Deserving Cause Spotlight- Feeding America

If you’re an “average” American you may worry about consuming somewhere between 3500-4500 calories on your Thanksgiving 2014 meal, and the 7 hours of running on the treadmill  you’re going to do to zero those calories out. But about 48 million other Americans will struggle with putting food on the table, and that includes 15.9 million children.

That’s right… right here in a Linkedin America there will be American kids going hungry on Thanksgiving. That’s more than 1 in 5 children and among other groups in America the number can jump to 1 in 3 children.

Remembering that the effectiveness of a country is no greater than that of their most needy, this is a real issue.

There are many reasons for this condition in a country of abundance. It’s not that we don’t have food, we do. The issue is poverty and the lack of money to buy it combined with distribution issues to get the over-supply to the people who need it. Also, regional issues create hardship that catches a lot of people in a “Catch-22” of sorts.

Take Central Valley, California for example, where a 3-yr drought has put pressure on feeding people. The drought shortens the growing season in this highly agricultural area, and a shorter growing season means less work, and less money to buy food. In some areas of this region unemployment is as high as 40 percent.  Less money means less food, going back to the initial assertion above.

In a country of over 300,000,000 people, spanning a huge geographic area from “sea to shining sea”, countless issues can conspire to put pressure on food banks and charitable food distribution efforts. Despite the local efforts to keep our Pensacola Manna Food Bank stocked, via USPS' annual “mail box pickup drives” to local TV stations food collections, the food bank is always behind and always in need.

What you can do- participate in food drives, put those cans in a bag out by the mailbox if your community has a food collection effort, donate time to a food bank, or donate MONEY!

Here are a two links to get you started if you are interested in helping:

Find a food bank in your area:  http://www.feedingamerica.org/find-your-local-foodbank/.

More on how you can help: http://www.bread.org/help/.

Happy Thanksgiving!

This blog represents my personal opinion and does not represent the opinion, practices, or values of SignVine or any other organization or person. If you have feedback, please email michael@signvine.org.