For This Thanksgiving, Far Too Many Americans Will Go Hungry.
My landlady told me a few days ago how surprised she was to hear an interview on the local NPR station with two families from our neighborhood, who were some of the 100 local families using a local church's food bank. When I saw her the next day, she said she'd mentioned the story to a friend who belongs to that church, and the friend told her the story was wrong: There are actually 200 families using the food bank.
I'm going to go through my cabinets and see what I can spare. In the meantime, I thought I'd remind readers how many of our neighbors are struggling through these desperate times. If you can still afford to give anything, please go through your cupboards and donate this week to your local food bank.
If you don't know of one, you can look for them here. You can also contact them if you need help for yourself or your family (in many states, you can also call 211 to see what services are available):
Feeding America
The Harry Chapin Food Bank (Northwest Florida)
The Chester County Food Bank (PA)
New York State Regional Food Banks
There are, of course, thousands more food banks around the country. If you know of one you'd like to recommend, please leave a link in the comments.
Thanksgiving is a special day.
We support a local food bank. Food insecurity SUX big time.
Everybody should try to help all year round if they can.
Thanks
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Home Page: Food Not Bombs
Find a group near you here:
ALL KNOWN GROUPS IN THE UNITED STATES
Democracy is too important to be entrusted to politicians.
Rise Up!
Protest!
http://gsfb.org/
Good Shepherd Food Bank is the distributor to local food banks throughout the State of Maine.
They're all trying to save room for dinner.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank is an umbrella organization for the many smaller pantries/food banks in the area:
http://www.lafoodbank.org/
I posted again on this last week and this morning, and made another donation. They make a little go a long way.
What they need is another round of tax-cuts on the super wealthiest 2%.
Same thing for the 20% unemployed; tax-cuts! That I'll help em'. You betcha! Nothing says help is on the way like cutting unemployment and social programs in order to shovel more money at the country club elites.
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Most will be Republicans.
And they will blame Obama for it.
That's because George knew how to put food on their families!
I always wanted to start my own home for battered women
Your choice onion dip, fried chicken mix or chocolate.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
.
"The US has an army of 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and is spending $100bn a year, but has still been unable to defeat 20,000-25,000 Taliban who receive no pay at all." - Patrick Cockburn
It confuses the best testers
Just like my ticker, low pulse, pressure and body temperature, and rare blood type:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BKs5FknCVI&fe...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Over the last year, our church has seen a 4-fold increase in the number of people coming in to the "Food Pantry."
The food pantry that supplies the needy is at its lowest levels ever!
My wife said it is absolutely pathetic to see the dire straights these people are in.
The corporate media does a great job of hiding the immoral wealth distribution in this country. SOB's!
Rush Limbaugh is what a smart person thinks a stupid bigot sounds like.
Roadrunner Food Bank feeds most of NM which has a lot of poor rural areas. They are behind about 50 percent from last year in donations, but the need is much greater.
http://www.rrfb.org/
In the Dayton, Ohio area, my wife and I run a non-profit charity that helps the needy with food, clothing, furniture, etc. "The needy" now includes many of the formerly middle-class who have either had their work hours cut or lost their jobs entirely. Please visit our website at www.AVoiceForTheCommonwealth.org and do what you can in your local community.
My son is a Cub Scout and each year they do "Scouting for Food". Two years ago they brought in about 2000 lbs. of food. This year it was less than 700 lbs. What it said to me was how insecure people are about their own situation that they felt they couldn't spare a couple of cans of food.
Please accept an invitation to join in an amazing experience.
The Giving Spirit - www.thegivingspirit.org - a 100% volunteer operated 501(c)(3) (#61-1405121)
This coming December 12 from 8 - 4 over 500 volunteers will gather in Brentwood to assemble and distribute 2,500 survival kits to homeless individuals and families from skid-row to Santa Monica and the San Fernando Valley.
