Rob McCann, Catholic Charities of Spokane executive director, experienced two very different refugee camps when he worked for Catholic Relief Services. In Rwanda in 1994, refugees had been chased out of their burned villages after witnessing the rapes and murders of family members and friends. They saw the white tents of the camp, and it looked like heaven. The refugees asked: “Where can I get some food? How can I find my missing family members?”

A few years later, McCann was working in a refugee camp during the Kosovo action. Middle-class refugees, routed from their comfortable lives by the horrific regional conflict, saw the same white tents and they looked Spartan, compared with the spacious homes they’d left behind. They asked: “Where can I charge my cell phone. Where can I buy cigarettes?”

McCann learned from the experiences that “every person’s experience of poverty is different.”

He told this story recently during orientation for the 200-plus people who volunteer at the Christmas Bureau each year. The Christmas Bureau – where families receive food vouchers and toys, thanks to the generosity of community members – offers a glimpse into real-life stories of poverty. McCann and others who organize the bureau wish that local, regional and national representatives would volunteer at the bureau, because the experience would help them see firsthand the complexity of poverty.

At the Christmas Bureau, many recipients thank the volunteers. Some promise to volunteer when times get better. Some eventually do. Others enter with a sense of entitlement.

“The lesson for the Christmas Bureau (volunteers) is you have to meet people where they are,” McCann said. “Some will give you a big smile and a hug. Others will give you attitude and that’s OK. Treat both with the same dignity and respect.”

The Christmas Bureau brings into high relief the need for both governmental and charitable solutions to poverty. The government bases most of its aid on objective criteria; the federal poverty level this year is $20,650 in annual income for a family of four.

The government’s role should be limited to help provide for poor people’s basic needs, with incentives for individuals to work themselves above the poverty line. Charities can step into the lives of the poor in a more subjective way. At the Christmas Bureau, it doesn’t matter how people got poor, or how long they will remain so. What matters is giving them something beyond the basics during the holidays.

Government and charitable organizations rightly focus most poverty efforts on our children. The aid given to children – whether funded by taxpayers or by charitable donations – offers refuge from hunger, inadequate shelter and despair. And it offers children the hope that their parents’ story of poverty won’t become their own in future.