Holidays should be about family/friends togetherness and Social Celebration!

By Kendall Worth!

 

 

Illustration by Lois Allen. From Highlights For Children, April, 1966.

I write this post as the Easter Holiday Weekend - April 7^th till April 10^th 2023 - fast approaches!

Many welfare recipients grew up learning that Easter, along with Christmas and Thanksgiving are important times to be with family, but only some of us are lucky enough to have family who we can spend holidays with or “chosen family” who love us like family should. These are times when ordinary things shut down and people have time to celebrate, whether they celebrate the Christian Holy days, or not. I have previously written about this as way too many people on income assistance have got no one to celebrate with… and this article, written in 2018 is unfortunately still very relevant. In this article written in 2019, I describe two people who had no family or friends to spend Easter with, who found a solution. Then, of course, following 2019, COVID hit, and for the next three years everyone felt isolated.

What is really sad is even some of the lucky welfare recipients, who under normal circumstances, do get to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with family tell me that Easter is the only one of those important annual holidays to be with family, that they do not get invited to spend with family. Some of the better off class who normally invite people living in poverty over to their homes at Christmas may well own summer cottages. They might use Easter weekend to make that trip out to the country to open up the cottage on the Easter weekend. Many people are very involved with their churches on Easter Weekend and many of the better off families have kids who are involved in sports. Easter is usually that time of year when playoffs and tournaments for sports teams take place.

Many, who are living in poverty, recently told me, that they are not looking forward to the upcoming 4 days of being alone in their apartments. The sad truth is that many people including these welfare recipients will not be getting invites to go spend Easter with family members or friends who love them like family should. In the financially better off community it is expected that many of them will back to celebrating Easter the way they used to celebrate this holiday, before COVID restrictions and fears.

No Not-for-Profits/Agencies are advertising Easter Dinners in 2023.

Are any not-for-profits/Churches/Agencies planning any Easter Dinners for those of us who are going to be alone for Easter? Having the opportunity to access those venues over Easter weekend is going to be no replacement for spending Easter with family or friends who love us like family should, but would ease the social isolation. Welfare recipients understood why things were the way they were for the last 3 years due to COVID, but this year things should be “back to normal”, instead of 4 days of loneliness and social isolation. For any better off folks seeing this BLOG, I am asking that over Easter weekend you take a few minutes to think about those of us living in poverty. Of course this year two or three questions come up regarding a long weekend?

• With the increasing homeless population how are the homeless going to celebrate?

• With inflation increasing constantly, what effect will that have on how people in general are going to celebrate Easter this year?

Still it would be so nice for welfare recipients to have somewhere to go for something a little special on a long holiday weekend.