Let them eat cake

One of the amazing perks of not working traditional work hours is that once a week Miguel and I try to have a casual lunch date. It’s a small break in the week where we can catch up and discuss things other than the logistics and schedules. Our usual spot is a diner located a short five-minute walk from our house – easy, convenient, and you really can’t beat the food at a good New Jersey diner.

On this short walk we pass a community food pantry: a small shed with shelves of food as well as a stocked refrigerator, all available to anyone in need. The pantry is regularly supplied by local food pantries and anyone feeling generous. Last year, I would see the occasional person taking an item or two from the shelves. Now, however, there are lines of people waiting with grocery bags, boxes, or duffle bags for the food to be delivered.

Walking by people desperate to feed their families while on our way to order an omelet and hashbrowns has left me with a distinctly dystopian taste in my mouth. I can’t solve this problem, but I can help a bit. So, our family now donates monthly to a local non-profit that helps people in our community with food insecurity. It’s not a lot, but it’s something.

I had to do something.

If this scene left me with a bad aftertaste, then this week’s one-two punch of the Met gala and President Trump asking for one billion dollars to build a new ballroom left me with full on food poisoning.

Having hosted a non-profit fundraiser myself this week, by no means do I think that the Metropolitan Museum of Art shouldn’t be able to host its own fundraising events. However, I would LOVE to get my hands on the spreadsheet for that event showing what was spent versus what was brought in. With 10-million-dollar sponsors and one-hundred-thousand-dollar tickets how are they not able to fund the museum for the next decade?! I have a funny feeling there are a few places where costs could be cut.

Additionally, I know I wasn’t the only one whose social media timeline was filled with the outrageous outfits worn by celebrities. I couldn’t help but feel like I was watching clips from a new Hunger Games movie. To clarify, I have no issue with rich people being rich, or fashion, or art – my issue is with rich people showing off their wealth when there is an increase in citizens being unable to afford food, housing, and healthcare.

And perhaps also the rich getting exponentially richer over the last couple years, while paying a lower rate of taxes (if any at all) and donating less than ever. A December 2025 article in The Economist noted that “A survey by Bank of America suggests that the share of households worth more than $1m who gave fell from 91% in 2015 to 81% in 2024.” This is unfathomable to me.

Then, of course, there is our government wanting to spend a billion dollars on a ballroom while also paying for a war that has yet to receive congressional approval. Yet there just never seems to be money to pay for food stamps or to subsidize healthcare. It's giving, “let them eat cake.”

Is that where we are headed? How disparate do the classes need to become before there is a revolution?

I know I’m preaching to the choir here but ugh! It makes me so freaking angry when people are hurting and there are non-profit organizations fighting for every dollar and there are billionaires who could literally solve some of the worst issues out there… and they just don’t. Do you know what a 10-million-dollar donation would do for CURE Epilepsy or the Undiagnosed Diseases Network Foundation (UDNF)? Heck, a one-million-dollar donation!

And that is where so much of my frustration is bubbling from. Miguel and the CURE Epilepsy team busted their asses to pull of the fundraiser we hosted on Monday night, and we raised $230,000 which is INCREDIBLE – but to know that across the city that was the ticket price for just two tables at the Met Gala. Then there is the UDNF which is in dire straits after a primary funding source didn’t renew support due to a change in priorities.

There is no other non-profit organization that is solely focused on the undiagnosed community. No one else for this patient population to turn to, to advocate for them, to support them. Bezos wouldn’t feel the impact of one less million – but it would make all the difference to the undiagnosed diseases community.

But instead, the wealthy donned art under the guise of supporting art while the artists whose paintings they dined under would have likely starved under this current regime.

Let them eat cake, indeed.

ID: Kelly standing on a black stage and holding a microphone, with a very large screen behind her showing photos of Adelaide.