Feed the World!

By Myanne Shelley

Jessie Morgan, 50, impulsively quits her nonprofit job after one too many good ideas are disregarded. Then her ex convinces her to team up for a fundraiser based on The Amazing Race. What could possibly go wrong? A satirical look at the wonderful world of nonprofits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Myanne Shelley
• Release date: Oct 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311253026

Myanne Shelley

Recently retired San Francisco nonprofit worker, SFSPCA cat volunteer, pickleball player, boxer, writer.

Book preview

ISBN: 9781311253026

Feed the World!

by

Myanne Shelley

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY:

Myanne Shelley at Smashwords

Feed The World!

Copyright © 2015 by Anne Shelley

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This ebook may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/myanne to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

Chapter 1

Time to Worry Yet?

Here are some wise words from my mother, circa 1977: Don’t worry, Jessie. This isn’t the first time you’ve screwed things up, and it certainly won’t be the last.

Picture a middle aged woman in a pastel pants suit desperately clinging to the idea of herself as a cool mom, facing a pissed off twelve year old who can’t believe she’s been dumb enough to get caught. Again. And who also, by the way, feels a bit of hostility toward anyone who lived through the entire 1960s but didn’t appreciate it. Now that it’s over and disco has replaced rock and nothing but a few burnt out hippies are left to represent the perfect teenage years she once envisioned for herself.

What particular incident do the words call forth? Skipping school? Passing myself off as an irate 35 year old farmer in order to get my letter opposing pesticide usage published in the Chronicle? Sneaking in to see Star Wars for the tenth time without a ticket? Does it matter?

Other well worn phrases: You’ll do better next time! We still have some faith in you! Anyway, there’s no place to go but up!

Here’s the thing and woe is me these 30 odd years later. Oh God she was right.

I have screwed things up pretty royally this time. And just for the record, 38 years later. I’ve just hit 50. Hear that, little Jessie model year 1977? Older than Mom or even Dad was back then, but somehow the same get-it-right challenged person still.

Yes, 50. What seemed like two steps from senility when I was 20 and Mom was 50, but now just feels like me who’s tired. Who would rather just go to bed with a good book if it’s after 10 PM. Who – while never particularly pretty to start with, so no major tumble from grace in the looks department – is at once scrawnier of limb and compacted in the middle. Who takes an extra moment to stand or get out of a car, as the bones creak and muscles wobble on the way up, just like Mom’s did. How often still I picture the vague grimace she would get, just as I now do, upon making sudden movements.

But I won’t take blame for the passage of time; that’s on God or physics or physics unpleasantly mixed with evolutionary biology. Heck, I battle my aging as well as I do anything these days, though frankly that’s not saying a lot.

What I just did was quit my job. And while somewhere deep within I may eventually decide this was a good thing, for now it’s more than a little alarming to think of all the funds going in the withdrawal direction. Sure, I have a bit saved up. Now that people are living into their 90s on a regular basis, got to save, right. But a bit of savings is all I’ve got, and I know I’m going to need it.

Because, of course, I’m still a renter. One evil landlord Ellis Act eviction away from getting tossed onto the lovely San Francisco street I’ve lived on for the past decade plus. Rent control keeping me safe – sort of – while the rents balloon crazily around me and freakishly young techies board their Google buses and happily sign leases for $3k a month for a crappy studio apartment.

What can I say, I don’t earn that kind of money. I work for a nonprofit. Strike that, I worked for a nonprofit. If only I could have done a quick time travel, visited my fresh young self when I first settled in the city, took that first earnest low-pay high-morals job. Been like, hey, Jessie, go work for a bank for awhile, or in real estate. Buy a house now even though a few hundred thou seems like a lot – trust me, by 2015, it will be worth well over a million! Oh, and hey, invest in Apple and Microsoft!

I love the idea of time travel. There are so many things I know now that I wish I could have known then. Things gone like my fleet young 25 year old body that I should have appreciated, or the magic of compounded interest. And even though there’s usually some wormhole glitch or butterfly effect or you see yourself and both heads explode, I feel like I’d be thoughtful about it. Maybe I could finesse it. Other hand, seriously? Probably not.

