This article is directly related to the one posted on August 30 where I cited the words of Jesus found in Matthew 25:40. In verse 35 of the same chapter, Jesus said, “I was hungry, and you fed me.”
September is widely known as Hunger Action Month in the U.S. This is an important emphasis that has often not been sufficiently observed. Hunger is a grave problem even here in the U.S., one of the richest nations in the world.
Feeding America is the name of the organization that is the primary advocate of Hunger Alert Month. On their website (here), they state that more than 47 million people in the U.S. face hunger, including one in five children.
I live in Missouri, which has a population of about 6.2 million people. It’s hard for me to fathom the fact that every person in more than seven states the size of Missouri is facing food insecurity.
Fortunately, many of those people can get help from the numerous affiliates of Feeding America. Locally, Harvesters is the Feeding America food bank serving a 26-county area of northwestern Missouri and northeastern Kansas (see here).
As Harvesters provides food and related household products to more than 760 nonprofit agencies including food pantries, community kitchens, shelters, and other similar facilities, I was happy to make a contribution to that organization as one of my hunger actions for this month.
There are similar food banks across the U.S. A couple of weeks ago I created a “Google alert” for Hunger Action Month, and I have been notified about magazine and newspaper articles from all across the country, including one last week from Bolivar Herald Free-Press telling about Ozark Food Harvest.*
Do you who live in the U.S. know the organization related to Feeding America near you? Is there some action—a contribution or maybe volunteer work—you can do during this Hunger Action month?
Hunger, of course, is a global problem, and the World Food Program (WFP) is an international organization within the United Nations that provides food assistance worldwide. Founded in 1961, WFP is headquartered in Rome and has offices in 80 countries. (WFP’s website can be accessed here.)
According to an Aug. 2 WFP article, 309 million people in 71 countries now face acute hunger. Of these, more than 37 million people face emergency levels of hunger or worse: there are 1.3 million people in the grips of catastrophic hunger, primarily in Gaza and Sudan.
Cindy (Hensley) McCain became the executive director of the WFP last year, and as such she is the head of what is said to be the world’s largest humanitarian organization.**
Feeding the hungry is good, but seeking to prevent hunger is better. We must ask why there are so many hungry people in the world, realizing that charity is good, but it is not enough.
In my next blog post, I am planning to introduce a 2024 book by Jon Paul Sydnor, a college professor in Boston, but here are pertinent words from that book I am sharing now:
... charity will always be necessary, but it must be practiced alongside social criticism. Charity must ask, “Why is this charity needed? Instead of feeding the hungry, could we eliminate hunger?” (The Great Open Dance, p. 284).
Reading those words caused me to remember the words of Dom Helder Camara (1909~99) that I have cited before:
And here is the distressing state of affairs in the world today: the global hunger problem is most likely going to become increasingly worse. Global warming, leading to more droughts as well as to more floods, will likely cause food shortages and acute hunger for many people in some parts of the world.
Still, while being concerned about the causes of hunger and the dire prospects for the future, some chronically hungry people need help now. Let’s do something to help such individuals, knowing that when we help feed hungry people, we are figuratively feeding Jesus.
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* The Free Press is the weekly newspaper of Bolivar, Mo., the town where June and I met as first-year students at Southwest Baptist College (as it was then, in 1955). Ozarks Food Harvest, located in Springfield, is the Feeding America food bank for southwest Missouri. It serves 270 hunger relief organizations across 28 Ozarks counties.
** McCain (b. 1954), the widow of Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), served as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture from 2021 to 2023.
Note: Some of you may want to go back and read blog posts I made ten/eleven years ago regarding the topic of hunger. See “Charity is Not Enough” (about Bread for the World and posted on 6/10/14), and “Food for the Hungry” (posted on 7/30/13).
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Leroy, Broadway Baptist, the local church of which Patricia and I are (thank you Lord) members, is located in a poorer section of Fort Worth. Broadway tales hunger seriously. We have May Street Market, where people can come and get basic food needs. Broadway is also Justice oriented. Tune in to Broadway on U-Tube. You'll be glad you did!
ReplyDeleteThese comments were posted by Thinking Friend Charles Kiker--and he was not able to post with his name, as has been the case for others from time to time. (I don't know of anything I can do to help that situation.)
