Archive for the ‘ Hunger and Poverty Relief ’ Category

Recently I volunteered at a local food bank called The Sharing Table located in my affluent Upper East Side neighborhood. Living in this region of Manhattan is almost like residing in a “Pre-Depression era” time capsule. Mothers continue to buy their infants designer strollers; impossibly skinny women carry diamond purses; and rock stars buy cavernous townhouses next door to you. Living in this kind of environment, it is frighteningly easy to forget that America is in the midst of a monumental economic catastrophe. Some of us read The New York Times or watch CNBC and those millions of unemployed can seem like foreign entities. Those numbers don’t have real faces. We cannot begin to fathom the impact of this economic calamity without appreciating its implications on actual human beings – who we don’t see much of on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

I was reminded of this impact today though at Christ Church on Park Avenue and 60th street. I was invited to participate in this volunteer activity by a friend and mentor of mine who himself is a rockstar who I happened to have made friends with for no other reason probably than the fortunate opportunity I am afforded by living in this particular neighborhood. He quietly and anonymously volunteers here regularly. He told me that he does it to keep himself real and more grounded, as his industry has “an uncanny way of making you feel very unreal and ungrounded kid” as he put it. I notice that as busy as he is, he still finds the time to sneak in a few hours to volunteer around the city or around the world. I can imagine that it is a very different experiene for him than being on stage playing in front of thousands of people, or being locked in recording studios for months at a time.

As we shuffled into the basement one late Sunday afternoon I was introduced to the man who is in charge of the place. His name is Walter Gray Lamb. A well-known graphic designer by trade, he has been quietly running this food bank for homeless or hungry people in New York for over twenty years. I was very impressed and inspired by him and his dedication to helping people. It made me wonder if I had it within myself to do what he does. The moment the church doors opened people started nervously filing into the basement. A lot of these men and women seemed lost. They were physically present, but you could sense that they were spiritually and mentally elsewhere. You could tell that they were truly grateful to be receiving this food (one less costly strain on their budgets).

When we had finished serving these hungry people, a man approached me. He was in his mid-twenties, and many of his upper teeth seemed to be absent. But nevertheless, he greeted me with a warm grin, and we began talking. He asked me why I was here, and I told him that I just thought it was the right place to be. He expressed his longing to escape from New York. He told me that he was planning to join the National Guard because they provided some form of financial stability. He told me that he was currently writing a paper on the history of chemical weapons since the end of World War II. I was profoundly amazed by his breadth of knowledge concerning this rather esoteric subject. We discovered a mutual appreciation for the work of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky. Eventually, it was time for us all to leave and I wished the man good luck.
Talking with this man reminded me of something that had rarely occurred to me before. Our conversation made me realize just how thin the line is between poverty and financial security in America. I mean, the gentleman I had met was a seemingly learned and capable individual who could probably do anything he wanted. However, he is currently dependent on the generosity of Christ Church for food.

It occurred to me that this economic crisis could serve as an awakening for the world and the United States. Perhaps it could remind us that we are all involved in this collective experience of human life, and while we are living on this earth it is our obligation to help others in need. Without that kind of charity and compassion we would have nothing.

So the next time you find yourself flipping through the pages of the Wall Street Journal, or watching some buffoon like Jim Kramer screaming in panic on the television, try heading down to your local food bank. There is a high probability that you will be overcome with an incredibly profound sensation that only comes from helping and connecting with others. You could also feel assured that as long as people are willing to help out, America and the rest of the world will be okay.

Tyler Bejoian
15 years old, New York City

 

 
 
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

Dear Colleagues, Fans, Friends, & Fellow-Do-Gooders,

As you all know I’m as turned on by philanthropy, community service, volunteering, and charitable causes like nobody’s business. And as long as they check out, we get some good feedback about a cause, and don’t hear anything questionable from users, we are more than happy to give them a spot here on TuneInTurnOnHelpOut.org. But every now and then an idea for a non-profit comes along that just blows us all away with it’s revolutionary approach to creating not only “awareness” - which is always goal number one - AND goal number two - “the desire to help in the average citizen” - AND in goal number three - which is “to get them to take action RIGHT NOW with YOUR NON-PROFIT” - but they make it seem COOL. Last year’s RED Campaign was a GREAT example of this. A BRILLIANT idea for sure.

