Alicia Croft

Instructor: Angela Berdahl

Charity Essay

A Mother’s Struggle

Dinah Crowley, a stay at home mother of two daughters, was finding it difficult to make ends meet on her husband’s meager paycheck. With four mouths to feed and bills to pay, trips to the grocery store were few and far between. Unfortunately, this is all to common for many families in Oregon. In 1999, the USDA ranked Oregon sixth in the nation for food insecurity and worst in the nation for outright hunger. More than half a million Oregonians receive emergency food boxes each year. Nearly a fifth of the children in our lovely state are going hungry right now.

Thankfully Oregon has several programs available to low–income families, like the Crowleys . Emergency food boxes are available once every thirty days from the Oregon Food Bank, who sends the food boxes to several Churches through out the Portland area and surrounding counties. Many families, however, find sitting in a waiting room with too many people, and not enough seating, a hassle and some can ill afford the time off work or time away from their families to go through this process for help. For those families there are other options.

One program that is available to low-income families is Tualatin Valley Gleaners. This program runs from May to October and costs a minimal $5 a month. Sarah Hall, a friend of Mrs. Crowley’s, is a single mother of two children. Ms. Hall works full time and attends night school. Between all the stresses in her life she has an additional burden-- the inability to provide enough food for her children.

Rather than cutting meal sizes or even cutting out a meal all together, like some families do when they haven’t the money to buy more food, Ms. Hall looked into other possibilities. In this search she discovered Tualatin Valley Gleaners, an excess harvest gleaning food program for low income families. Once a month she has the ability to pay her five dollars and pick up fresh fruit and vegetables from the Beaverton Community Center. In any given month, a Gleaners participant may volunteer their own time at the Community Center, preparing boxes and bags of food for other participants. Volunteers are permitted to take home anything that is left over after all the participants have picked up their allotted amount of food. Ms. Hall has volunteered her time and efforts in the Gleaners program, bringing home so many boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables that she gave eight large boxes containing corn, lettuce, cabbage, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, peas, carrots, apples and many other healthy foods to her daycare provider, while she took the remaining two-thirds of her days food to her own home.

Mrs. Crowley heard about Gleaners and another local program from Ms. Hall and other mothers from the area, who have been encountering the similar financial problems. Since Mr.Crowley works on Saturdays, it was nearly impossible for Mrs. Crowley to spend an entire day away from her daughters, much less bring anything home as she does not drive. She opted, instead, for another program that is available in Beaverton, Brown Bag.

The Brown Bag program receives their food donations from the Oregon Food Bank, Church members, and community food drives. For an annual fee of $15, a family meeting the income guidelines, may come to Saint Bartholomew’s Church, on Southwest Cabot street in Beaverton, on the second Friday of each month to receive their brown bags filled to the brim with food. In these bags, families receive anywhere from four to eight loaves of bread, canned foods, fresh vegetables and fruit, and even pastries or other sweets. St. Barty’s, as the Church is affectionately referred, believes that low-income families deserve a sweet treat as much as any one else. This program helps the Crowley family stretch Mr. Crowley’s weekly paychecks and their daughters no longer go to bed with their bellies rumbling with hunger.

According to Mrs. Crowley the Brown Bag program has provided more than just food for her family, it has provided security. They do not have to worry about whether or not they have enough food to last the rest of the month, they know that after paying their annual fee there will always be something waiting for them at St. Barty’s.

Through these programs, two mothers struggling to make ends meet, have also discovered an offshoot of Gleaners and Brown Bag -- the Holiday Gift basket program. To participate in this program families must also meet the federal poverty guidelines. Holiday Gift Basket matches a needy family to a donor family. The donor family arrives at the needy family's home usually the week before Christmas to deliver traditional holiday foods such as turkey, potatoes, pies, and even gifts for each family member. According to the Oregonian "Organizers at the Oregon Food Bank in Washington County predict nearly 7,000 families -- 600 more than last year and nearly 1,500 more than in 2000 -- will apply this season for the Holiday Basket Program". Ever more donor families are needed as they also expect at least 1,000 applications delivered after the deadline.

According to a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture "Nearly 6% of Oregon households [are] going hungry and more than 12% of households [are] at-risk of hunger (not consistently able to afford an adequate diet)." Many of these hungry families are not aware of the programs available to them, or are too ashamed to participate. Far too many people fear ridicule of joining these programs, going hungry in silence.

It is difficult to imagine that so many families are still going hungry, this reality is hard to accept. How do we, as a community, allow our members to go hungry? Imagine if you will, Mrs. Crowley’s daughters eating nothing but plain popcorn and water for their meals this past weekend, their brown bag supplements having run out already. Even with the aid of these programs, families will still be hungry. As hard as the volunteers work, and as much as community members donate there is still a large shortage of food for these hungry families.

These programs need help, in abundance. The Holiday Gift Basket program needs more families to donate their time and love to another family, the Oregon Food Bank needs more money and food donations to fill the desperate need, not only in this holiday season, but year round. In addition to money, food, time and love for their fellow people, these hunger relief programs need more volunteers.

Some may not realize that a great deal of the volunteers for these programs -- working themselves to the bone, lifting heavy boxes, carrying them up flight after flight of stairs delivering the food to families who cannot find a way to the donation centers -- are elderly.

One of the men who delivers emergency food boxes is 96 years old and in failing health. He did not want his name revealed stating "God sent me to help, not to take the glory of helping others."

This amazing man carries between four and six boxes laden with canned goods, gallons of milk and other necessities to each home he has been assigned each day, sometimes carrying these boxes as many as four flights of stairs. He says, "the Lord has given me the strength to perform my Christian duties as He would. He needs my health, my strength to carry out His Word and to act as He would were he on this earth today. I don’t do this to earn a seat in Heaven, I received that gift when I embraced Christ, I do this because it is His will that no child go hungry in this great land. I am His hands, here to do what He cannot."

One does not have to be a follower of Christ to volunteer their time at the Churches that lovingly dole out food to the needy. It may be hard to believe but the Pagan and Wiccan community also works with the Churches to collect donations. Each year in September, Portland Pagan Pride hosts a festival in downtown Portland. They offer free admission with food donation to Esther’s Pantry, who provides food and personal care items to those living with AIDS.

Helping those in need is where people from all religious paths come together. Granted, the mental imagery of a Witch and a Catholic Nun working side by side to fill food baskets may be amusing, if not outright odd, but this is what charity and love for our fellow people is all about. There is no hatred amongst the volunteers, they are all working for the same cause, as there is no shame in accepting their aid when you really need it.

The Crowley family is lucky to live in Oregon which offers more than other western states in their emergency food boxes. In California their family would only receive a small paper bag with some rice and outdated canned goods. When their food ran out this past weekend, they knew they would be able to obtain the additional aid needed by calling Care to Share, a organization that receives food from the Oregon Food Bank and delivers it to needy families. Thanks to the donations families in Oregon will receive five times the amount of food that most Californian families will this month.

All of the organizations mentioned in this essay need your help in order to continue providing aid to families like the Crowley’s and the Hall’s. If you would like to donate your time, money or food please contact one or more of the organizations I have listed below with their telephone numbers, Help them make this holiday season bright and merry for a needy family.

Brown-Bag Program : (503)439-6510

Care to Share: (503) 646-8378

Esther’s Pantry : (503)281-8868

Loaves and fishes : (503)643-8352

Oregon Food Bank: (503) 282-0555 _{*The Oregon Food
Bank is also in charge of the Holiday Gift Basket.}

St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church: (503) 644-3468

Tualatin Valley Gleaners : (503)439-6510