Help Feed the Hungry this Thanksgiving
October 21, 2008
All around me, families, elders, working poor and little children, sit at the many tables at Bosco Food Kitchen, eating a simple yet tasty meal and talking with one another. Every seat is taken. Hunger crosses all ages, from little toddlers needing booster seats to elders who walk with canes needing help to a chair.
The line of hungry poor coming in the door never seems to end and when we tally up the numbers, we find we are serving 1,000 more meals a month than we did a year ago.
While pouring juice for Mr. Max, Dwayne and the others who crowded into Bosco last Sunday, some still wearing church clothes, I could see how many of the poor are feeling the crushing blow of the falling economy. Struggling to pay their rising utility bills and buy gasoline to get to their low paying jobs, if they are lucky enough to have a job, the poor often run short on food.
On Thanksgiving Day, I’m sure I will see little Dwayne walking hand-in-hand with his neighbor, Mr. Max, to “that good food place.” Like most holidays, Dwayne’s mother will be mopping floors and washing towels and bed sheets at the nursing home where she works.
Dwayne’s family lives next door to Mr. Max, in a row of rundown rentals without heat, about a half mile from Bosco. The boys’ father died two years ago, leaving their mother raising three young boys on a minimum wage job.
“She asked me if I could help out now and then,” Max told me over lunch. “I started bringing the boys to Bosco because they were always hungry and there was no food in the house. They beg to come now.”
In fact, Mr. Max said, if he’s late, Dwayne pounds on his door and calls out, “Hurry on up, Mr. Max, it’s time to go!” I can always spot Dwayne’s enthusiastic hop-and-walk up the road as he tugs and tells Mr. Max to “hurry on up” to Bosco.
Dwayne, his older brothers and Mr. Max sit together, family style, at a table. They wait until everyone is seated with his plate before saying grace and eating. Table manners are important to Mr. Max, so requests for salt or ketchup always include “please” and “thank you.”
“I don’t know how y’all buy this food, Father, cause I know groceries are high,” Mr. Max said. “That’s why I make sure the boys eat what they take and don’t throw anything away. I wanna make sure everyone gets something to eat because I sees a lot of hungry folk here everyday, just like me and Dwayne.”
Elder Nellie Kane eats at Bosco because her small stipend from her days washing dishes for a local school doesn’t stretch far enough to buy food for a month. “I don’t know what I’d do without it,” said Mrs. Nellie, 79, who shops at thrift stores to save her few dollars.
This Thanksgiving, I want to serve Nellie, Dwayne and all God’s people a traditional dinner of turkey, cornbread dressing, green beans, sweet potatoes and a spoonful of cranberry sauce. I know we will stretch every bit of food we buy, not skimping yet never wasting a scrap. Each onion gets diced into tiny pieces and every bite of cornbread gets chopped up for dressing. I know that turkey soup and turkey gravy and rice will be on the Bosco menu for several days to help stretch every dollar.
But as the holiday nears, I worry about how I will pay for the food we need to feed the hungry poor—at Bosco and in the four rural counties we serve. My outreach ministers get calls almost every day from families begging for food.
Feeding the hungry poor, as Christ commands, costs over $328 at our Bosco Food Kitchen during the Thanksgiving weekend. It costs $38 to fill a food bag with meat, vegetables and other items for families in rural communities we serve. I don’t have the money to buy all of the food that is needed. That’s why I need your help.
While trying to feed the ever-growing number of hungry families and elders, I still face shortages of nutritional vegetables, fruit and protein at our local Food Bank. That means I have no choice but to purchase food at full grocery store prices. The Missions’ food bills are staggering. Please help me feed God’s hungry.
I keep you in my prayers daily, thanking God for your kind friendship. May God’s blessings pour onto you as you give graciously to help feed his hungry poor.
Serving the Savior,
Rev. Richard Myhalyk, S.S.E.
