Getting lesson in poverty

According to the Global Poverty Project, there are 1.4 billion people in the world living in extreme poverty. That’s 1.4 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day.

Cappello, a 35-year-old mother from Decatur and digital asset manager for CARE, wanted to somehow walk in their shoes — if they have shoes at all.

Why?

Mostly to raise awareness about poverty and its impact here and around the world.

And so after dinner the other night she and four other members of her team — the Solidarity Sisters — set out for a two-mile walk around a middle-class neighborhood lined with fat trees and a gray sidewalk that curved like ribbon, an even sun on their backs as two of them pushed children in high-tech strollers — not quite the weight of gallons of water women in developing countries must carry but heavy enough to make that hill ahead difficult.

The meal, without so much as a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese or a slice of bread, and the walk were part of the Global Poverty Project’s Live Below the Line Campaign Challenge, which began last Monday and ended Friday.

The Solidarity Sisters also hope to raise $1,000 to go toward the project's crucial anti-poverty initiatives. Anyone interested can make donations online.

Cappello decided she wanted to join the challenge about a month ago when she read about it on her colleague Carol Meyer’s Twitter feed. She asked friends to join her.

In an email, she explained the challenge as a way to learn more about what people who live below the poverty line face.

She posted a similar missive on her Facebook page. “I really want to do this and I’d really like you to do this with me,” she wrote. “Who’s in?”

The response was slow. And disappointing.

Those who did stated that they had personal conflicts, or they sent congratulations with offers to take her to dinner.

Meyer, though, signed on almost immediately. So did Vanessa Rood, Susan Aquino and Wendy Loux.

Another CARE employee, Becky Penar of Tucker, took up the challenge alone but joined the Solidarity Sisters for support last week.

“I wanted to do this because I work with CARE, and I really wanted to have a personal connection to the work that I do every day,” Penar said. “I’m not in the field. I don’t get to see, hear, feel and smell what our beneficiaries do.”

The challenge, Penar said, was a chance to simulate some of that.

Was it working?

In some ways, the women said, yes.

“It does force you to think about what you will eat,” Meyer said. “It’s been hard, but I think about all the people I’ve met on my CARE trips who do this every day. It’s consuming. It’s exhausting trying to figure out how to eat and if they are going to eat at all.”

One of the biggest challenges, perhaps, has been subsisting without the caffeine they get in soda and their morning coffee.

For instance, Rood said it’s been particularly hard not taking the free cup of coffee she normally gets at work or to partake in treats at her office.

“I walked in Tuesday morning and there was food all over the place,” she said, “but I couldn’t have any.”

What Rood did have was a slice of white bread and a sliver of margarine, which had been factored into her $1.50 daily limit.

To get started, the team decided to pool its resources — $7.50 each — and headed to Aldi, the Dollar Tree and the DeKalb Farmers’ Market to buy the five-day supply of food. Their take included ginger snap cookies, bananas, peanut butter, eggs, white and wheat bread, rice, ramen noodles, black and pinto beans and corn muffin mix. They each had about $1 left for things they might want later on, like the Coke Zero that Cappello and Meyer shared early in the week when one of them went into withdrawal.

At home, they divided the food. They each got 19 ginger snaps. Some took ramen noodles, and most of them took eggs, although Loux’s husband ate hers. They shared Monday’s meal of black bean burgers and Wednesday’s pasta. The rest of the time they were on their own.

By midweek, they said, they were happy the challenge was just about over, which is the thing that made it easy. They knew they wouldn’t have to limit themselves beyond Friday, and they understood that in developing countries that two-mile walk would’ve been for water or medical care; that the $1.50 would have had to be enough not just for food but for shelter and transportation as well.

“It’s really hard to believe. Ours is just for food and drink,” Aquino said.

Sometime around 7:30 p.m. they took the last mouthful of pasta and changed into their walking shoes. They headed east on Ponce de Leon, past the aromas of Farm Burger and Watershed and thoughts of margaritas, as they witnessed a line forming outside Taqueria del Sol. Clairmont was a welcome change of scenery as they circled back to Meyer’s home through well-kept neighborhoods, where residents likely need very little but wish for a lot.

They coordinated a post-challenge celebration with pizza and champagne and wondered out loud about their next challenge, figuring out how to get cheese and salsa into the budget.

Said Cappello: “Those black bean burgers with cheese and salsa would’ve been much better.”