DeleteYes, there are many churches across the country who, along with some other local groups, conduct ministries to help people who are facing hunger insecurity, and I am grateful for those activities in addition to those sponsored by Feeding America. I am certainly not surprised that Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth is taking hunger seriously. Although I have never lived in Texas, I have known about and been interested in Broadway every since John Claypool left Crescent Hill BC in Louisville to become Broadway's pastor. Perhaps their hungry ministry goes back to his pastorate there in the 1970s--or maybe even before. In 1963-64 while a graduate student at Southern Seminary, I was without a pastorate for about 5 months, so my wife and I attended Crescent Hill quite often, and John Claypool was one of the best preachers I ever heard.
I don't know who initiated the May Street Market. I think Steve Shoemaker, also a former Crescent Hill pastor, initiated the Agape Meal every Thursday night. Open meal to all who come, mostly from the Broadway neighborhood. Our present pastor, Ryon Price, has advanced justice issues. Our ACT (acknowledge, confess, transform) and our justice committee are presently holding Tarrant County sheriff's feet to the fire regarding jail issues. Ryon is four square behind the church's action in these issues. Patricia and I have been members of Broadway a little over 2 years, since we moved to DFW because of some health issues.
DeleteThinking Friend Glenn Hinson in Kentucky sent this brief comment by email:
ReplyDelete"I feel ashamed that I am standing on the sidelines while millions starve."
Dr. Hinson, I appreciate your sensitivity and concern for others, You have contributed so much to so many through your teaching and writing, though, perhaps you have no reason to be ashamed doe anything. On the other hand, you are just one of many of us who could do much more than we have up to this point, so I take your words as a challenge for mtself and for other readers of my blog.
DeleteConsider me challenged, Leroy - and taking action this month!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your response, Fred! I wish I had more Thinking Friends (and others) like you. I have no way of knowing who does something, or doesn't do anything, to help the hungry, but so far the responses and especially the pageviews of this blog post has been quite disappointing.
DeleteWell, Oregon has responded with lawfare! Read more here: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/homeless/brookings-church-wins-lawsuit-city-serving-free-meals/283-23539b57-8b1d-4fb7-b9a9-4d06c8242e97
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this, Craig. As I mentioned to Charles above, I am grateful for the churches that are feeding the hungry and helping the homeless in other ways--and especially for those such as St. Timothy's Episcopal Church that even have to go to court in order to continue doing so!
DeleteSomehow I missed seeing the following comments that were sent by email on the day this blog article was posted, but I am posting them here with gratitude to my local Thinking Friend Bill Ryan:
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for your support of Harvesters. As a volunteer at a food pantry in the urban core that receives much its produce from Harvesters, I see weekly how important the program is to pitifully poor members of our community. When I look into the eyes of people going through the food line and talk with them briefly, I wonder why this situation can even occur in this country of great wealth. I usually go home saddened."
Thanks for sharing these good words, Bill. Even more, thanks for the volunteer work you do for the Harvesters food pantry.
DeleteHere are comments received yesterday from Thinking Friend Virginia Belk in New Mexico:
ReplyDelete"Our church provides information for writing to our members of congress and the senate encouraging them to support the current farm bill, as a part of our mission activity. We have also received information from Bread for the World, through the church. I write letters each time the opportunity occurs.
"As Christmas approaches, also through our church, I habitually pay for a bee hive to go to a family in Guatemala, so that they can harvest honey, both to eat and to sell.I also do my best to use all the fresh produce I purchase, so that none is wasted (which would add to global warming) and I compost the plant food waste, such as peels, seeds cores, stems."
I just wrote a check for the total cost of installing solar panels on our roof, so hopefully we will soon be off the grid of the electric company. That means we won't have a lot of funds for usual charitable contributions, but neither will we be contributing as much to global warming, which will allow others to contribute to to the hungry. Furthermore, in a couple of months, we will be able to resume normal contributions to the hungry, such as Meals on Wheels, etc."
Thanks for sharing this, Virginia. As I responded to Fred above, I wish I had more Thinking Friends (and others) doing all the good things that you (and Bill R. and others, of course) are doing.
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