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This weekend, one of the charitable groups which I actively and financially support, Northwest Harvest, teamed with King5 TV in a “Home Team Harvest” campaign to raise through donations of both food and money to provide for 3 million meals to those in need in Washington.
Hunger, News
On this Black Friday, the Friday where we have 1 in 6 food-insecure, let us get our collective acts together and spend some of that Retail Therapy energy on hunger in America.
You can sit and watch the tragedy of hunger in the United States continue, or you can do something. I thank you for your action, your community thanks you for your action and those who will have a meal in their bowl and on their table due to your action thank you.
So often when we speak of hunger in the world, and specifically in the United States it occurs from a distance and in an impersonal manner, until it gets personal. Getting personal can occur when someone you know or someone you love finds themselves debating whether food is something which should be purchased today. Think about that for a minute. If you’ve never had such a thought, where will the food come for my or my family’s next meal, count yourself amongst the fortunate, but more than 50 million in the United States have such thoughts daily; more than 900,000,000 persons in this world we share have those thoughts daily. Please ask yourself, is it possible that the United States (the land of plenty) can have 1/20th of the world’s hungry within it’s population? Then, please ask yourself, what can I do.
Kudos to President Obama of the United States and President Dilma Vana Rousseff of Brazil for their discussion of jointly addressing global food security issues during President Obama’s recent visit to Brazil. As my readers know, I am a strong advocate of eradicating hunger in a world where abundance of food is a reality and the issues lay within the ability to distribute… While lacking visibiilty into the discussions in Brazil which occurred, I am hopeful that President Rousseff highlighted the initiative of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, (her hometown) where the municipality has outlawed hunger, rendering it illegal – successfully (see my piece, Hunger Should be Illegal). This model needs to be replicated and replicated widely.
Let us give thanks 85 percent of the households in the United States are food secure Let us give thanks our family is not amongst the remaining 15 percent, which equates to more than 50+ million persons who are food insecure. Let us give thanks our children are not amongst the one in one in ...
This morning I read an extraordinarily uplifting piece about the city of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. They have declared hunger to be illegal. I shalln’t recap the entire article (see link below), but allow me to highlight some of details with hopes that those reading can take the data and emulate in their own villages, towns and cities. In 1993, the city of 2.5 million had 275,000 in absolute poverty and 20% of the children suffering hunger. Fast forward to 2010, hunger is virtually non-existent and only 2% (two percent) of the city’s budget was used to achieve this result – how much was two percent, 2 million dollars – less than a dollar per constituent.
Author, Speaker, Humanitarian, Leader, Senior Security Advisor
My focus is on Safety, Security, Intelligence, Intellectual Property and Humanitarian issues.
I place particular emphasis on the protection of both the young and the elderly of our society.
You may contact me directly via:
Christopher@BurgessCT.com
