Become A Hero To A Hungry Kid

The world needs more heroes. Not the kind in leotards and capes, but the ones who show up with a bag of food and turn hunger into hope for a hungry child. Heroes like my friends Lisa and Vince, who do this every week for more than 1,000 hungry children through Kitchen on the Street, a non-profit agency they founded.

They have help, of course. Help from more than 1,800 friends like you and me. Folks who have discovered what a few hours of time, a few dollars, and a few cans of food can do. To a hungry child looking for his or her next meal, it’s nothing short of heroic – even miraculous. You can read about it in my latest column for the Arizona Republic. http://t.co/QO80J6lH8C

Looking for the Christ In Christian

At the risk of sounding self-important, or worse yet, all “Jesusy” as Anne LaMott likes to phrase it, I find myself with a lingering taste of anger and injustice that borders on moral outrage. I know, I know… “moral outrage” comes dangerously close to hyperbole, but it’s the phrase that comes closest to describing my feelings after reading a survey sent to my husband by a conservative Christian lobbying group.

And no, this is not a political rant. My husband is the politician; I am not. Since this is my blog and not his, I’m not writing about politics so whether you lean left or right, it’s safe to keep reading.

I am not overly political. I am, however, a Christian. Not a great one – certainly not one that feels morally superior enough to push my faith onto others. Most often, I find myself embarrassed by the made-for-TV televangelists who preach prosperity or conservative patriotism as tenants of the Christian faith. I don’t believe in that kind of religion – but I do believe in Christ.

To put it more succinctly, “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible…” My theology has enough room to accommodate those who raise their hands and speak in tongues along with those who raise the chalice and believe in an epiclesis that results in trans-substantiation. But my theology, let alone my patience, has no room for any form of faith that does not hold at its core “religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…” Stated another way, faith is defined as loving God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and loving your neighbor as yourself.

When my husband received a survey from a conservative Christian lobbying group for their voter guide, I expected their questions to reflect these priorities. I expected they would want to know of those running for political office in Arizona their stance on improving quality of living factors in our state. It seemed reasonable they would want a thoughtful answer on difficult subjects such as subsidizing health care for poor kids or improving social services that increase child safety and prevent child abuse.

I was wrong. Not one question addressed the more than 1 in 4 children who live in poverty in Arizona. Not a single question about how to serve more than 12,000 children in our state foster care system. There was no opportunity to address the 29+% of Arizona’s children who experience food insecurity – a polite way of saying they don’t have enough to eat on a consistent basis. No question was asked about how to improve our state unemployment rate of approximately 9% – more than 17% when you factor in those who are underemployed or working multiple jobs to make ends meet.

Instead, they asked the following. “Please indicate whether you support (S) or oppose(O).”

• Prohibiting touching or tipping dancers and fully nude performances in sexually oriented businesses.
• Prohibiting abortion except when it is necessary to prevent the death of the mother.
• Allowing slot machines and table games off Indian reservations.
• Government granting unmarried domestic partners the same employee and health benefits as married couples.
• Amending the United States Constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
• Extending the current 60-day waiting period for divorces that involve minor children in order to encourage reconciliation.
• Passing state laws that authorize local law enforcement officials to enforce federal immigration laws.

No questions about feeding the hungry. Clothing the naked. No questions about caring for “the least of these” in our state and society. Just a simple – one might say simplistic – “support” or “oppose.” Yes or no. Black or white. No shades of gray. No space for discussion. No room for mercy.

Their voter guide won’t have any information about my husband. He didn’t bother to fill out their survey. That’s okay. Their survey doesn’t have any information about the God I know.

As he’s campaigning, I’ve asked my husband to keep his focus on what Scripture defines as important. Widows. Orphans. The hungry. The naked. The “least of these.” Unfortunately in Arizona, it’s a list long enough to keep him busy for years to come.

