Feeding the Hungry

My wife and I have been cooking at home a lot recently because we are trying to eat a little healthier, however last night we decided we wanted to grab something quick and easy from outside. So we decided on going to Taco Bell. While going through the drive thru and placing our order, the Taco Bell employee asked if we would like to donate a $1 to end world hunger. At first I said no thank you (because these days "no" is such an automatic answer regardless of what the question is), but when I was pulling up to the window and actually had time to process what he had asked me, this was obviously a good cause. I told him go ahead and add the $1 onto my order. While waiting for our food, I saw a sign in their window that said $1 feeds four children... 4 children!!! And that's not even for 1 meal, that is for the WHOLE DAY! I had to read it a couple of times because I was in disbelief... Being a parent it breaks my heart knowing that there are so many children out there in the world that go hungry every day. If I can't even imagine how it must feel to have your child tell you that they are hungry and there is nothing you can do about it.

These days we, as a society, community, family, and an individual, take practically EVERYTHING for granted. Especially something like having the ability to choose what we would like to eat for dinner, rather than wondering if we might be eating at all that day. There are millions of people around the world that go hungry every day and until just last night, I never really took it into consideration when my mom would tell me when I was a kid, "eat your food, there are hungry people in Africa that would kill to have the choices you have." It really put things back into perspective for me and opened my eyes as to how much we waste while someone else could have benefited.

Just by googling "end world hunger" I came across a number of companies that donate food to various parts of the world through your donations. The one I liked the most was this site FreeRice.com You can actually play a vocabulary, math, science, etc type of multiple choice game and for every answer you get right they donate 10 grains of rice for FREE! Within about five minutes I donated 500 grains of rice and it did not cost me anything. Obviously this is such a small contribution, however if a lot of people did a small part, it ends up being quite large. They have a place on their website where you can donate if you wanted to give more. FreeRice has generated enough rice to feed millions of people since it started in October 2007.

Everyone has a different definition, perspective, view on what ultimate serenity means to them. For the hungry, their serenity is being able to have the something to eat.