Our first proposed priorities were modest: emergency transit passes for caregivers, short childcare placements that made job interviews possible, help replacing work equipment, and small grants to keep students enrolled when a single bill threatened to derail their studies.

One board member asked how we would tell whether a person really needed the money.

“We should verify enough to be responsible,” I answered, “but not so much that somebody has to perform their misery for us.”

That sentence stayed with me after the meeting.

At seventeen I had learned to anticipate judgment in every office and waiting room.

I remembered application forms that demanded explanations for why I had no partner, why my parents wouldn’t help, why my grades had slipped.

I remembered how one question could make you decide that going without was easier than asking.