Dianne Antos
12 September 2005
Dianne Antos’ first introduction to Oxfam was in 1991—at an Oxfam Hunger Banquet organized by her son’s high school. Instantly, she was sold on the idea. Her meal that day consisted of a small portion of rice.
"It’s a fabulous education tool," said Mrs. Antos, who trained as a nurse. "I saw the reason behind it. For people who need to learn by experience, it was a very effective teaching tool." The Hunger Banquet experience helped to convince her that Oxfam was an organization worth standing behind. A few years later, when she and her husband were living temporarily in Boston, Mrs. Antos happened to walk by the Oxfam office on West Street and felt a sudden pull.
"There I was—volunteering the next day," she said.
"I would start first by asking how do you define poverty? What is the premise? What is poverty? I think about people in the United States whom we consider to be living in poverty, but when you look at the statistical information, people who are considered to be living in poverty here live better than the poorest of the poor in the world. If one gets up in the morning and doesn’t have a roof, doesn’t have a change of clothes, doesn’t have a meal, or the wherewithal to get it, that may be as good a definition as you can start with. In this country, you may not have a house, but you have a shelter. You may not have a meal but you have a soup kitchen. You may not have a change of clothes, but there are agencies to provide them."
"If all it took were resources, sure we could end poverty. But unless you can make it everybody’s goal, I don’t know how we can get there."
"You can’t just throw money at the problem. Money has to have a face. That’s where Oxfam comes in. They can put the face to it. People have to see the smile behind it, the heart behind it. The money becomes more personal."
"Sometimes I wonder if because there are so many caring people all doing similar things with similar missions and goals through a collaborative effort we couldn’t do even better. We’re all coming at it from good hearts and good intentions, and sometimes we need to be coming at it together."
"If we were not meant to help one another, God would only have created one of us."
