Hunger
Why is it when many people think about people starving of hunger, they think of places like Africa? That idea of people going hungry only in distant countries is far from being the only place that has a large group of people who are going to bed hungry. There are some 200.000 people going to bed hungry here in the Twin Cities along with the millions hungry people around the world.
The Twin Cities have many people helping others by volunteering and donating to food shelves. However, the food shelves are constantly under stocked. There are many people, especially children, who use the help of food shelves but still end up going hungry. In fact, half the users of the food shelves are children and 20% are elders1.
There are many times throughout the year when there are plenty of people in good sprits to donate to the food shelves. There are food drives by schools and churches to help bring up the awareness of low food shelf stock. During the holiday season many people become aware of and try to help families not able to have a holiday dinner. Eventually the holiday season passes and hunger is still a very real problem in many peoples’ lives. We all need to be aware and helping this problem all year around. It would help a great deal if every time a family went grocery shopping, they just buy one or two more items to donate. This would not end hunger her in the Twin Cities but it would definitely help it take a giant leap forward in the right direction. So next time you are grocery shopping to restock you shelves think about the shelves at the local food shelf, couldn’t they use you help.
1http://www.unitedwaytwincities.org/ourimpact/Documents/ExecSummary_CommunityRecommendationstoEndHunger.pdf