Only The Good Friday #3

Hey, it’s Friday and time for Only The Good! If you want to join me in trying to spread an “optimism virus,” just post and then come tell me. I hope you will!

So did y’all have yourself a big breakfast this morning? You know that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. If you didn’t have breakfast, I bet you can run to the cupboard right now and grab a bite to eat (unless, like me, you were too busy voting and didn’t get groceries).

I had a bowl of yukky nutritious oatmeal. Though it isn’t my favorite meal, it is healthy and good for me. I’m trying hard to look at the positive side of oatmeal — but, I have to look a little to find it. The best thing about that oatmeal is that I’m not hungry.

There are folks who are hungry.

I know you are thinking, “Wait a doggone minute, Shelly, you said only the good!”

Don’t get your underwear in a twist, I’m getting to it. I have good news, but, I must tell y’all the bad news before I move on:

According to the World Food Programme. there are 923 million people in the world who are chronically hungry (more than the combined populations of the United States, Japan and the European Union). Their website says, “Today, one in nearly seven people do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life, making hunger and malnutrition the number one risk to health worldwide — greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.”

That’s depressing, I know. But, I want to tell you Five Simple Ways you can help the hungry, and two of them won’t cost you a dime!

NUMBER ONE
The first is a learning game! My friend Jamie told me about it a long time ago. Click on the bowl or this link to FreeRice. It is a sister site of Poverty.com, which partners with the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and the United Nations World Food Program.

Now when you click over there, you will see a vocabulary word with four possible definitions. Click on the definition you think is right. If you are correct, you’ve just donated twenty grains of rice to the hungry.

“How is this possible, Shelly? you ask.

Oh, ye of little faith! Here is the answer to that question, according to the website:

The rice is paid for by the sponsors whose names you see on the bottom of your screen when you enter a correct answer. These sponsors support both learning (free education for everyone) and reducing hunger (free rice for the hungry).

Here is how it works. When you play the game, sponsor banners appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these banners is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people.

When I was writing this, so far there have been 48,707,435,630 grains of rice donated since October 7th, 2007 … enough rice for two million meals.

If vocabulary isn’t your thing, you can learn: to identify famous paintings; or chemical symbols; to identify countries on the map; World Capitals; French; German; Italian; Spanish; or practice multiplication tables! I’m putting the site as the “home page” on my Firefox, so that when I open the internet each day in November I can play until I have earned 500 grains of rice. How cool is that? I can learn Spanish and donate food at the same time.

NUMBER TWO:

You can click that image to visit The Hunger Site and donate the equivalent of 1.1 cups of food to the hungry. Teamouse led me to this one over a year ago. It’s quicker, but not as much fun. When you get to the site, be sure to click the link that says “Click to Give,” and it will tell you that your click was counted (and show you all the sponsors who made that donation possible). You can even click on the “link to us” and get an image for your blog. They have buttons that are less depressing.

NUMBER THREE:

While you are at the Hunger Site, you might notice that they have a store! You can do every bit of your Christmas shopping right there … and be feeding the hungry at the same time. Won’t you feel virtuous?

NUMBER FOUR

“Feed souls with songs and bodies with meals.” That’s the motto of Feed Them With Music. This Minneapolis based organization was founded by Paul Frantzich, of of The Brothers Frantzich (a traveling “sacred-folk” music duo). Since 2007, they have contributed 50,000 meals worldwide. How? You can download music from their site for $1.00, and each download delivers one hot meal to the needy.

Here is one of their videos, and I think it explains it better than I do. You also get to hear a song! Take three minutes and twenty-two seconds to find out more.

NUMBER FIVE
Find your local food bank. Don’t just wait for the food drives at Thanksgiving and Christmas! People are hungry all year long.

Now, I’m going to tell y’all that I once was the director of a food bank, and I can assure you that people forget to donate during the rest of the year. A food bank will gladly take canned goods, but quite honestly, they can do more with your money than you can. They get discounts and they can buy in bulk.

Don’t have a lot of cash? Get a jar (a large one, don’t be stingy!) and start saving pennies, nickels, and dimes. When the jar is full, hand it over to the food bank without even counting it. They will gladly take it.

Or, as you go buy groceries, slip a can or two for the needy in your basket (chances are that you won’t even notice that extra dollar or two). Hide it in the back of the pantry and when you have an amount that is acceptable to you, drop it off at the food bank.

If you are going to donate canned goods (and lets face it — it feels more like a personal donation when you do), here are a few things I hope you remember:

• Don’t drop that can of cranberry sauce you didn’t use last Thanksgiving, or the year old can of Brussels sprouts into the bag. If you didn’t want it, don’t force it on the needy.
• Make sure that the can has not passed the expiration date!
• Often the food banks help homeless people who don’t have can openers. If you can donate cans that are self-opening, that’s a good thing.
• They might not have access to a heat source, either, so if you can donate something that doesn’t require cooking it will help.
• They need nutrition. Jars of peanut butter, cans of tuna or chicken, and hearty soups are good choices.

See how easy it is to help the world? Let’s go feed somebody. I’ll race you to 10,000 grains of rice!

Ready, set, go!

Related posts:

1. One Comment Equals One Can To The Food Bank
2. Now It’s Time For A Trip To The Food Bank
3. NOW You can Donate to the Camp Sanguinity Fund
4. I Donate Cans For Comments
5. Thursday Thirteen Number 29 Make A Difference

Tagged as: Only The Good Friday