But let us not forget that the Hunger Site has been doing this for years! A simple idea was hatched in some amazing person’s mind - what if we could get corporations to donate money towards food banks to feed people on the verge of dying of hunger (can you freaking imagine people dying of hunger in the world today???) just by having other people click on a “Feed Someone” link. And believe it or not, it worked. I have pasted below some of their basic info just so you could have a looksee at their history and how many millions of dollars they have raised and how many millions of people they have saved from dying. Revolutionary? Hell i don’t know. But damn close it for sure. If I could be any non-profit in the world for just one day I would probably be either Amnesty International - because I just absolutely love their mission, their non-partisan integrity, and their cajones, or I would be the Hunger Site. A simple mission but probably no greater one on the planet today. And they are really making a difference.

Do yourself and us all a favor and go to their site. Have a click. Feed a fellow citizen of the world. It’s that simple. Then grab their URL from your address bar, and drag it to your links bar on your browser so it’s in your face everyday and visit them as often as you can. Read on to learn more. Kudos to you Hunger Site people for almost ten years in one kickass campaign and all of your time, energy, and efforts on all of our behalves!

Sincerely,

Ed Hale

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The Hunger Site was founded to focus the power of the Internet on a specific humanitarian need: the eradication of world hunger. Since its launch in June 1999, the site has established itself as a leader in online activism, helping to feed the world’s hungry. On average, over 220,000 individuals from around the world visit the site each day to click the yellow “Click Here to Give - it’s FREE” button. To date, more than 300 million visitors have given more than 500 million cups of staple food.

The staple food funded by clicks at The Hunger Site is paid for by site sponsors and distributed to those in need by Mercy Corps and America’s Second Harvest . 100% of sponsor advertising fees goes to our charitable partners. Funds are split between these organizations and go to the aid of hungry people in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and North America.

All of us here at The Hunger Site are also deeply moved by the humanitarian crisis in Darfur . Learn how you can help!

Hunger: Do You Know The Facts?

It is estimated that one billion people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition. That’s roughly 100 times as many as those who actually die from these causes each year.

About 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes. This is down from 35,000 ten years ago, and 41,000 twenty years ago. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five.

Famine and wars cause about 10% of hunger deaths, although these tend to be the ones you hear about most often. The majority of hunger deaths are caused by chronic malnutrition. Families facing extreme poverty are simply unable to get enough food to eat.

The Hunger Site began on June 1, 1999. In 1999, a year marked by good economic news, 31 million Americans were food insecure, meaning they were either hungry or unsure of where their next meal would come from. Of these Americans, 12 million were children.

Click here to learn more about hunger.

 

Dear friends of TuneInTurnOutHelpOut,

Please see this important message from our friends over at Avaaz regarding the current food crisis and what we can do to make a difference today.

Rocketing prices threaten to starve millions and make us all less secure — sign the emergency petition for action to stop the world food crisis
Sign the Petition and Watch the Video here: http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_food_crisis/10.php

Have you noticed food costing more when you shop? Here’s why — we’re plunging headlong into a world food crisis. Rocketing prices are squeezing billions and triggering food riots from Bangladesh to South Africa. Aid agencies say 100 million more people are at risk of starvation right now[1]. In Sierra Leone alone the price of a bag of rice has doubled, becoming unaffordable for 90% of citizens[2]. Fears of inflation stalk the whole world, and the worst could be yet to come.

We need to act now — before it’s too late. As Ban Ki-Moon holds a high-level UN meeting on the crisis, we’re launching an urgent campaign with African foreign minister and human rights campaigner Zainab Bangura. Click below to see Zainab’s video message and add your name to the food crisis petition — we need to raise 200,000 signatures by the end of this week to deliver a massive global outcry to leaders at the UN, G8 and EU:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/world_food_crisis/10.php

The prices of staple foods like wheat, corn and rice have almost doubled, and the crisis is slipping out of control — so we’re calling for immediate action on emergency food aid, speculation and biofuels policy, while asking forthcoming summits to tackle deeper problems of investment and trade.[3]

The global food crisis touches and connects us all, creating a tsunami of hunger for the poor and damaging economies and squeezing citizens in the rich world too. But solutions are on the horizon if leaders act fast [4] — sign the petition at the link below now, then forward this email and ask friends and family to do the same:

With hope,
Paul, Galit, Ricken, Graziela, Iain, Mark, Pascal and the whole Avaaz team

 
 
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

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