Hungry families need help all year, but Thanksgiving is a great time to start donating to fight hunger in the U.S.

I was absolutely shocked to read at Reuters Web site that “More than 49 million Americans — one in seven — struggled to get enough to eat in 2008.” That’s 14.6 percent of the households. It is endlessly astounding to me that one of the richest countries in the world has 49 million hungry residents and still doesn’t provide health care for its citizens.

The list of huge problems that needs White House attention is getting bigger. The USDA survey on “food insecurity,” which is where the one in seven statistic came from, shows that the most important fights we should be conducting don’t require bombs and should occur in our own neighborhoods.

Where help is needed most

Paycheck loans can help families who don’t have enough money to buy food, but they are only temporary solutions. The federal survey says that 5.7 percent of households in the U.S. ran short of food for seven to eight months of the year. The USDA has conducted this survey for 14 years, and the number of people in 2008 who had trouble obtaining enough food is the highest yet.

“The number of Americans receiving food stamp assistance soared above 36 million for the first time in August, the eighth month in a row that enrollment set a record,” Reuters reports. President Obama wrote a statement saying he vows to reverse the trend. Food stamp benefits already were raised through the stimulus package.

Help if you can

There are a lot of worldwide and nationwide organizations that help provide people with food, but the best place to start is in your own community. We all know how long it takes for government programs and efforts to be effective, so the best thing you can do to help with this national problem is to find a local organization.

If you’re lucky enough to always have food, share! Especially around Thanksgiving, it is easy to find private organizations or churches that gather and distribute food donations. It’s easy to forget that hunger is a year-round problem, not just an issue around the holidays. Encourage your friends to help if they can.

Whether you’re hungry or want to help someone who is, the annual Strawberry Festival in Indianapolis is there to help.

Statistics show that  one in 10 people in central Indiana are unemployed, and more than 80,000 children live in poverty, and for 44  years Christ Church Cathedral has been trying to do something about that. The church’s efforts start right at home, asking Indianans to “feed their hungry neighbors,” and extend all the way to Nigeria.

Donate food, and eat some

Offerings at the Strawberry Festival in Indianapolis include strawberry shortcake with ice cream or whipped cream of both for $6. They key for participants, though, is to bring canned food to donate to the cause. They’re not looking for cash now, they’re just asking for food.

Some people are skeptical about donating to charities because they are worried that the organizations won’t use their money for its intended cause. It’s not that they’re cynical, it’s just that they’ve been burned before. The Christ Church Cathedral gathering actual food instead of just taking monetary donations is a good idea. People are hungry, and we can give them food.
Pam Altmeyer of Gleaner’s Food Bank, says:

Collecting canned goods isn’t a solution to the hunger problem, but it is a start. “The real solution to hunger is jobs and ending poverty.”

Food for the masses

A local news source in Indiana reports that the Strawberry Festival in Indianapolis through Christ Church Cathedral benefits hundreds of nonprofit organizations around the world.

This year the canned food donations will go to help people in central Indiana, and profits will be spread among the charities that the Strawberry Festival benefits.

Making a difference

IndyStar.com reports that the annual Strawberry Festival on Monument Circle is:

One of the most successful church fundraisers in Indianapolis: … Last year, it raked in $80,000 that benefited a diverse group of charities.

Of course, locals worry that the economy will have a negative effect on the Strawberry Festival, but the festival chairwoman, Karen Farmer, says she doesn’t think people will be able to resist.

The Cathedral Women have held the line on prices for three consecutive years despite rising costs, Farmer said. And if the $6 works doesn’t fit the budget, there’s always the $2 bowls of the individual ingredients (strawberries, shortcake or a topping). Charities receive about 95 percent of the proceeds.

IndyStar doesn’t report on where the other 5 percent goes, but there are a lot of costs involved in putting on the Strawberry Festival in Indianapolis, and someone has to pay for it.

Thoughts on charity

This festival is a small initiative to clean up hunger and poverty. Many such charity events need to be organized on human grounds so as to eradicate hunger all over the world. I hope this festival provides an inspiration to all the people out there and inspires them to indulge in charity for a good cause. It’s only through the joint effort that all the anomalies in this world can be corrected. So let’s all do our bit for the world and indulge in charity.

If you live near Indianapolis and plan to attend and partake in the Strawberry Festival, you should know that not only does the festival help the hungry and those in poverty, it funds missionary work through Christ Church Cathedral.

However, this may be a good time to reflect on just how lucky we are to live in one of the richest nations on earth.  It seems kind of maudlin to say, but it is the truth.

Many others across the globe would be thankful just to have clean drinking water, enough food to feed their children or some basic antibiotics to fight off diseases that were cured or done away with over a century ago in the core nations.

UN votes nearly unanimously that food is a basic human right

A somewhat contentious vote (for some) went before the United Nations and was passed nearly unanimously.  The vote was whether to add food to the list of basic human rights.

The measure saying food was a basic human right passed 180 to 1.   Financial freedom should be on the agenda eventually, which would give people the option of payday loans in lieu of loan sharks.

The votes for were signed by almost every nation of the world, including many of the big time power players.  China, the UK, Germany, France, even the tiny Principality of Liechtenstein, all voted yes.

Who voted no?

As stated, only one nation opposed the measure. That dissenter, who opposed the idea that all human beings should have food to survive on, was the United States of America.

We aren’t going to start America bashing here. This isn’t an anti-American forum, and this author, for one, isn’t about to back a different horse in the least. But it seems, at the least, to be arrogant on the part of our leaders to pursue a policy in which those who can’t provide for themselves aren’t given a helping hand by a nation with the richest agricultural base in the world and the largest food reserves perhaps in recorded history.

This author is not one who is about to start advocating that any one nation has to take care of the world. That would be ludicrous. But it is at least worth discussing that this has transpired.

We all hear it so many times during the season, but that hardly negates the truth of the statement

It is an oft repeated sentiment that there are “starving kids” elsewhere in the world, often to persuade kids to eat vegetables ineptly prepared by their parents that smell like an NFL lineman’s gym sock. But in the wake of severe food shortages the world over, it’s all too terrifyingly true. Citizens of the island nation of Haiti have been resorting to eating literally sand and dirt “cookies” to stave off starvation and suffering as a result of ingesting the soil.

So remember, if you have to look into getting payday loans to cover a short-term gap in your finances, do not, by any means think there is any shame in doing so.  There are millions who would love to be in your shoes.