Why Meat?

Ever see those TV commercials that are trying to talk you out of your money? I imagine they send camera crews out into villages with instructions to find the saddest, most depressing images they can find in an attempt to put you on just the right kind of guilt trip. The plan, it seems to me, is to make you feel so horrible that you are compelled to throw some money at their cause.

The answer to the question "Why Meat" is simple. Meat is smiles. I don't want to drive an effort to keep the sad faces alive. Someone else is already on that one. It's important and I believe in it but that's not what 100 pounds of meat is about. This project is trying to provide some upgrades.

The way I see it, the food pantries are oriented to providing the necessities. Things like pasta, rice and dry beans are essential, inexpensive, and they last a long time on the shelf. I've participated in a food drive or two over the years and I see lots of can goods and dry foods. They keep well, they're easy to manage, they sustain life. These kinds of food are the main stream of "food for the poor" efforts, as they should be.

Meat, on the other hand, isn't quite as necessary. You can get by without it. It costs more and is a bit tougher to manage, but let's face it -- meat is more fun.

At some point during the current economic down turn I had an epiphany (that's a lawyer word for having an "ah ha!" moment) and realized that the lines around "the poor" are getting a bit blurry. The poor used to be this nebulas group of people struggling for survival. The poor were the pathetic images of little children on the TV with skeleton faces and their ribs clearly defined. The poor were living under bridges and wandering around town pushing shopping carts and mumbling to themselves. The poor were standing on the corner waving a paper cup containing some change at you as you looked the other way and hurried by.

There are hundreds, even thousands of charities working to help those people. If you support one (or more) of them, keep it up. You're doing good work.

Michelle and I spent some time in a local food pantry last week and none of those "poor people" showed up. The folks who came by for some help were parents struggling to keep their kids fed but they look more like my neighbors than they look like those images of "the poor".

The truth is, 75% of the people in this country are only a paycheck or two away from serious financial difficulties. All it takes is a corporate downsize, a lay off, and 4 months without finding work and suddenly the person who sat next to you at work is trying to figure out how to keep the lights on and feed the kids.

Those folks need a little help. They don't need help forever. They're working on the problem and they'll get if fixed but for now, they're supplementing the necessities with help from folks like you and me.

The current system is working at full capacity. They are passing out the pasta, rice, beans, and can goods. The system is helping people get by and working the way it's designed to work.

My desire is that the 1000 pounds of meat program will poke a little fun into the bags with the cans of corn and boxes of rice. My vision is a picture of a 8 year old coming in from play, asking what was for dinner, and being shocked when the answer is "Pork Chops" rather than "Beans and Rice". My mind's eye sees little a little family eating faster than usual because there's less pieces of chicken left than little mouths and the last one done might not get seconds.

I like those images much better than dirty little kids sitting in a run down shack with sad eyes. That's why I'm working on meat. The efforts to feed "the poor" is a noble one and I hope you're helping but sometimes you need to step back from the mind numbing sadness. When that happens take a break from the rice and beans and let's throw some hamburgers out there!