Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Share Our Strength
Kathy Gunst
Share Our Strength Empty Plates documentary/Salt Institute
Tim Greenway
(page 1 of 2)
We all make choices about what we do with our time. Until recently I was one of those people who spent her time working, raising a family, planting a garden, and trying to be a good friend. I sent out checks at the end of the year to organizations I deemed worthwhile, but my public service was, simply put, limited. To be perfectly frank there weren’t many “extra” free hours in my day that needed to be filled. At least that’s what I used to think.Then I met Jim Britt. Stick with me; I promise this story is going somewhere. I was cooking and signing books at an event called “East Meets West,” at Arrows Restaurant in Ogunquit, Maine. Chefs from around the country gathered under a huge white tent to serve hundreds of people delicious food and sign their cookbooks. As I dished out salmon and ginger cakes, and lobster salad stuffed into crunchy endive spears to the extremely well-dressed crowd, I didn’t have a clue that my life was about to change. Jim Britt wanted to buy a book for his wife. I signed the book and he took out his wallet. He only had a $10 bill and the book was $30. He turned beet red (almost matching his shock of red hair) and mumbled all sort of apologies. “I’ll send you the money tomorrow,” he moaned with a look of huge embarrassment. “No problem,” I said and I meant it. Several days later a check came with an invitation to dinner with Britt and his wife, Gillian, who own a public relations agency in Portland. We talked for hours about restaurants, the food scene in Maine, kids, dogs, and more.
Then he mentioned Share our Strength. Britt was president of the southern Maine chapter of this national organization that helps fight childhood hunger. “Would you want to be on the board?” he asked innocently. Me? A board member? More time commitments? No way. I’m a busy woman.
I went home that night and couldn’t stop thinking about Share our Strength. I didn’t even know Maine had a serious childhood hunger issue. And in all honesty, it wasn’t something I had spent much time thinking about. So I did some research.
Here’s what I found out:
• 19,375 Maine children are hungry each day and an additional 64,087 children are at risk of hunger.
• Children living in households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger are more likely to have health or school-related problems.
• One out of every eight Maine residents receives Food Stamps.
• More than 108,000 Maine school children receive subsidized school lunches.
• 40% of school-age children in Maine are hungry or at risk for hunger, according to the Maine Millennium Commission on Hunger and Food Security.
• One-in-five Portland households are food insecure.
I thought about all these facts and figures for days. I thought about the girl in my oldest daughter’s kindergarten class who cried one morning when I was volunteering because she was so hungry. The next day I picked up the phone and called Britt. “I would love to join the board of Share our Strength,” I told him.
Posted on Wednesday, May 28, 2008 in Permalink
