I’ve charged myself with a mission this holiday season. There’s a box for food pantry donations at the local grocery store and I’m determined to put one item in every time I buy groceries.

I’m there a lot. It’s a block and a half from my house, so easy to run and pick up a few things every few days.

Now, lest you think you should join in the back-patting, let me make this clear – to date my donations total about $5.95. Maybe.
Yesterday my contribution was a 99-cent box of pumpkin pudding.

That’s not going to go very far toward feeding a hungry family, especially one that probably can’t afford the milk to go with it. In retrospect, it may not have been the wisest choice, but I was caught up in the Thanksgiving spirit.

Yes, I realize the irony in that statement.

Like I said, we’ll hold off on the back-patting. My giving-to-consumption ratio is shameful at best.

It’s politically and socially acceptable, even popular, these days to vilify those in need. “They’re takers,” they say. “They just need to claim responsibility and get a job,” they say.

Yes, there is that. There are those who are out to milk every dollar they can from government programs. There is no denying that. (Government resource takers also exist on the top end of the spectrum, claiming their prize in the form of tax breaks and industry subsidies, but that is fodder for another post.)

The point of this writing is we cannot let greed stand in the way of addressing need. There are those who are truly victims of circumstance and forces greater than they can handle. For every “taker” there is also a hungry child, who doesn’t get enough to eat on a daily basis, let alone something special on Thanksgiving or Christmas.

A friend shared a story on Facebook the other day. One she had told me before. She was waitressing when a young mother with two small children came in and ordered a coffee, two cups of hot water, and catsup. The waitress thought the order odd, but complied. When she brought the items to the table, the mother proceeded to add the catsup to the water, making her children tomato soup.

Yes, Melinda, you were correct in your comments – hunger does indeed exist. Hungry people are out there. That was, quite possibly, the only meal those children had that day.

And the problem is close to home.

Most folks I know are compassionate and generous people. Let a famine strike a Third World country and the check can’t hit the mail fast enough. But we all too often forget about the mother down the street trying to feed her children, or the family on the farm struggling to get through the holiday season with their home, larder, and dignity in tact.

The need is greater than ever. Local food pantries as well as those across the country have seen drastic increases in usage – as much as 150 percent in some places. And it’s not just the indigent. It’s steady, hard-working folks who just can’t make ends meet in today’s economy. People who never in a million years thought they would rely on help to feed their family.

Agencies that provide help need help. They need donations of food and household products, and they need cash to buy food. By tapping larger food banks and local sources, they can often leverage those dollars to efficiently fill their shelves.

Every little bit helps.

So, tomorrow I will gather with family in a nice, well lit and heated home. I will stuff myself to the point of gluttony, and then have the nerve to complain about how miserable I feel. Then I’ll likely have another piece of pie.

Next week I will probably add another box of pudding to the food pantry collection, maybe even a mac and cheese.

No, there’s no back-patting going on here. Just a sincere hope that others are better at tackling this problem than I.