Thank You for Bringing HOPE
Thank you for your support throughout the year and for the holidays.
I’m hoping that you can continue to include your “feeding the hungry” activities throughout the coming year! Your donations translate into hot meals, safe shelter, and a reminder to the hungry and unhoused that there are those out there who care.
Your generosity changes lives. Food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters restore people’s lives.
It takes all of us to support those in need.
Do you have a crowded closet? Winter clothing needs include:
warm coats
foot wear – especially boots
warm gloves and hats
jeans and pants
sweatpants
long underwear
The items most often resquested: socks
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Thanks for reading this blog post. Please share it on your preferred social media network. Forward it to your friends and relatives.
Find more information about hunger and homelessness on “Let’s Live with Thurman Greco” on YOUTUBE.
www.thurmangreco.com
www.hungerisnotadisease.com
THANK YOU FOR CARING!
Do you want to learn more about hunger and homelessness in America? You can find more info in previous posts on this blog.
No Fixed Address
“No Fixed Address” is dedicated to those in our country with no roof over their heads. See your neighbors, your friends, your relatives, in new ways as they describe their daily lives in their own words.
The people in this new book reveal themselves to be both brave and fearless as they go about their activities: work, laundry, children’s homework, appointments. Mostly they live like the rest of us. They just have no roof over their heads.
“No Fixed Address” is my newest book in the Unworthy Hungry series. It’s easy to read and understand. You won’t be bored, not even for a minute.
I hope you’ll order it today. Get an extra copy for a friend!
This book has an extra surprise. When you get a copy, you’ll be making a donation to a good cause. You’ll be fighting hunger and homelessness.
It doesn’t get much better than that!
Thank you for reading this article!
Please forward it to your preferred social media network.
Thurman Greco
What Goes Up Sometimes Goes Down!!!!
Ron Van Warmer told us today: “The new statistics on elder hunger are now one in seven.”
I rejoiced! Ron, Associate Director of the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley, was sharing the latest results of the 2012 Feeding America survey. The 2010 survey (in which I participated) reported the statistics at one in five. The new information tells me fewer seniors are going to bed at night hungry than in the past.
Many people go to bed hungry at night these days but the elder hungry are a true tragedy. As a group, most retired citizens in our nation spent their lives working and paying taxes. Now that their incomes are limited and their expenses are not, they no longer have the money for food. They’re finding themselves, just like younger people in the new Struggling Class, choosing between food and gas, food and medicine, food and heating bills.
Seniors, as a group, are loathe to ask for food stamps or go to food pantries. They don’t see the pantry food given to them for what it is – our tax dollars at work. They overlook the fact that all the produce is diverted from a landfill. Most of the diverted produce in our area is both organic and gorgeous as well.
Instead, they see themselves as poor planners unable to care for themselves in their old age. They don’t take into account that the rules have drastically changed since 2008. Many senior citizens are afraid to ask for help getting SNAP or finding a pantry because they’re afraid that if someone finds out they don’t have enough food, they’ll end up in an assisted living center or nursing home.
Several weeks ago Sara called me from an apartment complex located in the forest off Route 28 in Ulster County. “Thurman, I want to thank all of you at the Reservoir Food Pantry for delivering food to us out here weekly. We’re miles from a grocery store or pharmacy and without your deliveries many of us would go hungry. In fact, recently, Mary was going hungry. I found out last month that she was completely out of food because she spent her food budget money on a birthday gift for a grandchild.
Thurman, I got myself in my scooter and rode from apartment to apartment asking for food from all the residents for her so she wouldn’t be hungry.”
This story really sends a message. When you realize that the woman telling me the story of how she went from apartment to apartment had lost both legs at the hip and one arm at the elbow. Her efforts to get food for a neighbor were astounding considering her obstacles.
When they finally reach the point where they can’t buy food anymore, seniors run a risk of getting sick which puts an additional burden on the children and grandchildren who will have to care for them. I know I don’t want to put this burden on my children. I feel that I’m not alone with this attitude. Food pantries are there for the hungry. Elderly poor are loathe to visit them. Instead of seeing a pantry for what it is: their tax dollars at work, they see only the shame of it all. Pantries are still taboo in our country. So, rather than experience the shame, they go without food.
Most pantries offer a three-day supply of food. Many offer fresh, organic produce, fresh dairy products, and freshly baked breads.
Hunger in America is a true hidden tragedy. No one in this great nation of ours should go hungry. When people, older people, experience living without sufficient food, it’s a crime.
Thank you for reading this blog/book.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
