Filling the hunger gap

A few weeks ago, Pastor Melissa mentioned in her sermon that the Food Pantry that operates out of our church fed 19,875 mouths in 2015.

I shared this number in a Facebook post, and it received a lot of “likes” - I think mainly because people are proud that we have a lot of social ministries in our community and generous people to support them with time, talent and resources. I’m proud of that, too. But I have to be honest. I was horrified by that number. Though the Food Pantry serves families from a multi-county area, that number is well over three times the population of the town I live in. We’re in the middle of the Midwest – a world of fertile ground and happy, grazing animals for miles and miles. In a country where food is so bountiful, readily available and relatively inexpensive, I am absolutely gob-smacked when I hear of families who are making choices between medications and groceries.

When you lightly scratch the surface of our Norman Rockwell-esque community, poverty is there. And our hunger problem is a direct result of poverty.

Just two weeks ago, I learned of another gap in our hunger problem when I heard stories of three kids in a family trying to buy lunch at the swimming pool treat stand with $2 to be shared among them. I heard of kids who bike into town for park-rec programs in the morning and then transfer to the swimming pool in the afternoon, with no noon-time meal to nourish them. It was explained to me that most of these kids are on the free and reduced lunch program in the school district, which doesn’t serve during the summer months. It’s estimated that over 150 kids – just in our city limits – are going hungry. Every day during the summer.

I can’t get my head around that.

I started a few conversations about it. A few people told me that parents aren’t making good choices with the money they have. They’re spending their food money on drugs. And that may very well be the case in some situations, but I’m choosing to be less cynical about it.

My grandma was a kitchen magician. She could take a dish of leftovers, a half pound of hamburger, two potatoes and a can of soup, and turn it into a meal for six. I watched her do it hundreds of times. I watched my mother do it thousands of times. I know how to do it as a result.

But not everyone is as privileged as I am.

We’re dealing with a generation of families that didn’t have that model, and they were taught to pursue nourishment in the most cost-efficient way possible: Processed food, frozen food and drive-throughs. At the end of the month, there often isn’t enough money for that. Programs like the Food Pantry help fill the gap.

I like to think there’s an opportunity to teach mamas and daddies what I learned from my parents and grandparents. Maybe that’s something to pursue as an extension of our ministry. I keep thinking of that saying, “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day; teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime.” It has been made into thousands of kitschy posters, but the spirit of it rings pretty true. We can – and we should- teach our neighbors to fish.

In the meantime, I’m proud to be part of an amazing group of people who are starting the Kids’ Lunch Club. We will be serving grab-and-go lunches to kids at a central location this summer – any kid who needs one.

We need help with this – both through donations and volunteers. Our website should be live sometime this week, so please visit kidslunchclub.org for more information.

The Kids’ Lunch Club will help fill a gap. And hopefully, it will help people understand that many – thousands – of our neighbors are going to sleep at night with empty stomachs.

There are all sorts of socioeconomic and political reasons why hunger exists. I really don’t care about the theories.

Jesus broke bread multiple times in the Bible. He fed thousands through the miracle of the loaves and fishes. He shared meals with the very least of humanity. He blessed them through his presence and his willingness to share.

It’s an important lesson. No one deserves to be hungry. No one.