The love life has been better too, although that’s taking a back seat to the financial worries just now. I mean, at least I’m not actively in a fuzzy is this a third date kind of thing with someone who’s revealed himself to be humorless (because it’s so awkward to say no to having dinner, because maybe he was just being shy and I missed something, because it’s pretty clear he wants to seal the deal even while looking over my shoulder at the hot waitress and so on). So that’s something.

Still, I feel my mother’s ghost hovering, shaking her head sadly and wisely, when I admit that sometimes it’s easier just to stay home and binge watch old TV shows. Or confess that my closest male friend is also the guy with whom I had the longest relationship. And that he’s married to someone else now and I suspect most of our phone conversations take place when he’s in his car so he doesn’t have to talk to me with the wife and step-kids listening.

Naturally, I don’t spend a lot of time in my own car, as it doesn’t spend a lot of time running. Well, it runs (walks at a modest pace would be more apt; it’s a decades old Geo Metro), but I can’t always count on it starting up just at the particular time I need it to go somewhere. That’s okay, though, I’m a believer in principle in public transit. And San Francisco Muni buses, God love ‘em, will bring their riders into close quarters with the wide wonderful diversity of all of humanity. Just don’t expect it all to be bathed, and bring a book because it’s a slow ride.

So yeah, that’s not a problem anymore, because not having a job means I can take as much time as my bored driver and her chatty friend in the front seat need to get wherever I’m going. Don’t I wish it was a job interview, or even an expedition to the swanky junior leaguer thrift shop for a job interview outfit, but no. Currently I’m just headed towards downtown, to the beleaguered Civic Center neighborhood of my old office, to sneak a lunch and catch up on gossip with some former co-workers from Health Access Now.

Don’t worry, Jessie— my mother’s voice drones in my head but I shut it down. Time for a little break from the criticism, real or imagined. This will be fun, these are the people I like. The bus lumbers along 5th Street, and I gaze out the smeared window, automatically attuned to the sight of its lurching denizens, any one of whom may suddenly decide to wander into the street without benefit of a red light or even an intersection’s crosswalk. Cars, bikes, delivery trucks, and cabs dart lane to lane, all of them in a far greater hurry than my patient midday driver.

At Market, I hop off to walk, impatient not to be too late – walking, I at least have the sense of forward momentum, control of my destination.

My three colleagues have staked a table at the window of our favored little veggie café. Barb is HAN’s Program Director, a woman both capable and down to earth, who was always my closest ally in the group. Jake is the Devo and Communications Assistant slash computer nerd, a quiet guy who does his best in one of those poorly designed cobbled together positions, where new tasks get dumped because no one else will take them on. And Mandy is a super smart intern, who gets tons done in the small windows of time she has at HAN in addition to excelling at grad school. She was the closest thing I had to an assistant, although I have no doubt that she’ll be directing organizations ten times our size by the time she hits her 30s.

They stand to greet me, and I reach past for an awkward hug to each in turn. Awkward to them, I think. I mean, you don’t hug your co-workers, and that’s how they still see me. Whereas I view them now as fond friends, a lifeline to the working world where I must shortly launch myself again.

We put in orders and before I can manage a word of small talk, Barb cuts to the chase. She had hinted she had news from HAN’s recent Board meeting and now she can’t contain it.

Bill ended up including your event proposal in the Board packet, she exclaims. I think he just needed some filler, since they’d asked for new ideas. A menu, she adds, putting air quotes around a favored jargon word of the Board president, Jonathan Bernard, who takes his role very seriously. And they loved it. Loved it.

I nod, unsure, looking at their grinning faces. But Kim already said no way. Kim Stevens, HAN’s Development Director and until recently my boss, had dismissed my rough idea out of hand. I’d only sketched it out further for fun. No longer caring what Kim thinks of something has been a weight lifted from my shoulders.

It gets better, Jake murmurs, jutting his chin toward Barb.

I could tell she hadn’t read the packet after it got revised, I was watching her reaction, Barb continues. So what does she do? Takes credit for it.

For my idea? That she hated?

Oh, she kind of mentioned your name, like you’d been involved in the conversation with her. But she took it over. I mean as soon as she saw Jonathan was interested, she was like, yeah, right here, credit me.

