Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Where Do You Put Your Money: Facts or Fiction??

The past weekend, "we the people" spent over $142,000,000 on fiction , while the factually needy go begging. A grant website for children's organizations received over 3,000 requests for real life children's needs from nonprofits who are not getting enough funding from "we the people". You might say this is to be expected in these hard financial times. I would have agreed, until my favorite talk show hosts pointed out that "we the people" found an enormous amount of cash to belch out at the movie theaters in just one weekend: $142,000,000. Those zeros stand for something, an enormous escapism from real life needs.

My hat's off to the website trying to award money to real children's needs, but how derailed are "we the people" from these issues? I understand that this movie was aimed at the immature adolescents and that part in all the many older adults who also laid down the cash to see the young hunks rescue the love-sick skinny girl with great eyes. I understand the longing for romance and adventure in times when its even hard to find a job at a fast food restaurant.

As I heard Arne Duncan Education Secretary on our president's cabinet proclaim clearly that "we the people" are in an educational crisis with 1,200,000 high school kids dropping out every year, the plot thickened. During brief CNN coverage, Arne said every year over 30% of our teens drop out of high school, and are therefore " condemned to poverty and social failure".
Was it the good students, the 70% who stay in school who went in droves to see the vampires/ werewolf movie? Where did these teens get the money? How did so many parents have enough money for allowances to add up to $142,000,000 in a few days time? I thought teens were having a hard time finding work. I thought parents were having a hard time keeping a job.

Apparently there is more discretionary money out there in the pockets of America than we are being told. Then it is a question of where we put our money. Parents want to give a special treat to their good kids and fork over the cash. I suspect many parents and other adults got pulled into the curious fantasy world whirlwind as well.

Bottom Line : "We the people" have choices.
Challenge: instead of paying to see this same fantasy movie a second time, if "we the people" would take that same $10 (or a matching $10 if you must go to the movie) and give it to a needy Headstart for poverty level children, State-Funded Pre-Kindergarten for low income, Healthy Family for first time at-risk families, Infant & Toddler Connection for families of children with special needs, or even our group, Literacy for Tykes, who serves all the above groups, much real life need could be relieved . Many real life children could have brighter futures. "We the people" could turn around the ever-growing dropout rate within 15 years.

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