Parenting. Single Style.

Forget the electric bill and food for next week. Don’t even think about needing money for your kid’s winter clothes or an oil change in the car that barely works anyways. Take this $1M and go party!

Sound crazy? To Virginia businessman Earl Stafford it doesn’t.  He has invested $1M to “give hundreds of poverty-stricken and terminally ill Americans, along with wounded men and women in uniform, an inauguration experience that won’t cost them anything” See the CNN story here.

Earl is of the opinion that, by paying for these people to go to this event, they will go back to their communities and be inspired to create change and make the world a better place.

Apparently, his event is un événement sophistiqué. His people get heated seats at the parade, ball gowns, beauticians and luxury accommodations.

Being a single parent that does struggle from time-to-time, I’m a bit confused. If these people are “poverty stricken”, couldn’t that money be used for something that might provide more permanent help?

How about setting them up with small homes? How about buying them gift certificates to local grocery stores or pre-paying their electric bills for a year? How about buying them a cheap, dependable car so that they are able to get out and get a job without paying cab fare or buying bus passes?

I get what the man is trying to do. He wants them to go listen to Barack and walk away renewed, refreshed, and full of hope. On some levels, I commend him for taking action to create change rather than sitting back and waiting for someone else to do it like so many others do.  But unless I don’t have the full story, I have just one question:

What happens if they don’t?

When these people get back to their homes, they will still be faced with their poverty-stricken lives. The stress will still be there and a solution will still not exist.

There is no temporary, political fix for that.

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