As far as I’m concerned, this “Christian” lobbying group can keep their voter guide. I’ll make my voting choices based on people serious about ensuring Arizona’s kids go to bed educated, safe, and fed. Politicians will earn my vote when they make “the least of these” their priority. Once we’ve solved these fundamental priorities, we can then afford to turn our attention to the wisdom of amending our nation’s Constitution and deciding on whether or not to tip nude performers. Until then, we have real problems and real issues to address – both as citizens and people of faith.

That’s the real Gospel. The real priority. That’s the Christ I expect to see in anything that bears the title of Christian.

Yesterday

Every once in a great while, you get the privilege of being part of something that is bigger than you could have ever dreamed… more hopeful than your best expectations… more holy than a prayer. Yesterday was one of those days.

Yesterday more than 100 volunteers from all over the Valley came together to help Kitchen on the Street serve more than 1,600 people at three events taking place at two school campuses in greater Phoenix. If you were walking in my shoes, you’d know the miracle of that statement.

Three years ago, Kitchen on the Street started because my dear friends, Lisa and Vince Scarpinato, listened with their hearts as my husband, Dennis, shared the story of a little girl at one of his schools who went hungry at nights and on weekends. A few days before Dennis died, they emailed us, telling him not to worry anymore about the little girl – they would be feeding her and other kids like her.

What began as a handful of neighbors packing food for 15-20 kids each week in Lisa and Vince’s backyard has turned into an all-volunteer agency feeding more than 300 kids every week in nine Valley schools. Our first year of operation, we brought in roughly $7,200 in donations and provided 4,600 meals. We just closed our third year with roughly $70,000 in donations… more than 45,000 meals distributed… and thousands of lives touched with the love of Christ in the process.

Yesterday I had the privilege of seeing some of their faces. We worked in collaboration with St. Mary’s Food Bank, the largest food bank in Phoenix, to distribute 12 pallets of food. More than 225 families lined up more than an hour before the distribution began, waiting to receive bags of fresh produce for their families. I had the opportunity to look into the eyes of mothers – their eyes shining with gratitude for the opportunity to feed their children. And I watched as little children played together while waiting in line, their faces filled with hope because our volunteers were there to extend help in the name of Christ. As the last person went through the line, we discovered we had provided food to at least 1,000 people – many of them children.

More than 225 families lined up to receive fresh food distributed by Kitchen on the Street, in collaboration with St. Mary's Food Bank.

For many families, this food distribution is a lifeline.

Kitchen on the Street volunteers distribute bread, salad, squash, and other fresh food that is often beyond the reach of families living in poverty.

There were as many children as adults in the line, waiting to receive food.

Fresh food given by hands extended in the name of Christ.

The hope was palpable as moms left with food for their families.

An hour later, I was at another event on the same campus. Humana Healthcare had sent 30 volunteers to help us pack 600 bags of food for our Bags of Hope program distributed in local public schools. Many of the volunteers had brought their children and I was able to share stories with them of some of the children they would be feeding as the result of their effort.

Humana volunteers brought their children to help pack 600 Bags of Hope for distribution in local public schools.

I watched as mothers fought back tears when I told their children the story of two elementary-aged sisters and their pre-school-aged brother. Mom has stage IV cancer and dad is long gone. In a few months, these children will be orphans. But for now, the food provided by Kitchen on the Street means this family has one less thing to worry about as they make memories together and cherish the precious time they have left.

The children worked with purpose, knowing their efforts were feeding kids just like them in schools just like theirs.

The eyes of one of the little girls listening to the stories grew wide when I told of a little girl who was referred to the school principal for scamming her classmates out of their lunch money. As the principal asked questions, she discovered that the little girl’s house had partially burned down. Having nowhere else to go, the family is still living in this shell of a home with no food and no money. The little girl wasn’t intending to be “naughty,” but only wanted enough money to buy food. Instead of being suspended, this child was referred to Kitchen on the Street. We’re now feeding her and have had the opportunity to share information with her family about additional resources in their community.

