Sophia

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“It's just like something that I carry around with me constantly:”

The Story of Sophia

Demographics: White Female, Graduate Student, Biology, Diversity and Inclusion

Tags: Queer, Disability, ADHD, OCD

ElevenLabs_Sophi.mp3

My name is Sophia. I am 28. I'm a grad student at Opportunity University. I came here for my undergrad as well. I'm working on my master's in diversity and inclusion and my undergrad is in biology. There are kind of maybe two different tracks with that degree, like working in some type of corporate atmosphere doing diversity training and HR for staff members. Or I wanna go more working in the field, doing an LGBT center, women's center, working with at-risk youth. Something more like that. Also, I have a dog. I like to read. I'm queer. I have a disability. I moved out when I was 18 so I've been taking care of myself for a very long time. I have ADHD so I've had a lot of difficulty in school. For most of my college career, I needed academic accommodations. I'm working towards getting accommodations at work so that I can keep my job.

To give some background, after I graduated with my bachelor's I started doing community health education. So teaching in high school to teenagers and working with parents to foster healthier relationships with their teens, working with a non-profit. So I did enjoy that and I was making $50K out of school, which was nice. I was not experiencing food insecurity while I was working, but money's just been tight my entire adult life. Pretty much all my money goes to food and everything else doesn't get paid. Currently, I work under an assistantship where my housing and tuition are paid for and then I get an $11,000-a-year stipend which comes out to $350, $400 every two weeks. My phone payment is $200. My car insurance is about $120. And then I have a dog so his food is not too expensive. Maybe like $50 a month. Gas in my car and then the rest probably goes to food. I feel like my grocery bill comes out to like $75 a week.

The transition between working and going back to school was pretty immediate. My bank account was overdrafted, so I went from having like a take-home of $3,600 a month to $700. So pretty immediately my bank account was consistently overdrafted. The way that I would structure things is: I would go grocery shopping when I got paid. Sometimes as soon as three days out of that two-week period my bank account would be overdrafted. So I kinda began to think, “Okay, I need to try to figure out ways that I can like, supplement and make sure that I can get groceries and I can pay my phone bill. Or I can get groceries and I can keep my car insurance intact." That was the transition of having my bank account constantly over drafted and not being able to pay for like other necessary bills was when I realized that I needed to try to figure out a way to supplement my income.

So I haven't really used the Opportunity Fresh Food Program because the line is always very long, and I work on Fridays. So, any time that I've had a little bit of time to be able to go, maybe if I went a half hour late to work, the line is like the entire parking lot and I've noticed that they don't always start consistently at the same time. So it's kinda hard to tell when it's gonna be available. So I kinda don't even consider it as an option anymore. I know that they do bring the leftover produce to Opportunity’s Pantry at the beginning of the week, so I've been able to get produce from there, but not directly from the Opportunity Fresh Food Program on Fridays. I wouldn't say I use that many programs, but I sometimes get food from my mom's house. She has chicken and bakes bread. I've gotten food from her that she's made or sometimes she's given me money for groceries.

Currently, my main source of aid has been food stamps. So the SNAP EBT, I've been able to qualify for because I'm a college student. That's kinda how they ran my application. I work at least 20 hours and my take-home income with my assistantship is $11,000. So I get about $700 a month. I had a professional job prior to coming back and starting this assistantship so I have a lotta credit card bills and car insurance and phone bills and stuff so, that $700 goes by very quickly. Luckily I am able to get on the food stamps(SNAP) which does help with groceries. Their recertification process is kind of tedious. I lost my benefits from the first time I applied because I didn't recertify in time and that impacted me, about three months of not receiving them. I have used the on-campus food pantry and it's been okay. I've noticed that a lot of times the meat products from Opportunity’s Pantry are almost always expired, to the point you can't even use them anymore. I know a lot of the things there go by the best-by date but for the meat products that they get, they say that the stores freeze them on the day that they're supposed to expire and then they give them to the pantry. But I've noticed that almost all the time they're not edible anymore. Part of my disability is that I experience a lotta food aversion where even with food that's not spoiled I may think that it's spoiled and have difficulty eating. With food that I have gotten from Opportunity’s Pantry, has been spoiled, and so that's something that I have to try to prepare myself to work through, 'cause I have OCD. So having a lot of obsessive thinking that the food is not okay to eat and then getting food that's actually not okay to eat, makes me feel more avoidant of going to get that food and eat that food, even if it is free. So I feel like that's a way that it affects me.

