Hi, folks.
I know I'm always on about this, and no one group I've known has ever responded more generously to these appeals than this community, but our task is far from over. The monster still stalks our home.
As Leonard Pitts highlighted in this morning's column, the number of Americans who reported trouble in keeping themselves and their loved ones fed the past fiscal year has, surprisingly, fallen.
By eight-tenths of a percent. Which means that, some (or much) of the year between Septembers, 55 million of your countrymen, your brothers and sisters, went hungry.
Some, I am sure, may simply have missed a meal or two, or gotten less than it took to really fill them up.
Some fought the monster.
Hunger, real gut-rumbling, painful hunger, is implacable. It doesn't go away, even in sleep. It cannot be pushed out of mind to attend to other things.
Before too long an acquaintance, it rules the mind. A man or woman possessed by the monster tends to the crazy. Ideas that would never cross the mind attached to a filled belly come to seem perfectly reasonable. When that man or woman also sees his or her child gripped by the monster, there is no limit to what seems rational, if it might lead to salvation.
There is a good reason why food is the first choice for baiting traps.
Many times in the past, I've come to this community to ask for help for my local food bank, and the responses have been nothing short of miraculous. I mean end of It's a Wonderful Life miraculous. You guys make me so, so proud.
Today, though, I'm not asking for us, but for your neighbors.
A lot of us will be heading to the grocery store today to grab forgotten ingredients for our celebration suppers tomorrow. Many of those stores have donation bins for non-perishable foods to assist local food banks and feeding centers or coupons to purchase to donate to such places.
Use them.
And, if your local grocery doesn't offer those helpful services, take an extra couple of minutes and write a check to your local food bank. If you don't know where they are, there's a helpful search page here.
I am the luckiest man in the world. I get to eat tomorrow. If you are as lucky as I, there's a fine way to give thanks for your good fortune.
Thanks for listening. Have a wonderful, wonderful holiday.