TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Suncoast Pinellas News

Hunger insurance

ADVERTISEMENT

BY MARK SCHANTZ

SUNCOAST NEWS COLUMNIST

Published: November 14, 2009

With Thanksgiving only weeks away, those who can afford to buy an extra can of food should donate it to either the Shepherd Center, in Tarpon Springs, or FEAST food pantry, in Palm Harbor. Don't even think of it as altruistically donating to help others;

Think of it as paying into your own hunger insurance plan. Heaven knows, it is not government run.

Most people live paycheck to paycheck or have just enough in reserve to cover one, two or three months without income.

If they loose their jobs or even face pay cuts, their savings are quickly depleted. Picture yourself here.

The community must come together and remember no one is going to help us but ourselves. No Third World country or the United Nations is going to feed our hungry. We must offer assistance to them - not just prayer but also by action to help feed them. We could easily be counted among their ranks.

The Shepherd Center and FEAST, with their allotments of emergency food, are preventing hunger and malnutrition for thousands in north Pinellas every day of the week. Those who are still squeaking by - surviving on sheer luck - should donate to them a few cans of macaroni and cheese, spaghetti with meatballs, or a hearty soup, to one of the food pantries.

Give up a pack of cigarettes and use that money to buy cans of food to stock the food pantry.

We all should keep agencies such as Shepherd Center and FEAST viable and well stocked. Think of it as hunger insurance to be used in case of a personal catastrophe.

All it costs to know it will be there for you, should the need arise, is the donation of a few cans of food.

Who knows with the way the winds of fate change so rapidly, you may receive one of those cans you donate, if luck runs out and times turn bad in the blink of an eye.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT