APRIL FOOD DAY

I mostly write about the homes and the lives of the comfortable.  Today I take a break to join my fellow bloggers, led by Meg Fairfax Fielding of Pigtown Design and Chris Cox of Easy and Elegant Life, with a reminder that in these times there are too many people in our own country who go hungry each night and to urge those who can to make donations to combat hunger, either to your local food bank, or through Feeding America, by clicking HERE

My mother grew up in a household hard hit by the Depression.  She has rarely talked about hunger, but when she does speak of it, it is quietly and without drama, but the raw pain of many nights going to bed without food as a child shows through even some 70 far more comfortable years since.  No child or adult should have to experience this, and most of us cannot even imagine it.  Here in Maine, playground for some of the nation's wealthiest, we are also home to some of the nation's poorest, and our food insecurity rate is one of the ten highest in America.  I have only to look to my right to see people living lives of luxury unimaginable to most Americans, and then turn to my left to see poverty even more unimaginable.  Our local food pantry is staffed by volunteers who work tirelessly to make certain that no one goes to bed hungry, and our local government, even in these hard times, does its best to make certain those least fortunate are warm and fed, quietly and with dignity.  Over the last three years, need has risen dramatically each year, and even in our town, one of Maine's wealthiest, resources are strained to the limit. The story is repeated across the nation.

If all of us even gave up lunch out for a week in favor of brown bags, we could each feed a family for that week.  It's that simple.  We're lucky, many are not.  Please help.