And I think we’re actually going to do it, Mandy exclaims. I heard Bill talking to Dr. Bernard about it. They set up a call with that guy from, you know, that place, that might sponsor it.

Our food arrives. Which gives me a moment to generate some mock outrage, some laughs. Before we move on to other topics. My humble brags about being unemployed. (So much free time to fill! How to get anything done with no one looking over my shoulder or calling impromptu meetings to unravel my work sentence by sentence in a group setting! So dull to take bathroom breaks with hunting down the bathroom key!) Everyone’s dismal love lives. Global warming.

They have to hurry back to the HAN office, much as I’d like to hang out for another couple hours. Barb promises to keep me apprised of further developments. Jake says to check the website. Budget wise, an event of some sort is scheduled for early summer, so whatever they’re planning has to get underway soon.

I wander over to the midtown farmers’ market, Not needing to be anywhere else this afternoon, and in no way expecting the 27 Bryant bus to show up just because I’m done with lunch. It’s early in the season, but there are a few early, perky veggies. I admire, but hold off on any purchases. I mean, my budget is better off if I wait until the end of the Saturday Alemany market, when the vendors are desperate to unload their remainders and bargains in a bag abound.

Yup, I, Jessie Morgan, recent professional Development Associate in support of food security, take advantage of farmers at the farmers’ market. Can I get much lower?

Another few steps, and my old workplace building comes into sight. I almost instinctively step back, out of view of the HAN office windows, as if someone might see me down here. Kim could hurry down to offer some bizarre rationalization for stealing my idea. Or tell me they’ve hired someone much more capable to run our annual fundraiser. And that this time, no thanks to me, it will make money.

Oh, lord, that was on my plate too. That was the trigger, really. Last year’s poorly executed fundraiser, that – once the staff time was calculated in – didn’t make money. No small part because of Kim’s excessive salary and excessive hover time, but still. My event.

I step back into the shadows, then back past the noisy vendors chatting up their produce, the pushy ladies elbowing for the best deals, the wandering tourists and sketchy looking locals. Back to catch my bus within the two hour transfer window. Wishing I didn’t have to worry so much about money. But worrying about money has been my thing for so long now. My career, such as it is. Was, will be.

Chapter 2

A Deviation from the Agenda

Okay, let’s backtrack. Health Access Now, for starters. The original group, Food Access Network, was formed back after the 1996 World Food Summit, when the concept of individuals’ food security was gaining traction as set apart from regular poverty and injustice. The idea of ensuring both that people everywhere could afford healthy food, and that it was available and accessible to them.

While there are myriad conceptual and specific elements (like this accessible farmers’ market, healthy school lunches, education about and surcharges on unhealthy foods, tax breaks for grocery stores opening in marginal neighborhoods, not to mention tackling water shortages and climate change), funding was always a challenge. As was implementation. I didn’t join the staff until the founding director was gone, but even in the mid-2000s it was a group with big bold ideas more than the successful execution of them.

We had splashy news articles and a decently interactive website before that was a standard thing (thanks, Jessie), but proposed legislation never went anywhere. Our education didn’t reach the right people, either community leaders or the under-served poor for whom we existed to help in the first place. And fundraising was a bitch, always. Few foundations and fewer regular donors got it, as in why give to people who address the system when there’s this nice food bank over here and they’ll give food to the hungry people.

Which is fine, let me add, we supported food banks as part of the picture, just not the whole thing. Anyway, it was tough going in the boom years, and then we basically were going under by 2008, when the recession and busted housing bubble hit.

At which time came along the launch of California Healthcare Access, which bubbled into life with terrific funding, an offshoot of various Obama election groups with a mission to support Obamacare. There were younger, bigger money tech firms tangentially involved, staff that had come from foundations and political consulting groups, and an overall sense of satisfaction, success, and entitlement that is rare in the broader nonprofit world. They were looking to expand their realm, assuming (mistakenly as it turned out, oops!) that there would be little need for their services once the Affordable Care Act legislation finally passed.

Let’s just say the pairing was not as sweet as Reese’s peanut butter and chocolate. The one member originally on both Boards who proposed joining the groups is long gone. Probably so mortified he’s changed his name or moved out of state, I’m thinking, after the collective pain of the merger.

