1 Out of 6 Families....

[scuba]

Ever since my wife got involved with cutting coupons, we have seen our grocery bills plummet, recently at one of the "main" department stores, canned veggies were on sale. With the coupons available we were able to get them for $.15 cents apiece. We bought alot and donated them to a local food bank......as for the folks needing them and making poor decisions and the such about the economy, I try not to get involved with any of that thinking...I do what I can, and try not to think about who and how and why they are getting the food........despite their choices, there are some GOOD people out there suffering. I do what "I" can. I cannot make people save money, Cannot make them buy cheaper cars. I just seen a neighboor's "I'm keeping up with the jones's" new BMW just get reposessed. So like I said before, I'm trying to do what I can do.

 

[barkley]

one of the community organizations where we used to live bucked the norm and asked for many items that seemed non traditional during the holidays-they requested items like bread, pb, jelly, cereals, tuna, individual containers of fruit/jello/pudding...they also solicited the traditional holiday foods, but their concern was with serving those kids who were highly reliant on school breakfasts/lunches and could potentialy go without during the long holiday breaks (and we had some districts with 3 week christmas vacations). they used monetary donations to get dairy products and other fresh items that could be utlized to make meals.

the school dd goes to has reccognized this issue as well-they now arrange minimum days such that the kids don't get excused until after the lunch hour ends. this way the multitude of kids who receive free or subsidized lunches (which may be their main meal of the day) are ensured of getting a warm meal.

 

[*BTMRR*]

We donate to, and volunteer at, our local food bank and soup kitchen. It's a drop in the bucket but you have to do what you can.

Also, we shouldn't ever forget that people in many countries around the world are suffering too, some even to the point of starving to death. In the U.S. the obesity rate tends to rise with the poverty rate--which obviously isn't a good healthy thing, and we need to support measures to improve accessibility to inexpensive healthy foods and nutrition education--but IMO being obese beats dying of starvation which is what many children in developing nations face every single day.

It's important to do what we can to help our next door neighbor AND people in other parts of the world.