Help Feed the Hungry on Thanksgiving Day
October 14, 2010
When you were a child, do you recall family meals when your mother or father reminded you, "Clean your plate. Remember the starving kids overseas." They never said, "Remember the starving kids in America," because quite honestly, they couldn't imagine that people were starving nearby.
Well, they are. The homeless are right around the corner looking for their next meal. In the days before Thanksgiving, hunger and despair becomes unbearable as they sit in parks, in bus stations and in library reading rooms. Yes, you can find the homeless in a library nearly every day of the week just trying to stay warm.
On this Thanksgiving Day in Selma, public buildings will be closed for the holiday. The homeless—men, women and children—are out in the cold, filled with a terrible sense of hunger, despair, and hopelessness. There is no turkey, no pumpkin pie, no family laughter or prayers.
On the same Thanksgiving Day, you and your family, indeed our entire nation, will gather to express gratitude for our many blessings. We will thank God for the delicious food we share with friends and relatives. Yet America, one of the greatest nations in the world, can't feed its own poor.
Providing food to children, the out-of-work poor and elders on Thanksgiving is a great motivating factor for me. One particular little, 95 year-old lady comes to mind. She has lived in her isolated shack in the country for years with the aid of a walker. One day she went outside to tend her garden and fell in the yard. She knew her hip was broken but she couldn't move or get up. For hours she endured unbearable pain, yelling for help that never came. She was dehydrated and semi-conscious when a miracle happened. A woman who had gotten lost on the back roads drove by and called the sheriff. The kind woman stayed with her until she was rescued.
Now in a wheelchair, this sweet, never-complaining woman still lives out in the country. Last year when I delivered her Thanksgiving box, she said, "Oh what a blessing, a heaven-sent blessing!" She wanted me to stay with her for her Thanksgiving meal. I did sit for a spell but still had seven bags to deliver.
This Thanksgiving, the Edmundite Missions will again be "family" to the homeless as well as the working poor in our community. We want to offer a traditional Thanksgiving meal for young and old, whether they live way out in the country or here in Selma. The Bosco Food Kitchen will provide a home cooked turkey dinner this year and we are expecting over 330 people.
I am forever grateful to caring and sincere friends like you and I am asking you again to share God's message this year to feed the neglected poor who have long been overlooked. I need your help to pay the $26.75 to fill a Thanksgiving bag with nutritious turkey, mixed vegetables, sweet potatoes, and bread for rural families who otherwise would go without.
Last year, I was shocked at the number of people who lost their jobs and this year it is even worse. In the face of this terrible economy, I don't want to see children or elders go hungry and neither do you. In my heart I know that you will help me to feed the hungry on Thanksgiving Day.
The costs to provide meals for God's poor and homeless are higher than ever. Our local Food Bank remains in critical, short supply of nutritional food, vegetables and meat. Because of emergencies in the U.S. and around the world, much of the National Food Bank supply has been diverted to people far away from our state.
We are asking you to ease the suffering of those who have been forgotten, especially the little children who won't have a Thanksgiving meal without your generous support. You are always in my prayers.
God's abundant blessings,
Rev. Richard Myhalyk, S.S.E.
