One of the easiest things to do in Charlottesville is get on with your bougie self. It’s the old latte, stroll the Mall, linger over lunch, get another latte, drink some bottled water, go to yoga routine that this town is so adept at fostering. And I’m certainly not knocking it: Lattes and long lunches are two of my favorite things in the world; I’ll even admit to a newfound affinity for yoga. While I may be the personification of the cliché that Charlottesville is a haven for rich liberals, this recognition has instilled in me (for better or worse) a good dose of self-loathing. In my more problem-solving moments of self-loathing, I make ambitious resolutions to “do the right thing” (whatever that is), and adopt more puppies and—I’m not joking here—learn more about, and become more sensitive to, how Charlottesville’s proverbial other half lives.
One such recent wave of disgust led me to a new local website—but two months young—called Voices of Poverty, a project of the Leadership Charlottesville participants. The name is self-explanatory: It’s a website that streams podcasts of interviews with both those that live at or below the Federal Poverty Level, as well as those that work with our local poor to help them get everything from roofs over their heads to basic health care. Each interview illuminates a different aspect of the predicament and each interview is worth listening to.
I am one of those people who has always reacted very strongly to voices—the actual, disembodied sound of someone talking. It’s an obvious statement, but when you listen you can hear so much, and that is especially true with the podcasts on this site. Listening to Hakim tell in his deliberate, slightly heavy way of spending his days walking around just trying to pass the time, or to the matter-of-fact yet hopeful voice of a Mexican immigrant talk about her struggles to make ends meet during her eight years in the States, opens not just my ears, but my mind and my heart as well. I think…
I hope.
Yet what effects me most about this website is that it is a small, yet significant effort to bring people together. Ah, togetherness. Building bridges. Those ideas always get me a little verklempt.