Challenge is over, but it doesn't stop here

It has been 2 weeks now, but the challenge is over.

The Food Pantry 1, Marcus 0.

My blood pressure is still high, and when landscaping I can feel my heart pounding harder and harder. So I know it is a week early, but we are throwing in the towel and calling it quits. I have gathered some great information, it was an interesting experiment and I feel for those who do not have the ability to call it off when they want to.

Over all if this was our lifestyle, I would have traveled to 8 food pantries in a months time. From my house to each of these pantries will be 96.3 miles each month. These are the closest 8 pantries from my house. If I lived further north, then I would double the amount of miles to get food. One of the 8 pantries was opened on Saturday. All the rest were closed by 5:00-except for one that I found open one day a week until 7:30. All together the 27 food pantries in Hamilton County are open 203.5 hours each week-that averages just 7 hours a week/pantry.

The above issues alone are more than an uphill battle. Add on top of it the other stresses of the family and I cant even imagine how people get through it. And we all know what happens when you have to go through frustration over and over again, when this becomes the new norm-how can you handle it. Domestic Abuse! Alcohol and Drug use! Crime! I am not defending any of these issues, but I can see clearly how one not only leads, but drives you to the other.


-Your not a human, your a name.

-You are a number that is helped (for the day-see you next month)

-You are helped in a way that makes me feel better-not you.

-Customer service-not here! We are serving the others-or are we?

-You are hungry? We still have food on the shelf at the end of the day, week and month.

-You can't open your food because you don't have a can opener? Sorry we only give out food.

-You can't afford food, well spend it on gas as you drive 100 miles to get food every month.

-Your family is sick, high blood pressure?-sorry here is another can of corn that has 120% of the daily sodium

-You don't like corn? Well I forgot to ask-so here's some corn.

-I am sorry I forgot your name, I already filed your card after making sure you weren't stealing from the pantry by coming twice this month.

-Here is a bag of pasta and a can of beans-we call that a meal, enjoy its better than nothing.

-You took off work early, lost pay to get here before we closed? Well it's 5:00, sorry you can come back tomorrow.

-I care enough to give you these two surprise bags of groceries, but not enough to even ask what's going on in your life that brought you to my door.


Is this what is has boiled down to? Is this what it means to care for those who are starving and are in need? Is this what Jesus had in mind when he said to feed the hungry, and cloth the naked?
This has opened my eyes to a whole system that use to make me feel good inside. I assumed people needed to give more of their money and time to fix the problem-and they do, but the problem is larger than that.
It saddens me to see what these "christian" help centers are doing and not doing.
It saddens me to see that my own church hasn't been helping Hamilton County.
It saddens me to see that I myself haven't done enough.

So what are you going to do?
The average house wastes 30% of all food that comes into their homes or on their plates. (If you don't think this is you-watch for the next month. Watch how much food is wasted as you cook, as you scrape off your families plates, the left overs you forgot to eat, as you throw away from the fridge that has gone bad.)
The average restaurant is in the 15-19%. Millions of pounds of food are being rescued each month from a few of the restaurants in the area-check out http://foodrescue.net/. How many millions (or billions) are being wasted from the homes?
It's not about finding money in your budget to give food to a pantry.
It's changing your mindset when it comes to food. How we use it, how we waste it, how we share it.
Its about taking care of those around us, those who are in need and are dying. I replaced the word starving with dying, because yes they are starving-but even when they get something to eat-it's not enough-it's not healthy, and they are dying.

I remember standing in the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, TN (if you haven't been to it, you really need to go-you will not be the same ever again). I stood there realizing that the only way poverty and hunger will go away, is the same way the racial issues were addressed. The way people were treated based on the color of their skin was unthinkable, and the way we treat those who are in poverty is unthinkable. Someone needs to stand up and say "NO MORE". No longer will we tolerate the treatment that is being given. This government, our state and our community needs to change-and the church needs to lead the charge. Hunger and poverty are not overwhelming unsolvable issues-and it's time that we stop treating them that way. I too have a dream-and it's one where Jesus' church unites together with the community and takes care of those in need. It's time to stand together and show others that they too can stand together in their community and do the same.

Read through Dr. King's famous speech and let the message of racial reconciliation echo into your heart to change what may need to still change. Then read it again and allow the words and issues change from race to poverty, to those who hunger and need us.

It's time to be the Church!

Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I Have a Dream"

delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds."

But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.

The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.

We cannot turn back.

There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating: "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until "justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."¹

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest -- quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "interposition" and "nullification" -- one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; "and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together."

This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with.

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!