Just coming up with the new name was a shockingly long and bitter process. To this day, there are staffers (hello Kim) who argue that our acronym would be better as HAND, never mind a helping hand is not at all the sort of paternalistic symbol that fits our mission. Nor is there any possible D word – we tried them all! – that fits with the other words, hashed and rehashed, even counting out the number of letters contributed from each original name.

Anyway, Health Access Now, brought together the more mature, big idea/low funded/low salaried group with the fresh and dynamic, tech savvy, top heavy, flush and not embarrassed to get paid foundation-level rates people hot off their Presidential win and eager to get moving on health care reform. Which, up until then, had been but a small blip on our radar.

Now, as evidenced by even a cursory perusal of our website, the combined mission bumps awkwardly onto itself, about as coherent as a pimply faced teenager talking to the dad at the door of his date’s house. It cannot even be stated without reading off a cue card: Health Access Now believes that access to healthy food and quality healthcare is a fundamental right for all Californians. Every day we work with legislators, community leaders, the medical community and food providers to ensure that all Californians have a choice of good foods to put on the table and capable doctors and nurses to turn to in times of medical need.

That last medical still bugs me in its redundancy. When else would you need good doctors? But still – the goals are important. I mean, cynicism aside, this is something I believe in, even now. Even after I quit with the bare minimum of notice. That was style over substance, I keep telling myself.

The tension between me and Kim had been mostly at a slow boil for awhile. Who doesn’t have a coworker who irritates them? Made all the worse when she’s your younger and higher paid boss? I know I’m not perfect either by any means. I get things done, but have trouble focussing until a deadline is imminent, and I tend to leave a messy trail of drafts and peanut shells in my wake. I’ll stop halfway through a conversation to jot down a sudden inspiration that has occurred. I get impatient at meetings, especially when people start repeating themselves or making their same point in a slightly different turn of phrase.

While Kim (need I add, a recent hire from the Obamacare group) pretty much thrived on meetings. Google calendared the hell out of them, spent satisfied hours each day at the office and sometimes even at home scheduling and re-scheduling, sending agendas and revised agendas. Although she was the Development Director, overseeing the entirety of HAN’s fundraising and communications, she would tell anyone with a straight face that she didn’t see her role as actually bringing in money herself. She was a facilitator, she said. Like, a choir director. She waved her stick, and the rest of us sang for the dough.

I should probably mention that she is married to a Facebook exec, one of those somewhat seasoned managers they brought in to make sure their Ts were crossed before they went public. So basically Kim’s husband’s rolodex had more ready donors than the entirety of the Food Access Network’s database did 20 years down the road.

Anyway, a few years after our merger, HAN had pretty much settled down. You’d think the influx of funding would have us sitting pretty, but since it came with the inflated salaries and bigger, fancier office space, we still sweated to make our budget. We former FAN staff quickly got used to the nicer digs, the computers that were only a couple years out of date rather than our sad old donated PCs and their gigantic buzzy monitors.

Our conference room nicely reflected the old and new. Kim thought the room too small and often groused about the poor quality of the video conferencing and the lack of back support in the chairs. I still admired the view: there were big windows, you could see the sky! And the chairs were lightly cushioned, matching, and stackable. Compared to the brown and orange plastic monstrosities we had previously used without question (since they’d been donated from what, a time warp to the 1970s?), they were fabulous, I thought. Only downside, they didn’t encourage quick meetings the way those old ones had.

So that was the setting for my latest impulsive move a few weeks back: the conference room, Kim annoyed and tinkering with the powerpoint projector, the rest of our small department wishing we could get done with the meeting and go back to our actual work.

We were reviewing fundraising projections, as we did every month. This time we were comparing to last year’s numbers, and among the categories was the annual event. This was one of my main activities – coordinating the annual event plus a couple lessor dinners, and mixed in between a lot of grant reporting, newsletter and direct mail appeal writing, web updates and social media blather, and general harassing of program staff to provide information for same.

As it turned out, the numbers we reported on our 990 tax form, which showed the event having raised a modest but at least positive sum, did not include any of the staff time

Reviews for Feed the World!

[Roberta415 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I related well to the main character, and enjoyed the general goofiness of the race. Lots of humor and a good deal of heart too. Recommended.