Today, families all over the country are gathering for Thanksgiving, a holiday whose general theme of sharing (and gorging) serves as the unofficial start to the holiday season, despite the stores who had garland and wreaths on display before they could mark down the leftover Halloween candy.
For many, that gorging isn’t guaranteed. For many, it’s a struggle just to pay bills, let alone decide whether to have cheddar or buttermilk biscuits with their 20-pound turkeys and cornbread stuffing.
This year, as in years past, Packet Publications collaborated with HomeFront, the Lawrence-based organization that provides assistance to homeless and in-transition families, in its annual holiday food drive. Participants were asked to assemble a laundry list of traditional Thanksgiving items into convenient, all-in-one baskets, to be given out to the people HomeFront serves.
Our readers were very generous this year, with our offices in Princeton, Hopewell and Allentown serving as evidence. In total, over 50 baskets, and several bags of loose items, were collected from the three locations and delivered to HomeFront this week.
And HomeFront is not the only organization providing folks with a meal for the holidays. Others, from school programs to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, to the national Sikhcess initiative — which prepared thousands of meals right here in Lawrence last weekend — have mobilized, as they do every year, to make sure no one goes hungry.
But hunger continues after Thanksgiving is over, after Christmas is over, after the “holiday season” is over. There is always a need for help, regardless of whether a holiday is attached. That’s why Connie Mercer, executive director of HomeFront, encourages those donating to the organization’s basket drive to also consider donating items families may need beyond the holidays, such as other food items, toiletries and so on.
”Many of our families need to eat the day after (Thanksgiving) and the next day,” she notes every year in the basket drive notice that appears in this paper.
We agree. Donation shortages begin to ramp up almost immediately after Jan. 1. While it may seem like the number of hands out there looking for help is insurmountable, every little bit counts all year round. A can of food here, a handful of coins in a collection jar there, a clothing donation elsewhere. It’s not going to end the need but it will certainly be a step in the right direction. And this mindset can extend well beyond one situation we’d like to address and into many of the difficulties and injustices we encounter, from the hungry person sleeping in the park to the trash that ends up there from someone who doesn’t realize how lucky he has it. It’s possible.
Rethinking how we live our lives, and how we may serve others, is the first step toward doing what we can to improve our world. If you gave your money, time or purchased something on behalf of someone else who needs it more this Thanksgiving, thank you.
