(I love to see the members of the Secret Garden Society out on their chairs, smoking and talking, above. It is a grounding and beautiful thing.)

Many of us know how hard health care workers work, and how little they are paid. Most make less than McDonald’s workers, and they are the ones who clean and dress and love our mothers and fathers.

I was at the Mansion this morning conducting my meditation class, and an aide came up to me to tell me privately that a different aide, one of the most hard-working and conscientious on the staff, had no money for food and was going with her children every night to her mother’s house to eat.

She is proud and did not want to ask anyone for help. I don’t want to suggest that the health care aides at the Mansion are starving, that is not the case. Her problem is really the problem so many health care workers face – costs go up, salaries don’t. Sometimes it catches up with them.

Her problems are not her fault.

Many of these mostly young workers, especially those with small children, struggle to make ends meet and afford more than the basic necessities of life, and sometimes not even those.

Health care issues and rising rents are the most common cause of their problems – many are divorced with small children –  they just don’t make enough money to keep up with the ever-rising cost of things.

In my work, and in recognition of their very hard work and low pay, I try to support the aides when I can by bringing them winter clothes, an occasional toy for their children, and scarves or caps. They also love cookies and buttons. They are needy and vulnerable as well as the residents.

I am very conscious of the boundaries of this work. I can’t feed and support a family indefinitely, we have to pick our choices carefully and deliberately. But I have decided to bring this aide a $50 Walmart Gift Card someone sent me for the Mansion work and I’ll bring $200  her cash as well. I’ll just hand it to her and run.

The Mansion aides struggle as frequently as the staff, there seem to be billions of dollars for the pharmaceutical companies, pennies for the people who help the elderly shower and live, and are often the only love in their lives.

A fraction of the money the drug companies made from the sale of the opioids that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans could give every health care aide in the country a generous raise, according to one study. No wonder so many people in our country are angry.

I know this aide is hardworking and compassionate, I have seen it many times. It is painful to see how hard they work and how little they are paid.

I contacted a frequent donor to the Army Of Good work and she very generously offered to help. I am grateful to her.

I will also meet with the Mansion executives and see if there is a way to get financial counseling or other assistance to the family. I am thinking this support will help her get over the immediate emergency of feeding her family, and I believe she will take the help if I present it well.

We have a trusting relationship.

If anyone wants to contribute to this temporary food fund, you can do so via Paypal, [email protected] or by check, Jon Katz,  P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816. I am not planning to take over permanent responsibility for her family’s food, I would like to give her some breathing room and help get more permanent assistance.