Social Capital, Food Pantry, and the Manger

It’s Christmas time. Everyone wants a tender story of goodwill. I could share one of those stories with you. I have at least ten. I could tell you how the outpouring of new coats filled my office so that I couldn’t even walk to my closet; we delivered over 60 coats to low income children at the Chittick School. I could tell you about the bags filled with good things for children who have nothing to eat delivered to my house daily. I could tell you about the two brand new bikes in the church parlor waiting to be delivered to children who would otherwise have nothing to open on Christmas day. I could even tell you about the breakfast spread for hard working teachers that folks with no connection to the school made happen because that is what staff at a school deserve. 

Instead I am going to tell you two stories that might leave you heartbroken, maybe hopeful, and awake to the power of social capital.

Story one:
Yesterday was food pantry day at Rose’s Bounty at the Stratford Street Church where I am pastor. Running a food pantry is exhausting, complicated, and a bit like managing utter chaos. A little girl was waiting outside with her mother. Wisely, the mother had her daughter wait just inside the door out of the cold. While walking to my office I discovered this sweet child, waiting patiently. 

She was warmly dressed and quiet. I asked her if her mom was outside. She looked at me with wide eyes. I then asked her if she would like a drink. No response, but an earnest wide-eyed look. I fetched her a juice box and raisins. She responded to my meager gift, “Gracias.” Manners and patience she had in abundance,  and only Spanish. But why wasn’t she in school? She was old enough.

Our Spanish speaking volunteer and client, Jamie, was the person to help. Before the commotion started, I recruited Jamie to help me speak with the parent so we could enroll this wide eyed child in school. Jamie didn’t forget. In the middle of the chaos, he found the mom and brought her to me, ready to translate. To our surprise, the mother spoke perfect English. How was this possible? 

In the middle of a hundred plus people shopping for food, I learned her story.

She is Venezuelan. She lived in the U.S. for sometime as a child which is why her English was perfect. She returned to Venezuela with her family before high school, but the grinding poverty and political unrest was too much. Fortunately, she was able to escape, and she was able to bring her daughter. Tears rose in her eyes, falling silently as she gripped the pink jacket enfolding her daughter in warmth. The daughter watched as we cried. Her daughter wasn’t in school because she didn’t want to lose her. What if ICE found her in school? What if the teachers reported her?  What if she was deported? 

I have social capital: I am a well educated, rich white woman AND a pastor. Somehow when the poor discover I am a pastor they immediately trust me. I only have to utter the words “I am a minister” and faces relax, language slows, and always there is an exhale.  I assured this desperate mom that all children, regardless of their housing situation, citizenship status, or language, can attend school in Boston. Quickly she shared this news with her daughter whose little face lit up. She could go to school. I grabbed that mother’s hands and assured her that her daughter would not be taken from her, that they were safe, that they would survive, and then I cried with her.

I’m not sure if I cried from joy or because I knew I wasn’t telling the whole truth. I do believe that in Boston, with the right precautions, you are relatively safe as an undocumented immigrant, especially in the school system. Yet before me was a loving mother who had risked everything to escape grinding poverty in Venezuela, but in America was terrified to send her child to school. What kind of world do we live in?

Later today I received a text from the mother, “You have been an angel for my daughter and me that I cannot put into words. Thank you, thank you. Bless you this Christmas.” I am no angel. I am just a privileged woman who knows the federal law: public schools may not ask about a child’s immigration status, Plyler vs. Doe (457 U.S. 202 (1982)). 

Story two:
We had a new client at the food pantry today. She saw we had children’s coats and asked if she could look through them for her son. Of course, we told her. She found me outside later, shoveling the walkway. She wanted to make sure she thanked me for the help. Then she asked, “Do you have another shovel?” I insisted she didn’t need to help me. “Go home and unpack your groceries.” “I feel bad,” she told  me. “What for?” I asked. “Because I don’t want you shoveling alone.” I retrieved the other snow shovel. 

We talked while we shoveled. I found out this tall woman was not only a mom but a college graduate. Where from I asked? Northeastern. She is also an immigrant. She is also the first person in her family to graduate from college. Her career  derailed when her young son started having seizures and her young brother died. She had to leave work to care for her son and her depression was overwhelming after her brother’s death. She was homeless for over a year, but she moved into section eight housing in August. Her son is doing so much better since they have been living in permanent housing. Once, she had dreamed of going to law school. Now, she is hopeful that she is back on track. 

If my son had seizures, my job would give me time off. If I was deeply depressed my family would take care of me, as my in-laws did when they moved in for three weeks while I had postpartum depression. I would never be homeless. I know so many people with extra rooms, extra houses (!), and extra bank accounts. I would be fine. It would be hard, but I would be fine. My life trajectory might be paused, but never derailed. 

Social Capital:
Social Capital is difficult to measure. I know I have a lot, but yesterdayI learned I have even more social capital than I realized. I knew a wide-eyed child could go to school and my life wasn’t derailed by postpartum depression because I am: 

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• Educated
• White
• Native-born
• English-speaking
• Documented
• Descended from educated people
• Friends with influential people
• English speaking
• Healthy
• Insured
• The mother of healthy children
• Married to someone with social capital
• A salaried professional with benefits
• More I am sure can be added to this list.

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Mary and Joseph had very little social capital. They were homeless migrants, and later immigrants when they fled Herod’s violent rule. No relatives in Bethlehem  would take them into their homes (remember Bethlehem was Joseph’s hometown). As far as we know they were uneducated peasants. The miracle of Christmas is this: it was to these two people first, and then to all of us, that the Prince of Peace, the Savior, was born. Emmanuel. God with us. Social capital did not enter into God’s Emmanuel equation. 

This Christmas, let us remember the story of a child born to parents with no social capital. Let us remember that God first came to them. Today, let us be reassured that God is first with the Venezuelan mother and her daughter and the homeless college graduate and her son. The story of Christmas is not a story of cheap charity. The story of Christmas is the of a God who accompanies those who are the least, the last, the forgotten. If we trust in this God, then social capital can no longer be the yardstick by which we measure an individual’s worth. In God’s eyes, we are all infinitely valuable. ​