HANAMA’ULU – Despite the fact that working three jobs doesn’t allow her to support her four children without aid from governmental programs, Wanda Sardine doesn’t consider herself poor. “Maybe not that poor,” she says. “Poor is like when you can’t
HANAMA’ULU – Despite the fact that working three jobs doesn’t allow her to support her four children without aid from governmental programs, Wanda Sardine doesn’t consider herself poor.
“Maybe not that poor,” she says. “Poor is like when you can’t get nothing, like homeless people. That’s rough.”
Asked if she thinks she is self-sufficient, she ponders, then replies, “I guess so.”
Sardine works as a cleaner at the Lihu’e Hongwanji Mission, and at King Kaumuali’i Elementary School here both as a cafeteria clerk and as an aide in the A-Plus after-school program.
It’s not enough to make ends meet.
A state Department of Human Services program affords her monthly cash payments, plus food stamps and medical coverage for her and her children, though no dental care for herself.
“That’s the hurting part,” she said of the lack of dental care for herself. “I think everybody struggles with that,” she said of adults on welfare who don’t have dental coverage for themselves.
The 51-year-old single mom lives in a Hanama’ulu apartment for low-income residents, where the $298 monthly rent includes water and electric.
“Mostly, I gotta come up with the rent, because you always need a place to live. It’s like I live day by day,” she said.
The cash subsidies will end at the end of this year, though the food stamps and medical coverage will continue. “It helped with my rent,” Sardine said of the cash.
Still, she manages to “save here, pinch there.”
Although she says she loves her job in the cafeteria at the school, she would leave it if a full-time job opportunity came along, with coveted medical benefits for her and her children, ages 11 to 17.
“Oh, that would help,” she said.
Even with the three jobs, she finds time to help her children with their homework, and keep some semblance of a normal, secure home life.
The children are older, so cook for themselves. Their mother keeps the freezer and shelves stocked with food.
It surprises her how the family is able to acquire some items other children take for granted, like computerized game systems that hook up to the TV.
“Somehow, we receive it,” she said of gifts at Christmas, or how one of her daughters won an art contest that came with a computerized game system as the first prize.
Clothing, though, is another story. Making ends meet there means hitting many garage sales. “That’s how my children get their clothes,” she said.
The Salvation Army has been helpful and supportive, too, she added.
The only time the children get brand-new clothes is when Sardine gets her income-tax refund checks, “and that’s only once a year.”
Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).