All are welcome to join in this amazing experience. Our mission is simple - We assemble survival kits designed to offer acute aid to those in need (each kit costs approx $60 and contains 70+ items). We deliver these kits personally, in teams of at least three. We offer a gift of the tools of survival coupled with a gift of compassion and humanity. We ask our homeless neighbors 'How are you?' ...and then listen, for 5 minutes, 10 minutes or an hour. There is an amazing human inside of every homeless person on the streets of Los Angeles (reports range up to 85,000 each night - more than 20% younger than 14) This opportunity provides a welcome moment of compassion for the homelesss, and it puts a true face on homelessness for our volunteers. Many of our volunteers (over 500 last December) have found this experience to be remarkable and life-changing.
If you are interested in more information please take a look at www.thegivingspirit.org or feel free to email me sleepermark@gmail.com. This is my 8th year participating in this amazing event - and I urge you to consider making this your first year!
Note: there is no fee to participate and we will deliver our 10,000th survival kit some time during this December's event!
We encourage you to give some amount to support our efforts if you are able.
TGS is 100% volunteer operated. No other charity provides a more direct to the street path for your contribution.
98% of every dollar donated is used to purchase goods and deliver kits to the streets!
Thanks so much for considering this, I look forward to seeing you on the 12th.
Mark
--
Mark Sleeper
sleepermark at gmail.com
Serves as the distribution food bank to Oregon and SW Washington food banks. One incredible very large operation in a building donated by local supermarket/superstore entrepreneur Fred Meyer.
http://www.bchg.org/food.html Bucks County, PA-serving 1,600 families (and counting) locations in Doylestown, Penndel and Milford Square.
Contacts:
Doylestown: Kate kbianchini@bchg.org or 215-345-1492
Penndel: Kathy kschoepfer@bchg.org or 215-750-4341
Milford Square: Karen kjenei@bchg.org or 215-529-5519
Some of the food items always needed are:
fruit|tuna|spaghetti sauce|sugar|gravy|chunky soups|rice|coffee|microwave meals|powdered milk|cereal|salad dressing
Thank you, Susie, for expressing a sentiment I share. Thursday is a national day of giving thanks, but society seems to be focused on gimme gimme gimme black friday shop shop shop.
My wife and I always donate to food banks - and many grocery stores offer the convenient option of contributing when you check out - as well as Toys for Tots.
There will always be a need for charity during the holiday season, but you'd think that this year, as we're still clawing our way out of a recession, we'd be a bit more mindful.
My family and I are also having the hardest time we have ever had.
I've been waiting for my SSD for two years now, with no end in sight. I can barely hear at all, words sound like jumbled noises to me, when I can hear them. My spine has been damaged in more than three different places and I have nerve damage in my neck, making it sometimes impossible to even turn my head. But SSD thinks that I need more proof of medical failures. I could provide the proof, if I had a way to go to a Doctor.
Never the less, I am truly Thankful to the Woman who is handling my SSD case. She knows our situation and out of sheer kindness, sent me a gift card to our local supermarket for $100 out of her own pocket. I wish that somehow, someway, I could pay her back or even pay it forward. But I fear it will take a long, long time before I am able to find a job that will take me as is, or it will take another two years for SSD to make a decision for me.
So all of you good, loving people out there need to know, when you help someone in need, they are forever grateful. Anything will help. This gift card made it possible for us to have Thanksgiving Dinner with real food. Not the usual peanut butter sandwiches that we are so used to.
Bravo to all of you! And hopefully, one day, I will be able to give back even more. This is a truly humbling experience.
seems to be really tight. We have a print shop here at my job. A man from the local church comes and picks up empty paper boxes to haul meals for delivery for their meals-on-wheels program. He told me last year they did about 600 meals for turkey day. This year he said there is already over 1000 requests. Things are bleak at the moment.
http://www.austinfoodbank.org/
The Hope Food Pantry
http://www.tumc.org/hope.htm
A listing of most of the other food banks in the city (scroll down the page and you'll see addresses and phone numbers.)
http://www.magicyellow.com/category/Food_Bank...
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