Father and son work side by side, packing boxes filled with Bags of Hope to be delivered to local schools.

Yesterday, dozens of volunteers arrived at one of our partner schools. Armed with garbage bags, gloves, sponges, and cleaning supplies, they worked for hours sprucing up the campus. With schools facing severe budget shortages, janitors’ hours are being cut, which means classrooms are becoming dirty. Our volunteers wiped down desks, picked up trash, and pulled weeds. On Monday morning, hundreds of students will return to classrooms brightened by the help and hope given as a gift by our volunteers.

Yesterday was a good day. Hope won. In a neighborhood blighted by poverty and violence, food was given out in the name of Christ. Culture and language was no barrier to love. The sound of children laughing was heard as they carried home bags of food for their families. And because yesterday was a good day for Kitchen on the Street, tomorrow will be even better for a child whose hunger has been turned into hope.

It's donations from people like you who make hope possible in the lives of children served by Kitchen on the Street. Thank you for giving generously!

To learn more about our all-volunteer agency, making a tax-deductible donation, or volunteering your time, please visit the website, KitchenOnTheStreet.org.

Once Upon A Time

Strangely enough, I feel compelled to begin today’s musings with the words, “Once upon a time…” Even at the ripe old age of 42, these words still coax a smile from my lips. They form some of the earliest memories of my childhood and served as imagination’s gateway to fairytale lands and adventures filled with princesses in peril and dashing princes rushing headlong into danger on magnificent white horses. So real were those worlds and words, I became convinced at an early age that everyone’s life story should begin with the words, “Once upon a time,” and end with, “and they lived happily ever after.”

It sucks to grow up and realize that beautiful princesses sometimes turn into lonely, exiled queens and mighty white steeds eventually become sway-backed old hacks. Somewhere in between your first kiss and first child, you discover Prince Charming’s inability to put down the toilet seat and realize that stately old castle is, in reality, a drafty, leaky, crumbling money-pit. These are the tragedies of growing up and out of an instinctual tendency to romanticize the surrounding world. It’s sad – even for a 42-year-old. But it’s downright cruel when life’s hard lessons begin before childhood ends.

I am passionate about the right of children to be just that – children. Carefree. Imaginative. Innocent. It breaks my heart that too many of them never get the chance to thrill to the hope of “once upon a time,” let alone have a shot at “happily ever after.”

Yesterday, I once again came face-to-face with that reality as I sat in a meeting with a group of volunteers forming a partnership with a local school. We were there because almost 20% of the children in attendance don’t have enough to eat. They often miss meals at nights and on weekends. This group of vigilante volunteers has the audacity to believe that children going to bed hungry in this, the most prosperous country on earth, is unconscionable, not to mention unacceptable. So we’re doing something about it.

For quite awhile, I listened as the principal described the needs of the children – dozens of them literally homeless; 33-percent of them so transient, they won’t even complete a single school year at that location; more than 97-percent of the students qualifying for the federal free and reduced lunch program due to poverty. And then this principal said something that stunned me. “We make hard decisions all the time. If you don’t have enough money to feed all of our kids, we understand. We’ll appreciate whatever you can give and decide who gets to eat and who doesn’t.”

Stop and consider the enormity of those words. Please put yourself in the position of having to choose which hungry children eat and which ones don’t. Now you know what I felt like sitting across the table from that principal. But even that is nothing compared to what the children feel everyday as hunger eclipses the promise of their young lives and starves any hope of “happily ever after.”

More than anything, I want to be able to look that principal in the eyes and tell him hunger isn’t an option. I want to turn the page in the lives of these children and create that once upon a time moment when hunger is turned into hope.

What about you?

Right now, Kitchen on the Street – an all-volunteer non-profit agency – is feeding more than 280 children every week at nine local schools. We’d like to add these children to that list. With your help, it’s possible.

