Day 71 ❦ Give What Comes Naturally

Day 71 ❦ Give What Comes Naturally

It might be because I was born an Italian Grandmother, but I love to feed people. The more the merrier and when I am not feeding people, I am wondering what my friends and family are eating. Sometimes I am wondering what they are eating because I cook vicariously and enjoy hearing what they are cooking and eating, and sometimes it is simply because I know that they are struggling and I like to figure out how I can support my friends and family who are hungry.

In an earlier post I talked about what it was like to be a child standing out in front of my house with all of my belongings on my back because we had just been evicted, but I have not talked about what it is like to be a child and be hungry, and I mean really hungry where a package of Starburst candies can be magically turned into 3 meals - enough to get me through an entire day, or turning an onion into lunch and dinner became a skill so we could go to bed with something in our stomachs. While I know we were not starving like the children I see in Africa or Nicaragua, that gnawing feeling that comes from having nothing to eat,
or a few hundred calories of food over a weekend is familiar to me.

As a kid, I didn't know that this was not usual...being hungry was just part of our lives, and when we did eat...yummmm, we appreciated every last bite. Sometimes when we did go to our Grandparents' homes the visit would usually incorporate a meal and then...oh I felt like a glutton! Although it felt like I was eating a lot, my stomach just couldn't handle a lot of food. As an adult, I am very aware of the statistics of childhood hunger and am not surprised at the percentage of children who live in my town in the mid-west whose only meals are at school. In fact, backpack programs are sprouting up all over the community so that children can bring home backpacks loaded with protein bars and other essential food for their families over the weekend when they do not have the school to rely on for food.

Childhood hunger is not something we talk about very much. Even as I was hungry, my friends would always make comments about how jealous they were that I was so skinny. I really though that most people had the same limited access to food that I did, so I couldn't figure out what I was doing differently than them to be so skinny. I understand now.

Perhaps it is my intimate understanding of what it is like to be hungry and now how socially inappropriate it is to tell anyone that you can't afford food - but I have a super-heightened awareness to the cues of hunger. So when I am aware that there may be issues, I like to figure out humane and respectful ways to make sure food gets into the hands of people who I am aware may need it. Which gets us to today's giving opportunity...

I belong to a Rotary Club that includes in its dues 10 tickets for a chicken and corn feed. The chicken and corn feed is our largest fundraiser annually and we usually feed about 1,500 people in a day. I always look forward to getting my tickets because it is a great opportunity to give a substantial meal to some of my friends and family who I know are hurting. Now, we are giving food to them in other ways too, but this one is fun. The chicken and corn feed is very social, and the food is substantial. So today I take my ten tickets and give them to three different families, one family with 10 members  one family with four members and one family of two. I bought a few extra tickets so that I would have enough to give tickets to every family member in all three families. In a few weeks I will get so see them all when they arrive at the chicken and corn feed and enjoy the food! So simple, very respectful and certainly feeding people comes naturally to me. What a fun giving opportunity. Certainly not the systemic fix for hunger, but something.

❦ Give What Comes Naturally