Citizens Seek Hunger Solution

To the Editor:

The food pantries here in Central New York are helping growing numbers of families put food on the table toward the end of the month. Many of those seeking help are educated working people with children. Since May, according to Kate Smith of St. Pat’s food pantry here in Oneida, increasing numbers of “well-dressed” people have been coming into local food pantries.

Job losses are causing families to run short of grocery money at the end of the month. Sometimes medical bills hit the unemployed or underemployed like a one-two punch.

Many of those who need help are embarrassed to ask for it. They need not only food but also baby supplies, personal hygiene items, cleaning supplies, and invalid supplies (like bed pads). Coffee and tea are appreciated luxuries, too expensive for the food pantries to purchase.

With Thanksgiving and Christmas drawing near, it’s a good time to pitch in and help with donations of food or money.

Last year, according to Captain Susan Ramsay of the local Salvation Army, her facility provided 687 meals at Christmas and had gifts and personal items for 301 kids. This year, both food pantries are struggling to provide special items for Thanksgiving.

Many local organizations and individuals are already helping, but the need is great and growing. Gift certificates purchased at local supermarkets and given to the food pantries could mean better holidays for families.

One suggestion for the future: we could organize old-fashioned “spaghetti feed” dinners rotating among churches and other facilities toward the end of each month. Preprinted tickets could be sold (at, say, $6 a person) with any profit going to the food pantries. Also, people could purchase tickets and donate them to the food pantries so those in need can join in for free or for whatever they can afford.

These dinners could be a place all of us (including church, business and community leaders)can join together and break bread together during what promises to be a rough patch ahead for the economy.

Yours truly,

Robert Mann, Oneida

Citizens Seek Hunger Solution

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