As a schoolboy, I often thought of America, My country tis of thee, as the land of the free, as the land of the brave, and as America the Beautiful. Now a days, I also think of it as America, home of the hungry.
One out of six children in Nassau County doesn’t get enough food on a daily basis. One out of four seniors has to make a choice between buying medications they need and buying food.
Sometimes the choice is between rent and food.
And least we forget those who served our country fighting on foreign shores, 10 percent of all homeless people in the New York metro area are veterans.
Chances are good that those homeless vets are also scrambling to find enough food to sustain themselves.
I see all of these people, the children, the seniors, the veterans, every time I visit one of the Interfaith Nutrition’s 19 soup kitchens.
I see children who aren’t getting free lunches or breakfast at school because school is out for the summer. I see seniors who are trying to get by on one meal a day. I see veterans who are grateful for our treating them with dignity and respect while we serve our trademark chicken noodle soup.
This year the INN will serve more than 400,000 meals to America the hungry. More than 1,000 families will have access to our emergency shelters or transitional housing programs.
But as you might imagine there’s a cost to all of this—even though the INN never charges for any of the services it provides for our neighbors in need.
The price of all these meals is your generosity. Every $25 you send the INN, buys a hot, nutritious meal for 10 hungry men, women, and children.
So ask yourself, how many hungry Americans do I want to feed today?
Please make your check payable to: The Interfaith Nutrition Network. Donations may be mailed to: Dave Golbert, 7 Lee Court West, Great Neck, NY 11024.
Maybe we can change America the hungry into America the generous.
Which country would you rather live in?
Dave Golbert
Great Neck
