It’s Monday and all of us at VCC are reflecting on the weekend we just spent at Market Collective. If you’ve never been, it is an amazing array of local artists and artisans selling original art, jewelry, and pottery. We were lucky to get a spot to share information about poverty in Calgary, and even luckier that the two women who run it accommodated our unconventional approach.
 
We papered the walls in our little room and let loose with nerf guns loaded with paint darts. We asked people who stopped by to think about what hourly wage an individual would need in Calgary, working full time, to meet basic needs. Once they had an answer in mind, we gave them a nerf gun loaded with paint and let them shoot their answer on a wage scale we had pasted to the wall.
 
We now have a very colourful scale showing that, at a quick glance, most people think about $16/hour is enough to meet an individual’s basic needs but the most valuable outcome was the conversations we had withpeople who came by. Our simple question led to a lot of discussion about what constitutes basic needs, who is not able to meet them in Calgary, and how many people are not able to meet them (approximately 140,000).
 
The weekend had valuable insights for VCC, not least of which is to remember to paper the ceiling as well as the walls when shooting paint darts. There were some good reminders about why we do this work, why it’s important, and how much Calgarians care about their friends, family, and neighbours who aren’t experiencing the wealth that is often associated with this city, and who are in fact struggling day to day.
 
We all had at least one conversation that really stuck with us, for me, I most vividly remember a single mom who spends half her salary on childcare and is struggling to get benefits and subsidies, even though she makes far less than the Low Income Cut Off for a family of three ($34,022).
 
Celia remembers a thought-provoking question from a man who wanted us to ask a different question-what are a person’s basic rights as a member of our society as opposed to basic needs?  To what extent should basic rights (examples included education and medication) be met through individual wages, and to what extent should they be covered by government funding?
 
Dan remembers a conversation with a woman, child clinging to her, talking about how she feels Calgary is the worst city to live as a single mom.
 
Jeff recalls the shock on a gentleman’s face when he learned that there are 140,000 people in Calgary who live in poverty.  After all, that’s why VCC was at the Market Collective – engaging Calgarians about poverty.
 
As we chatted about the weekend we were all really appreciative of our outstanding volunteers and we send out huge thanks to them. We were also really excited about two new Living Wage Leaders, new volunteers, and reaching people outside of our usual communication lines.
 
We will continue to debrief from the weekend about ways to keep up the great level of engagement we experienced, and we are definitely looking forward to continuing the conversation.