"Critics and even some theologians will always ask: 'Why are you feeding the poor? You're just perpetuating their dependency and creating more problems. They need to grow out of poverty.' After fifty years of working with this population, we tell these critics that it's almost impossible for people to 'grow' out of poverty in the way that society expects middle and working-class people to grow. Poverty — the way it grinds people down, the way it damages people's childhood, the way it steals people's futures, the way it drains the economy, the way it shatters hope — is persistent. To do battle with it requires equal persistence, not in winning the war but in loving the people under its power. At Glide, we want to offer a range of life choices that people haven't had before. We don't expect any particular outcome, and we don't judge them for being in the food lines in the first place. We're in for the long haul. We persist in accepting them and loving them without condition because their humanity is our humanity."