A convenient fiction adults often tell themselves is that children growing up in poverty don’t feel different from other kids. But they do.
Ashleigh Desvigne learned this when a school nurse phoned her one rainy day to let the mother of five know that her son, a third grader in the Everett School District, had holes in his shoes and his feet were soaked. The child came home with a flyer for a program that aids families in need.
“Mommy, you have to read this,” he said.
Desvigne didn’t want to. She was embarrassed and humiliated. Her husband’s meager income as a supermarket delivery driver pushed them beyond the reach of welfare benefits, but just barely. They were getting by on food stamps, and the kids never had new clothes, let alone a few extra dollars to spend at school book fairs.
This is a stigma that children in poverty endure quietly. But the memories linger. Desvigne knew them from her own youth. School Days, a YWCA-funded program for families like Desvigne’s, expects to provide the guardians of more than 650 children with gift cards they can use to buy clothing, backpacks and school supplies so kids can go back to class without worries about looking or feeling “different.”
A good chunk of the money comes from Seattle Times readers who participate in the newspaper’s annual School Supplies Drive. Since 1999, the fundraising effort has delivered more than $1 million to three local organizations assisting families in need: The YWCA Seattle-King-Snohomish, the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, and on the Eastside, Hopelink.
So far this summer, 225 people have kicked in $46,221, an important boost because preparing for school can cost families hundreds of dollars. But there’s still time to help. The drive runs through Labor Day.
And a post-script: Ashleigh Desvigne was so moved by the generosity she’d experienced, and its impact on her children, that she changed her own life. Though she’d been intermittently homeless with little work experience, Desvigne began to volunteer, helping others who were on the streets. She built that into a job and now works full-time as a family advocate and property manager at Project Reunite, a YWCA program for parents who have lost their children due to drug addiction, and are working to change course.
It all started when Desvigne got a hand up to help her kids get outfitted for school.
