Food Insecurity

It's a national crisis in the making - the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth cannot feed its people. Today's report from the advocacy group Food Research and Action Center says:
"In other words, the nation had years of economic growth concentrated on the affluent, at the end of which period several million more people lived in households struggling with hunger. For the worst-off households, the picture was even bleaker: the number of people living in households suffering from "very low food security" (until two years ago USDA called this "food insecurity with hunger") rose from 8.5 million in 2000 to 11.9 million in 2007 – a 40 percent increase in the number living in the hungriest households.

The official 2008 hunger numbers from the Census Bureau and USDA won’t be released until late 2009, but every report from food stamp offices, WIC programs, school meals programs, social service agencies, religious congregations and emergency food providers portrays a rising tide of increasingly desperate need. If the recession is as long and deep as many experts predict, we are likely to see an epidemic of hunger, among children and adults alike, unlike any we have seen for decades."

That's exactly what is happening here in Tyler, too. We have seen a huge increase in need for food assistance over the last two months! We need everyone who is able to open their eyes to the needs around us and take action. The world is watching!

To Kara......

To Kara and your generation of our family,

I greatly appreciate your strong interest in this election, and I understand being disappointed. Don't despair, dear one, if this election did not go as you had hoped. I think you'll find that our country is extremely resilient, and that its good qualities will shine through during the next four years. It seems to me that we may be entering a period of great peril as well as great potential for positive change. As people of faith we will need to stay engaged, and not abandon our culture in retreat.

What I'll ask of you is that you not completely buy into the extreme negativity which will continue to flow from the new President's detractors, but will continue to cautiously weigh the information available and will give him the benefit of the doubt, where possible. Like many Southern families, mine missed out on recognizing the blessings of the monumental change which occurred during the Civil Rights movement and the Kennedy Administration, preferring to disengage and to villainize the key figures of the era. It wasn't until adulthood that I realized that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a national hero, not a Communist bent on destroying the government. His vocal opposition to the Viet Nam war, for example, was an act of ethics not treason!

I'm looking forward to seeing how your generation will impact us all and make us a better nation for the sake of your families! The world is watching!
Peace,
Greg