GIFT OF DIGNITY People might say that I go over the top; that I’m feeding into today’s extravagant standards. But I’m not out there to change society just to make kids feel like human beings within that society. And I know firsthand how one good outfit can be a hatzalas nefashos — it saves a girl’s dignity. It makes her feel like a human being

D on’t think that growing up on a farm is about wideopen spaces and cattle lowing in the fields. It’s not. It’s about money.

My great-grandfather thought he would give his descendants security when he took his hard-earned money and bought a plot of farmland down in Georgia. Maybe it worked for a while but by the time my parents took on the farm it was all about applying for government grants and taking out loans selling off first cattle then fields then negotiating desperately with the bank which wanted to foreclose.

It wasn’t just that I grew up with no money. I grew up with parents who were so desperately fighting this financial battle that they had no headspace to think about our needs. There was no point in asking for things — there was no money to buy anything; I knew that too well.

I looked a mess. My clothing started off cheap and ill-fitting and soon grew worn and ill-fitting. My shoes had holes. I was heavy and socially awkward and an undiagnosed learning disability meant that I flunked my way through each grade.

But I cared about Yiddishkeit and decided that I wanted to go to a Bais Yaakov high school which meant dorming away from home. Take a farm girl and put her in Brooklyn where all the girls have just the right bag and shoes the right haircut and a uniform that fit them just so.

I’d look at girls who had trendy earrings or high-quality tights or designer shoes and think So nice. I didn’t even want them; I knew there was no way. But it was more than just the stuff. Those girls had lives. They went places. They had cousins went to simchahs.

They were carefree. Happy.

Every evening I returned to the family where I boarded; sometimes I spoke to them sometimes I didn’t. I was lonely desperate to be noticed but whenever a teacher showed some warmth — “I’m here for you if you want to talk” — I had no clue how to react so I just gave them attitude. Once a teacher called me to the side: “You shouldn’t wear ripped tights ” she said. I was a kid. I didn’t have it in me to say “I don’t have money to buy tights.”

At times I’d make up questions ridiculous questions just to get a teacher to pay attention to me. I had no friends and I failed every test. But I was still a good girl. I listened to the rules and I davened a lot.

For the last few years we’ve been able to give out hundreds of thousands of dollars before Yamim Tovim. Where does it come from? Who knows?