I longed volunteered at our local soup kitchen doing everything from washing the floors after the meals to serving as its president. I may be disabled, but my wife volunteers at our local food shelf. Unless you have seen soup kitchens or food shelves first-hand, you may not know that we have hungry people in this country through no fault of their own. We had people coming to the soup kitchen who were working a couple of jobs and coming for a meal or two let them make it through the month without going hungry. We had retired people who were on Social Security and who had never earned a great deal during their working life not getting enough to make it through the month. We had people who had gone bankrupt because of medical bills. We are one of the richest countries in the world, but many people see those going hungry as just lazy or drunkards or dope addicts. The conservatives say it is not the government’s place to aid these hungry people. It should be the churches.
Let me tell you about Pastor Bob. Pastor Bob started out as a street preacher and knows what the rough side of life is like, so he helps people as much as he can. When I was president of the kitchen, he and I would go to churches speaking of the need to feed the hungry and asking for support. His funds were quite limited, so he would speak about Road Kill for Christ. The DNR would inform him of fresh roadkill and he and some of his parishioners would go and collect the carcass. They would save the usable portion and use it to feed people at his church. His church is called the People’s Church. They have a website where you can donate if you would like to using their PayPal account – http://peopleschurch-elca.org/ Back to Pastor Bob’s and my efforts to get support. It never yielded more than a few dollars. It’s clear the churches have neither the desire nor the ability to feed the hungry in our country.
You might ask about the food stamp program which is now called SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Once again it has become so restrictive that people who qualify will no longer even bother to apply. There is a long paperwork application and the aid actually given is very small. One woman told me that she got enough to get some peanut butter and a loaf of bread for her family! There are also severe restrictions on what they can use their aid to buy.
Why are we refusing to aid the hungry? Why are we making laws to make it difficult to feed the hungry? An example of that is that when I was working with the soup kitchen, we would not take any federal-aid because of the many difficulties it brought about. One example of that was the need to inform the federal government about the age, income, and so on of everyone we fed. We would have needed a full-time staff person to comply with those federal reporting requirements. I simply don’t understand why this country doesn’t want to feed its hungry. I have come to the conclusion that it simply they do not know or understand the magnitude of the problem. This is my attempt to aid that by telling you what I have observed. Please help the hungry.
