Extreme Poverty Bailout Package

You will never believe what happened…

Last week, the board of ChristmasFuture, Jay Baydala (CF’s Executive Director), Leif Baradoy (CF’s Operational Manager) and several high-ranking volunteers met behind closed doors to discuss a top-secret plan to create an Extreme Poverty Bailout Package. After several hours of going over and over the numbers with no success, we took a break for lunch. In the middle of his third bite into a delicious club sandwich Rhett Soveran had a brilliant idea—know how we can end Extreme Poverty? It’s not called a bailout package. It’s called Christmas! And all the people rejoiced.

That story isn’t true. Or at least, there wasn’t a meeting. The part about Christmas is true. And the only time anyone refers to me as brilliant is when I do it myself.

I really dislike numbers. I don’t hate numbers, because I understand that science needs them and science—from time-to-time—has accomplished a few things. But numbers might as well be another language to me. My dad, an engineer, would probably say they can tell a story. But not for me. I like words and I like stories.

There’s another story going on in the news right now. Money is having a tough time. We can’t seem to get enough of it. Or it’s not worth as much as it usually is. It might be deflating. And I don’t know about you, but things just seem better when they are inflated. Like tires. Or inner-tubes on the beach. But this story about money is all about North America and Europe and Asia. This story doesn’t mention what is going to happen to the impoverished places. We only tell stories about those places when our money is inflated. Floating around.

Why isn’t there a story for those living in extreme poverty? Especially now, when those people living in poverty are going to feel it most.

So let’s rename Christmas or the holiday season. That will be our new story this year. Christmas is the Extreme Poverty Bailout Package. America is spending 700 billion to bailout banks. Based on conservative figures on holiday retail spending from year’s past, Canadians will spend some $28.7 billion this Christmas and Americans will spend at least $470.4 billion. That’s nearly 500 billion dollars! If it can buy a bank… imagine how even a portion of that 500 billion could help change the face of the developing world.

I wish I could tell you a different story. I told Leif the other day, that while these statistics do tell an okay story, I bet a child suffering from extreme poverty would have a better one. But holiday spending statistics are what I have.

Help change the world for good. Give to your friends and family through ChristmasFuture this year. Take the story, do what you will with it. Share it. Change it. Maybe print it off and make a paper airplane. Let’s see if it can fly.

(If you are interested in the research, we’ve pulled our facts from Statistics Canada, and the National Retail Federation. If you include both retail and wholesale spending, North Americans spend over $1 trillion in the holiday season, according to the IRS)

Photo by Paul Downey.