Hunger is all around us, even if we choose not to see

March 12, 2009

By Phillip Morris/Plain Dealer Columnist Tuesday March 10, 2009, 6:21 AM

Not counting the paper route, my first paying job was at an inner-city grocery store in Columbus.

That's when I first saw the face of hunger. But I didn't recognize it.

After school and on weekends, I bagged groceries and stocked produce. In addition, if a shopper needed help getting a purchase to the car, I would push the cart and chat them up.

The hope was that my reward for loading the trunk and waxing poetic with vacuous teenage verbiage would be more than a smile or an empty-handed thank you. I must have been irritating.

If I encountered a similarly transparent kid today, I would probably just ignore him or tell him to get his hands off my groceries.

When I reflect on that early work experience some 30 years later, I realize that I may have been part of a bigger problem. In my own little way, I unintentionally exploited hunger in Ohio's capital city. I hustled quarters or, if I was lucky, a buck, from some of Columbus' most desperate residents.

But I had no idea that they were poor. I was poor.

It didn't concern me that they paid for their purchases with food stamps. I had seen my mother use the same form of currency. I expected a gratuity for the courtesy of my smile and my willingness to push a wobbly shopping cart to the end of the parking lot.

Much has changed. But the reality of domestic hunger hasn't. It's growing at a staggering rate. I no longer enjoy the luxury of ignoring it.

Neither do you.

Food is fundamental. Those of us who eat have a moral obligation to at least consider the plight of those who are uncertain where the next meal will come from. You've heard this gospel before:

There are people in Greater Cleveland who went to sleep hungry last night and woke up even hungrier this morning.

They're not dieting.

I'm not talking about people that we are emotionally conditioned to ignore: The chronically homeless, vagrants who aggressively panhandle and the mentally ill who refuse help. Those folks know how to forage for food.

I'm talking about children. I'm talking about senior citizens. I'm talking about out-of-work and out-of-resources young families, who live just down the street. I'm talking about people who have lost jobs and are in the process of losing homes, cars -- and hope.

We must all pitch in.

Earlier this month, Harvest for Hunger kicked off its annual campaign. The effort provides food for 21 hunger centers in Northeast Ohio. Last year, $2.7 million and a half million pounds of food were collected.

But the need continues to spike as the economy continues to falter. The food bank reports that distribution in the four months of its fiscal year is already up 23 percent.

You can help by donating cash, $1, $5, $10, at any number of local grocers, or by visiting www.harvestforhunger.org. Or call (216)738-2046 for information on ways to help.

Hunger is non-partisan, non-political and non-negotiable.

If we deliberately fail to help our hungry now, who will help us in our time of need?

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March 12, 2009

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