One in eight Americans will be hungry this year.
Feeding America
Because of this blessed community, many of them will have something to eat this month.
A couple of weeks ago, heartbroken over the ever-growing unemployment numbers and need throughout this country, I decided to organize a day of blogging for Feeding America.
Feeding America is the nation's leading domestic hunger-relief charity.
Each year, the Feeding America network provides food assistance to more than 25 million low-income people facing hunger in the United States, including more than 9 million children and nearly 3 million seniors.
(Feeding America does this by assisting a network) of more than 200 food banks (that) serve all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.The Feeding America network secures and distributes more than 2 billion pounds of donated food and grocery products annually.
Feeding America.
For every $1 donated, Feeding America provides 20 pounds of food and grocery products to men, women and children facing hunger in our country.
When I put out the call for bloggers for this day of help, the response was so amazing that one day quickly became two. I thought this was the greatest Christmas present I could receive.
I was wrong.
Over the weekend, this tremendous community put every single one of these remarkable diaries ~ each lovely, each heartbreaking ~ on the Recommended List. The series was on the Recommended List from just after 11:30 a.m. (EST) Saturday morning until the wee hours of Monday morning.
And along with the recommendations, for which all of us on the Feeding America team were so grateful, came hundreds of donations, large and small, to both Feeding America and to local food banks. There is no way to measure the dollar-value of the generosity of this community, but you should all know that on several occasions this past weekend, our donation activity overwhelmed the matching site put up by Kraft Foods.
WOW.
As I noted in the kick-off diary, posted at 11 a.m. on Saturday, Filling Empty Bowls ~ 36 Hours for Feeding America,
The hungry are hardworking adults and their children; they are our seniors; they are struggling families in the suburbs, in the country, in our cities. Read their stories here.
And they are us.
I knew, from recent diaries posted here, and from the comments to this diary I wrote last March, that there are many here who have experienced the pain of this awful economy first-hand, that there are many here who have known what is like to be hungry. That was borne out by some of the heart-breaking comments in the beautiful diaries that were posted this weekend.
Those diaries are, in order, here:
Filling Empty Bowls (2) by boatsie.
Filling Empty Bowls (3) by rb137.
Filling Empty Bowls (4) by JellyBearDemMom.
Filling Empty Bowls (5) by srkp23.
Filling Empty Bowls (6) by Kula2316.
Filling Empty Bowls (7) by blue jersey mom.
Filling Empty Bowls (8) by SpamNunn, who filled in, literally at the last minute, for new kossack DeviousPie (also known as Son 3 of blue jersey mom and blue jersey dad, whose enthusiasm for the project predated his posting ability).
Filling Empty Bowls (9) by Timroff.
Filling Empty Bowls (10) by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse. (Bring tissues.)
Filling Empty Bowls (11) by blue jersey dad. (First diary.)
Read them all, if you haven’t already.
My heartfelt gratitude to all the amazing bloggers on the Feeding America team this weekend. My heartfelt gratitude to this incredible community, for your thoughtful comments and enormous generosity.
We filled tens of thousands of bowls this weekend.
There is, of course, still time to donate. Feeding America.
We will be doing another weekend-long blog-a-thon for our nation’s food banks for Valentine’s Day, when the food banks will no doubt again be struggling. If you would like to volunteer, please send me an email. (My addy is in my profile.)
But that is for then, and this is for now:
Bless you and thank you.
I found myself in tears many times this past weekend. I am so grateful to the wonderful bloggers, who gave up part of their weekends to help out. I am so grateful to this community, for its terrific support of this series this past weekend.
As I said: it was the best Christmas present I ever received. And it came from this blessed community. Thank you all. Thank you so very much.