{"id":3299,"date":"2014-01-29T16:47:33","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T22:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/?p=3299"},"modified":"2015-10-05T16:48:14","modified_gmt":"2015-10-05T22:48:14","slug":"my-friends-house-and-pebbles-phillips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/my-friends-house-and-pebbles-phillips\/","title":{"rendered":"My Friend’s House and Pebbles Phillips"},"content":{"rendered":"
Ryan P. Cumming<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

\u200b<\/p>\n

“If you hold your hand out clenched, you can’t give or receive.\u00a0 But if your hand is open, you can give and<\/em> receive.”\u00a0 Pebbles Phillips, a vocalist and musician who has performed with top acts, lives by this motto.\u00a0 As a single mother, she not only takes care of her daughter but also helps her daughter’s father, her neighbors and people she meets in food lines.\u00a0 Pebbles teaches her daughter to be grateful for what they have, even though both of them depend on food pantries and government assistance to keep food on the table.<\/p>\n

\"PebblesPebbles’ daughter receives SNAP benefits each month, but Pebbles herself does not because she receives a small amount of Social Security which “barely pays rent.”\u00a0 Getting benefits for her daughter is a burdensome process that requires “a lot of patience.”\u00a0 Still, she says, “I have to do it.”\u00a0 Without help from other family members, her daughter depends on SNAP to eat, though even with the meager benefit she receives, both Pebbles and her daughter were going hungry by the last week of each month.\u00a0 SNAP helped a lot, but it didn’t keep them from going hungry.<\/p>\n

To make it through the month Pebbles “never misses the food line,” sometimes waiting three to four hours in line to receive fresh food for herself and her daughter.\u00a0 Finding My Friend’s House, a ministry supported by ELCA World Hunger, was a “blessing.”\u00a0 In line there, she joined folks who would sleep on the porch or arrive in the wee hours of the morning to get food.\u00a0 When her daughter’s benefits were reduced November 1, 2013, she relied even more on My Friend’s House and other food programs.<\/p>\n

Still, Pebbles makes the best of her situation.\u00a0 “Even if all we have is beans and potatoes, we make it into a feast.”\u00a0 Together she and her daughter served other folks at My Friend’s House dinner on Thanksgiving Day.\u00a0 Her positive attitude helps Pebbles face the grim reality of food insecurity: the laborious process of applying for and maintaining benefits, the long lines at food pantries, the anger and frustration of some of her friends and neighbors in similar situations, the uncertainty of having heat or power each month, and the pressing fear that SNAP, Section 8, Social Security or other programs might be threatened by cuts.\u00a0 Her family depends on the assistance they receive from both the church and the state.\u00a0 Without both, Pebbles and her daughter will join the millions of Americans who go hungry in a land of plenty. \u00a0\u00a0With them, Pebbles and her daughter not only feed themselves but are also able to contribute to their community in many ways.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ryan P. Cumming \u200b “If you hold your hand out clenched, you can’t give or receive.\u00a0 But if your hand is open, you can give and receive.”\u00a0 Pebbles Phillips, a vocalist and musician who has performed with top acts, lives by this motto.\u00a0 As a single mother, she not only takes care of her daughter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":211,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy Friend's House and Pebbles Phillips - ELCA World Hunger<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/my-friends-house-and-pebbles-phillips\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Friend's House and Pebbles Phillips - ELCA World Hunger\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ryan P. Cumming \u200b “If you hold your hand out clenched, you can’t give or receive.\u00a0 But if your hand is open, you can give and receive.”\u00a0 Pebbles Phillips, a vocalist and musician who has performed with top acts, lives by this motto.\u00a0 As a single mother, she not only takes care of her daughter […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/my-friends-house-and-pebbles-phillips\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ELCA World Hunger\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-01-29T22:47:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-10-05T22:48:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/52\/2015\/10\/Pebbles-and-Azure3.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ryan P. 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