The canned goods are okay too, but it's mostly just canned vegetables and expired bread. So it's not a great resource. I know that they try a lot and I think that that's helpful, that at least somebody is trying, but I don't think it's really that applicable of a source. What has been very helpful is the donated meals program this semester. The school was able to donate 30 meal swipes to me. I think they have a partnership with Gourmet Dining that I've been able to benefit from. So I think that those are really helpful. Outside of that, I don't really worry about having food in the house. I kinda only have enough money to purchase food. My bank account is consistently overdrafted, probably a few days after I get paid. I haven't paid my credit cards in months. They're getting all closed and affecting my credit score. So while I do have money to purchase food, everything else is not getting paid. Being low on finances does put a big stress on my mind just in general. I feel like it's just something that I carry around with me constantly and it's something that I've just come to expect at this point. I've been in my assistantship for a year now, so it's been consistently like this for the past year. I have thought about leaving my assistantship for multiple reasons. Mostly just for not enjoying the work culture there and feeling supported. But I wouldn't even be able to leave, financially, because I'm only taking home $700 a month. So it is something that I feel a lot of stress about all the time and I do feel like impacts me.

I think one way to better match the needs of students would be offering more donated meal programs. I only knew about it because I was looking for resources for my students and actively looking for something and it wasn't very publicly advertised, which I believe is because they probably only have limited funding available for it. Advertising the different services that they do have for students facing food insecurity would be helpful.

I also think that Opportunity offers emergency assistance to students, which I've applied for before, and it's honestly a miserable process that makes you feel really bad about yourself. They're very unresponsive with getting back to you. I've talked with other people who have applied for funding through the office and never even got a response back. So I think just being more responsive to the students who do reach out for help, which is difficult to do, could be a step in the right direction. I think similar to how they have their Fresh Food Program, I think it could be helpful if they implemented more supplementary programs like that as well, occasionally. Maybe once a week they provide lunches or something for students that are free. Maybe have a certain time period where students could come pick up a boxed lunch or have some type of catered, option where you could go and it's like buffet style. They probably have a lot of food waste at the dorm dining hall. They could probably box up that food at the end of the day and offer it as a meal program for students. They could probably easily put it in the fridge and offer it to students. That could be an option as well. 'Cause they prepare all of that food in advance. Or maybe they could offer students more money. I know the emergency assistance programs can offer you money through the Opportunity card. So maybe it's something similar to that where it's more accessible and a smaller amount.

It's just hard out here. It's very systemic and it's hard to spot and treat these things. So while these programs are helpful I feel like specifically the SNAP program has been the most helpful. And the donated meals program. Food insecurity is just a systemic and structural issue and it's kinda hard to pinpoint what Opportunity can do for other students. Like I don't know. Pay us more. Lower the cost of tuition. Like, give us more grant funding and scholarships. It's just like everybody's struggling for money. So it just trickles down. Like if the rich people don't feel like they have enough money, then the poor people definitely don't.

For example, a structural issue would be like applying for the emergency assistance program. So I'm sure you could use that money for any type of emergency. Maybe it's food insecurity that it could be applicable to. But the unresponsiveness… I had to hound the dean of students down and call multiple times and have a meeting and explain why I'm experiencing not having money. So I think structurally, maybe staffing more people that are going to assist students. I know that they've started to develop Opportunity Thrive and I do feel like that's been a good resource for me that has been helpful like when I needed emergency funding. But structurally I would say there are not enough people. The people in positions of power are so out of touch with what it's actually like to be a student who's struggling financially. I think a lot of students are struggling financially but it's especially difficult for students that are first generation, you know, or come from families that are low income. For me, I moved out when I was 18 because my home life wasn't healthy and safe. So just having safety is something that I was struggling with. I'm not expecting to have financial security on top of that if I can't even get safety from my house.

It's just the people in power are very out of touch with what it's like for a lot of people. I'm glad that they haven't had those negative experiences, or maybe they have and they just don't care. But maybe talking to students would help. I feel structurally asking for help is difficult for those reasons. Talking about this, I would say it's very difficult. I feel like I'm not poor enough or hungry enough or, different things like that. Or maybe I'm irresponsible and not using the resources that I could be using enough. Or that I am not whatever enough to be speaking on the subject. Um, so I feel like those are some of the feelings that come up. I think there's a lot of gaslighting. It comes back to the American dream. Um, like if you're not working hard enough or if you don't have, you know, access to something or if you're struggling then it's your fault. It's not a systemic or structural problem when in reality it is a systemic and structural problem. So I feel it's probably just that ingrained like "Oh, it's probably me who's not working enough” or “it's probably me who wants to give out.” I feel like it's probably just internalized guilt.

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