A Good Day for Fishing

A local food bank hosted a food drive today. They coordinated with the post office to put plastic bags in the mailboxes of community members. Then, anyone wanting to donate could put non-perishable food items in the bag and leave it for the mailman to pick up and return to the food bank. It was easy. I didn't even go to the store and buy food just for the food drive; I simply took food out of my pantry and put it in the bag. All this is to say that sometimes you can make the world a better place by participating in things that are easy and were organized by someone else. Make no mistake, however, helping to feed the hungry is no small thing.

Hunger is often thought of as a problem that exists only in the developing world, meaning in Africa and other, faraway places we can't see. While it's true that a whopping 925 million people are hungry worldwide, most people don't realize that 1 in 6 Americans are also considered food insecure. Moreover, these hungry people are not just "lazy" adults; 1 in 4 American children are hungry.

"Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." This is a commonly heard mantra. And, though true, I think people often use this mantra as a reason to not be charitable. To not feed the hungry. But, the flip side of this proverb is that the physically debilitating effects of being hungry often render a person too weak to "fish" for himself or learn to "fish" for himself. Thus, hunger perpetuates hunger. That is to say, most people can't do much on an empty stomach let alone find a way to feed themselves and their children. I say, "Give a man a break. Give him a fish, then see where he goes from there!" :)

www.feedingamerica.org