This morning, The Today Show was on in the background when a story about The Changing Face of Hunger caught my attention.The guy in the story kind of reminded me of my husband- hard working, dressed in Red Sox garb, playing with his kids. Then, he mentioned that although he and his wife work full time, they recently had to start using their local food pantry to feed their kids.
The story showed the food pantry, his home, and the surrounding neighborhood. My jaw hit the floor... he lives in MY NEIGHBORHOOD. As is a few streets away. This was a national broadcast, and the food pantry is about 2 miles from my house. The pantry had a line out the door, but not much food on the shelves. The people waiting in line looked just like my family... I guess they are... they are very literally my neighbors.
Wow. I mean, the economic crisis has certainly touched our family, but at that moment, the scope and severity hit very close to home for me... for some of our neighbors, it's no longer about saving money, it's about surviving.
So, I kind of broke my vow to not set foot in a grocery store- but it wasn't for us. It was for the food pantry. I grabbed some coupons and stretched $10 as far as I could, scoring 5 boxes of oatmeal, 3 dozen eggs, and 3 pounds of butter. I grabbed about 5 bags of groceries from our basement stash.
My mom, kids, and I brought our donation down to the food pantry right away. As I toured the tidy but nearly empty pantry, two realities hit me- my donation actually did make a difference, but it would most likely be gone within an hour or two. If regular families like ours don't help our neighbors, no one else will.
I am NOT sharing this story to be all, "Go me. Look what I did. I am the bomb." I am sharing it because while I consider myself somewhat aware of my world around me, I had NO CLUE about the serious emergency in my own community.
I am going to continue our family's personal "No shopping challenge" this month, but we are also going to begin weekly donations to our local food pantry... so I will be going into the grocery store... but it won't be for us... so that still counts, right?
To locate a food bank near you, contact your town offices of check out the Feeding America website- just put in your zip code.
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5 comments:
I live in what is considered an "affluent" county. Our sister church has a food pantry and they immediately had 50 families they were serving each week within 2 months of opening.
Hunger is everywhere.
My daughter is not yet 4 and has, remarkably, been very touched by the idea of other people being hungry. She reminds me frequently that we need to take food to church for the pantry. We usually buy pasta, sauce, and personal care items like deoderant and toothbrushes.
Good for you for recognizing a need and doing something about it!
That is very kind of you. If there were more people like you, this world would be a much better place!
You know what I noticed last time I was at the grocery store? We have these pre-made bags of stuff for $9.99 and I know I could get more stuff for that then what's in the bags so I don't usually pay attention to them.
This time I looked at what was in the bag though and I realized something I would have never thought to donate...
SOAP! Dish soap, dishwasher soap and laundry soap. It never crossed my mind to send soap! I felt kind of dumb, of course people need soap just like they need food and toilet paper.
So remember the soap!
1. Thank you for promoting awareness and for loving your neighbor.
2. Thank you for saying "the bomb". It was awesome.
I recently found out about this organization - Serve New England. if you do 2 hours of volunteer work - anywhere - you can get great deals on food.
Spread the word!
http://www.servenewengland.org/
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