Reading time – 2:37; Viewing time – 3:30 . . .
I’ve been a dad for a long time and for some time my children have been adults for years with children of their own. I’ve been so very fortunate to never have had serious worries about providing for my family.
But I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve become semi-numb to statistics. 200,000 new cases and 2,800 dead every day – these are statistics. It became a little easier to understand the meaning of those numbers when I heard someone say that we are having a 9/11 every day.
I can still see those awful pictures in my head, the airliner crashing into and through the second tower and exploding in a huge orange fireball, people jumping out of the towers to their death, the collapse of the buildings, the smothering fallout of dust and debris and the disoriented, confused New Yorkers wandering in the streets, and the shuffling, stunned, silent foot parade across the Brooklyn Bridge. You have those same pictures in your head, too. I know you do.
That’s when I finally got it. That we’re doing that every day. Our friends and family are dying every day in numbers as large as the 2,977 who died on 9/11. We were right when we called it a tragedy then. What do we call it when this happens every day?
They talk about Americans who are food insecure and just after seeing those images in my head is when I finally got what that means, too. I projected back years ago to when my kids were little ones and I imagined the horror of not having food for them. My babies could go to bed hungry and go to school hungry. That’s what “food insecure” means.
We’re on our way to 50 million Americans, including 17 million children – 1 in every 6 kids – who are hungry. That means there are 33 million moms and dads who aren’t able to feed their kids. Moms and dads who, just like you and I, want to protect their kids and who surely are horrified that their kids are hungry. Just like you would be. Just like I would be.
You have to see that in your mind’s eye: children; toddlers; 10-year-olds; teens who are growing fast and have voracious appetites – all now food insecure. Hungry. And those moms and dads are frustrated and humiliated because things were okay just a few months ago, but they cannot properly care for their kids now. That’s not how it was supposed to be.
The big picture talk about the pandemic, the economy and unemployment statistics isn’t about the numbers we’re shown. It’s about real people like you and me, with real kids like yours and mine and for whom hunger long ago passed the point of being just a concept. It’s an every day reality for them. So is the threat of homelessness. So is the threat of death by pandemic.
The president has gone totally AWOL and Congress has gone demonically stingy and glacially slow. But, no worries. None of them will be going without a meal. 50 million others will.
Contact your local food bank. Today. Ask them for at least 3 ways you can help.
Hurry. Our kids are hungry.
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JA
Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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