Before you sit down to your bountiful Thanksgiving dinner please go to your window, gaze beyond your yard or city street, and ponder about your 32,500 fellow Missourians who will not have a hot meal or a roof over their heads on this blessed day.
A homeless person is defined as a someone who lacks a “fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence,” and Alaska has the unfortunate distinction of having the highest number of homeless.
A study done by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty estimates that between 2.3 and 3.5 million people experience homelessness annually. Just this week the Agriculture Department reported that 17 million American households, or 14.6 percent of the total, “had difficulty putting enough food on the table at times during the year.” That was an increase from 13 million households over the previous year.
Fortunately, most of them won‘t go hungry thanks to the dedicated caring organizations, churches, donors and volunteers.
We all have to do more. I have called nearly 25 churches and organizations in the Jackson County area only to find out that most of them, due to the smallness of staff, lack of volunteers and funds, could not participate in this corporal work of mercy – to feed the hungry.
Here are a few who can help. Members of the Timothy Lutheran Church in Blue Springs and Tri-City Ministries in Independence will be donating meals and their church volunteers will create food baskets to be delivered to many of their needy families.
Several Independence churches will be doing the same and Meals on Wheels in Independence will be delivering to lonely souls on this Thanksgiving Day.
In the metropolitan area, the Salvation Army will be feeding the hungry at their Kansas City, Kansas Harbor Light site and at 101 West Linwood on the Missouri side. City Union Mission at 1100 E. 11th St. in Kansas City provides some 900 meals a day. They will offer a Thanksgiving Eve dinner on Wednesday evening for an estimated 350 thankful souls.
All of these generous donors, magnanimous volunteers, and caring churches and organizations have given new meaning to “giving” in the word “Thanksgiving.”
Harvesters Community Food Network notes that they supply the food pantries for 550 non-profit organizations that help to feed 60,000 a week and those numbers are growing due to job losses and bankruptcies. We all must do more.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
