Friday, July 02, 2004

A co-worker forwarded this link from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a Tour of Poverty. Their Poverty USA site, a great resource for education and advocacy, also has an interesting poverty quiz. One little fact from the quiz, "In fact, the U.S. child poverty rate is two-to-three times higher than other major industrialized nations."

One of the best parts of working for a small nonprofit is the outside our normal duty activities, especially when they involve the kids from our transitional housing program. Wednesday, I spent the day at the Twin Cities' amusement park Valley Fair with a group of kids to celebrate their perfect or almost perfect school attendance. Last year, I accompanied four teenaged girls and we went on all the scary rides (which I love), so I was expecting to be with much smaller kids this time. The girls this time were aged 10-12 and alternated between delightful and frustrating. They were still young enough to want hugs and sometimes reassurance before scary rides, but were also old enough to be stubborn and bicker when the afternoon crabbies hit. Once again, I rode all the scary rides (except the Steel Venom ride kicked my butt last year - I'm looking forward to a rematch) with multiple trips to the water drenching ones and the bumper cars. What ride did the four girls think was the scariest? The ferris wheel - the only ride I remember all four of my grandparents riding when I was a kid. This isn't even a normal two person ferris wheel, it fit all six of us (two adults, four girls.) I have to admit, though, the shrieking made it a lot more exciting. Anyways, how does this relate to the above post about poverty? At $32.95 for anyone over 48", this is one of the things that most low-income families would have to do without. A summer without at least one trip to an amusement park is a sad summer, indeed.

3 comments:

Celia said...

One of the nicest things about our local amusement park is that it's all pay as you go--you can buy an all day pass, or you can buy a book of tickets and each ride costs X tickets. It was the only reason we could ever afford to go--it would only cost as much as we could spend, and the extra tickets could be saved for the next time we went. When my brothers were older, the three of us would get passes (bracelets, if I remember correctly) for some reasonable price anyways, not $35, and my mom would get a book of tickets, and everyone would be happy and no one would be broke. (plus, it's a really beautiful place, with lots of big old trees and the largest wooden rollercoaster (of some space or another), and a picnic area)

Celia said...

One of the nicest things about our local amusement park is that it's all pay as you go--you can buy an all day pass, or you can buy a book of tickets and each ride costs X tickets. It was the only reason we could ever afford to go--it would only cost as much as we could spend, and the extra tickets could be saved for the next time we went. When my brothers were older, the three of us would get passes (bracelets, if I remember correctly) for some reasonable price anyways, not $35, and my mom would get a book of tickets, and everyone would be happy and no one would be broke. (plus, it's a really beautiful place, with lots of big old trees and the largest wooden rollercoaster (of some space or another), and a picnic area)

Kristin said...

Alan said that the amusement park he grew up with operates the same way. We're going to visit his family in a couple weeks and will hit the park. His sister is working there this summer. Here in the Twin Cities, we do have Camp Snoopy, which is the indoor park at the Mall of America and works with tickets, too.