FOOD GIVINGAre we making our problem more difficult at times by seeking always to keep them apart? Many of our difficulties have kindred strains of good a bad elements which make the, all too, often one and them same manifested in our lives at different levels and points of emphasis.
Poverty can be shown to be dependent in large measure to degrees of education. Any program combating problems of income and earnings, must ,then, be concerned in some way with provisions for improving education in some meaningful way to better prepare individuals to meet daily,life-sustaining requirements many of them must meet.
Too often we, as “government” or “special” adjunct groups of self-titled experts, hand out money for scholarships which are often spent in non-existent “schools” or units set up to absorb such amounts with little concern for the individual, or even the level of people, in actual need at the time. Far too often it is ultimately shown that such programs were politically inspired and manipulated.
And it is not in governmental giving alone where inconsistencies are evident in our charity efforts. It takes place at all levels at one time or another. I remember quite well my being on the edge of one church sponsored campaign not too long after the end of World War II. It offered farmers a special opportunity to send large burlap bags of grains directly to the starving people in Europe, Africa and Asia. We were to send the “real stuff” - whole grain right from our field – not fancy packaged or processed foodstuffs we had in excess here at home. I remember the flabber-gasted “I don’t know!” look I got when I asked: “How is the average African to make us of this raw barley grain to be his much-needed supper?” Later, it came to found that, on arrival such shipment of grain were, logically, snapped up by brewery makers and token payments may have made some native foods available to those in actual need eventually.
We can see quite easily see that not all so-called “ignorance” is no on the side of the downtrodden recipient of such aid. How ineptly we proffer assistance? I can imagine that actual payment of pledges made on many entertainment type fund drives is ever actually paid in full! We often see a lot of lightening, hear overwhelming claps of thunder but what about the steady rains of promised ready cash?
Our aid programs for people in the Gulf coast flood areas has been somewhat more disciplined, I think,largely because of the rather dismal by government response to the tremendous need. We saw "Giving goof we didn't even know we had. We learned a great deal - some of it the hard way. Now,let's put it to practical purpose.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 9-16-06 {c478wds]