On Saturday, March 6^th at 9 a.m., we’re holding our annual fundraising hike at North Mountain Park in Phoenix. We’re committed to raising $5,000 so we can turn hunger into hope in the lives of children. If you live in the Phoenix area, please register for the hike and/or give a gift that will feed local children. Your gift is tax-deductible and there is no greater return on investment than knowing you’ve turned hunger into hope in the life of a child!

In two weeks, I’ll be meeting again with this principal. I’ll walk down the halls of the school and look into the eyes of children who cannot envision the possibility of consistent meals. He’s going to ask me how many of them we’ll be able to feed. I’m praying I’ll be able to answer, “All of them.” That’s the happily ever after for which I’m praying.

To learn more about the Dennis Cagle Hike for Hunger benefitting Kitchen on the Street or to make a tax-deductible donation, please visit http://www.kitchenonthestreet.org.

The Stories We Tell

It’s strange how the lives of people I’ve never met become part of who I am. Like ghosts of past or parallel lives, they haunt my existence, piquing my curiosity about matters of ethics, morality, faith, and beauty. Sometimes they are saints who come alive through their writings; others are artists, capturing for my eyes and soul the beauty illuminated and translated through their own. Frequently, these ghosts both frustrate and inspire me, causing me to stretch to become a better version of the person I am at the moment.

For several weeks now, I’ve been thinking about one of these people – a little girl I know through Dennis. He met her in the “cafegymatorium” at one of the schools he led. The lunch lady called Dennis and asked him to come and talk to a kid who was acting “funny.” Dennis went in and saw a little girl quietly going from table to table, picking through the food left behind by the other children. “Honey, what are you doing?” Dennis asked her. Shyly, the little girl explained to Dennis that she and her brothers and sisters didn’t have enough to eat at home. She was collecting leftovers to try and find enough food to feed them some sort of dinner.

When Dennis came home from work that night, he told me this little girl’s story. He spoke of her big eyes. He was incredulous and angry that the hunger in this little girl’s stomach was eclipsing the promise of her young life. As he spoke of her, he began to weep, tears running down his cheeks. He held my hand and asked, “How is she supposed to do well in school when she doesn’t know where her next meal is coming from? How can she learn when she’s hungry?”

Dennis could not forget this young child, and it was no surprise that it was her story he told when our friends, Lisa and Vince, had us over for dinner and asked how things were going at his schools. They listened quietly – as Dennis liked to say, they listened with their hearts. And that night, the little girl’s story became part of their own.

It wasn’t long after that dinner that Dennis and I learned he was fighting cancer – and three weeks later he was gone. But a few days before he died, Lisa and Vince sent Dennis an email telling him that because he had cared enough to tell her story, the little girl – and many more like her – would no longer be hungry. They had been inspired to found Kitchen on the Street, an all-volunteer agency that partners with schools to provide weekend/evening meals to children who would otherwise go hungry. Dennis cried when he learned that dozens of children were being fed each week. Today, that number has grown to more than 250 children every week being fed through Kitchen on the Street.

I never met this little girl. And for months after Dennis died, I was too overwhelmed with grief and exhaustion to care much about the efforts of the agency inspired by her story. But, like my husband, I couldn’t forget her. Still can’t. Her life… her plight… her story continues to haunt me. And now, she has become a part of who I am. This little girl, with her big eyes and heavy heart, both pleads with and demands for me to continue helping – not so much for her anymore, but for the thousands of children like her who go to bed every night with the pain of hunger gnawing in their stomachs and hearts.

This Thursday night, I’ll have the opportunity to share her story with hundreds of people who will be gathering for a jazz concert benefiting Kitchen on the Street. Hopefully through my words, they’ll see her big eyes… feel her hunger… and find her story becoming part of their own.

If you live in the Phoenix area, I invite you to join me at “Jazz Under the Stars,” a benefit concert for Kitchen on the Street. To learn more about KOS and the concert, please visit their website, http://www.KitchenOnTheStreet.org.

Originally written October 13, 2009