By Brendan Ulmer
Ulmer Uncensored
The tensions at the Sept. 2 Hutchinson City Council meeting were quite high when the local food-distributing non-profit Everfull, along with its Executive Director, Charles Johnston, requested up to $40,000 from the city.
There were many passionate and frustrated senior citizens present. Some of them work for Everfull, some do not, but there was definitely a strong feeling in that room that ever since Everfull had their relationship and funding cut off by the South Central Kansas Area Agency on Aging, the quality of meals and services seniors are receiving has declined.
Now there are a couple of competing narratives as to how and why this relationship was severed, and time will tell if the decline in quality of service is a real, long-term problem. Ultimately, the biggest takeaway I had from talking to various people from all sorts of different organizations is that these programs are seriously underfunded and at serious risk of becoming obsolete in the not-so-distant future, not just in Hutchinson, but across the United States.
The problem facing both SCKAAA and Everfull is a familiar one: their funding has remained stagnant while the cost of their required goods is rising.
This is not just a blow for the programs themselves, but for the seniors who rely on these programs for food, companionship, and sometimes assistance. Many anecdotes were shared with me about times when Meals on Wheels volunteers arrived at a recipient’s home to find that they had fallen and could not get up on their own. If it weren’t for the volunteers, who knows how long it would have taken for these seniors to be helped? Who knows just how dire those situations would have become?
In a twisted way, the same force behind these programs being underfunded will only be exacerbated by these programs failing—the problem of alienation. The less we see our government fund programs that are good for the community, the less we will think our government is capable of good things.
This problem of alienation is a problem that, in my 22-year-old opinion, could perhaps be pinpointed as the black hole that’s ripping our country apart, atom by atom. Each day—between the stagnant wages, the rising cost of living, and the electronic and chemical distractions often needed to move through it all—we become more alienated from our government, from the American Dream, and most significantly, from each other.
This is not to blame our city government, by the way; these are broader societal trends that they are also attempting to ford right along with us, though they do it in suits behind a desk.
We are lucky enough to live in a city where many of the most fortunate are willing to fund local programs and services; some places are not so lucky. This city is our little corner of the Earth. Let’s take pride in it and assist our brothers and sisters the best our means will allow, those we rub shoulders with every day, and those who can’t leave their homes.