May 14, 2008
On Monday, while looking at a desk full of bills, I started thinking about the little children in my neighborhood who I often see playing outside in the evening, barefoot and shabbily dressed. School will be out in less than two weeks, and I don’t know how we are going to stretch our funds to feed them and all the children who will be hungry every day.
As I worry about hungry schoolchildren and neighbors, Mary Gayle, our Bosco Food Kitchen cook, knocks nervously at my office door. I can tell she doesn’t want to come in. I know if she is asking for help it’s big trouble, because she has been making do on a tight budget for over 20 years.
“I hate to worry you, Father, but our shelves are almost empty and the children are getting out of school. I’ve been to the Food Bank, but they don’t have any vegetables or meat. I need groceries, but…” she trailed off, obviously aware of the food bills already stacked on my desk.
One look at the dark circles under her eyes and I knew I wasn’t the only one losing sleep over food costs. “I’ve tried to cut corners,” she said. “But you can’t fix a nutritious meal for over 200 people a day without meat and vegetables.”
Mary handed me a list of groceries she needs to fix over 1,500 meals a week: 100 pounds hamburger; 100 pounds chicken; 50 pounds pork neck bones, 3 cases hot dogs, 10 bags collard greens; 25 pounds pinto beans, 6 lg. cans tomatoes, 10 gallons orange juice.
I could see it was just the basics for soup and hearty but simple food she serves the hungry poor. “Let me see what I can do,” I said, knowing this was my responsibility, not hers.
I know more people are eating at Bosco because of job layoffs due to the lagging economy. When school is out, Bosco will be packed with hungry people of all ages. I know children need healthy food to grow strong, just like our elders need good food to deal with chronic diabetes and high blood pressure they suffer. I cannot let them go hungry.
That’s why I’m writing you. I urgently need your help to buy nutritious food for Bosco and our rural food pantries before school gets out. It will cost $725 to buy the groceries on Mary’s list. It costs $90 to feed a family for one week.
Any decent food available at the Food Bank we snap right up. But too many days there is no meat and no vegetables as the Food Bank faces the worst shortages ever. I know Mary and our outreach ministers scrape together their limited funds to take advantage of any sales at discount food stores. But we are feeding hundreds of hungry families in four poor rural counties as well as at our Selma Bosco Food Kitchen. That’s why this burden is so relentless.
Hunger has a face. I think of Yolanda Hayes, who is handicapped, yet walks her three children over a mile to Bosco every day despite cold rain or searing heat, because they are hungry and there’s no food in the house. I think of elder, Mr. Joseph Rutledge, whose neighbor brings him to Bosco every day, helps him to a table, and brings him a plate of food, which he eats with both hands as if he is starving.
I know we can’t cook over 1,500 nutritious meals a week without basic groceries. Our rural pantries cannot fill hundreds of food bags for hungry families with sugary snacks and empty calories.
Daily I pray that God’s loving compassion fills your heart to overflowing for the hungry poor. Your compassion for “the least of these” can provide a hand up—a healthy meal—to little ones in my neighborhood who go without so many necessities in life. With your help, they won’t go to bed hungry tonight.
Yours in our Compassionate Christ,
Father Richard Myhalyk, S.S.E.
