HARD TO IMAGINE

I recently ran across this on NPR and it touched my heart in many ways.

It's hard to believe that in a world so full of excess and materialism, so many children simply don't know where their next meal will come from.

Can you imagine? Your CHILD being HUNGRY? How helpless and panicked would you be? I honestly, truly, 150% CANNOT even fathom this situation.

So it begs the question "what can I do?" I mulled this over after watching the Sesame Street character, Lilly, talk about how she and her family go to the food bank.

I can plant a community garden and donate the food or allow families to come and pick food.

I can donate this holiday season to a food bank.

I can volunteer to teach children how to garden and grow food in our local schools.



I am surrounded by individuals everyday that think this is someone else's problem. Why don't their parents get a job? Why don't they spend their money more wisely? Why are we providing free food to kids in schools? MY child doesn't get free food, why should theirs?

It astounds me. You would rather punish a child and set them up for further failures in life than feed them a simple meal? When a child is hungry, they cannot concentrate in school. Their grades and social skills drop. They become another link in the chain of hunger, homelessness, unemployment and crime. This is the result when you do not give a child the opportunity to have an education - and to participate in education by having a healthy, complete meal in their belly.

At the very root of it, doesn't our God tell us to feed the hungry? To share our last bite? To have mercy on the poor, for they shall inherit the Earth?

Serve one another.

Today, I decided to take Dr. Fred up on the plot in the community garden and donate as much as we grow - I can't think of a healthier way to spend our weekends and free time than weeding, planting and sowing a garden that could help others.

What can you do?