in the people. Not everyone participated and still felt the shelter "owed" them something but the people that did participate felt a sense of pride and felt good about themselves.

It is a good plan that works. Perhaps some of our leaders should take notice and implement a similar plan for welfare at community, state and federal levels.