Dear American Tax Payer: I am grateful for the meals you provide. Thank you.

[bawieland]

43. No thanks needed - I know you will do the same for others when circumstances improve

I have heard stories that when some people have had shameful experiences using their Bridge card - the debit card used for food assistance in Michigan. By shameful, I don't mean that they have a card to use. I mean shameful in the sense that other shoppers or even the cashiers judge them for having a card and critique their purchases, as though it were anybody else's business.

I've never felt that way. I always felt good, in a sense, when I see one of those cards taken from a wallet. Not good because someone needs the help, but good that the help is there, and good that I contributed to it. I suppose I feel privileged to see something good I contributed to in action. I'm glad the help is there. I want people to use it.

I never had to think about food assistance in any other way than this until last year, when I was laid off from my job and had to apply for help myself. I got it - a whole $16 a month, which I lost because the state then asked me to prove I didn't have $5,000 holed away in a bank account, and to do that would have cost me $50 in bank fees, the cost of faxing documents and gasoline - and I only had $100 in my bank account to last the week. But those $16, when I had them, were the most valuable $16 I ever had.

I was lucky enough to find a job after six months, and luckier still that my new job lets me join the fight to restore and improve assistance to people who need it.

I don't need food assistance anymore, but I've held on to my Bridge card, and I keep it in my wallet in a prominent position in my wallet. When I go to pay for groceries, there it is, in plain view with all its peachy orangeness. Why do I keep that? Party, to remind myself what it was like to rely on one of them to survive, and so that I never forget that feeling which is shared by so many around me who are still in that position. But also, I suppose, I'm hoping someone sees and comments on it, so I can tell them exactly what it was like to be so desperate, and how very much I relied on that help, and just how important it is that the program is there for our neighbors in need.