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Giving thanks

Giving thanks

Posted November 25th, 2009 by brad

I hope that you and your family are preparing – as Meg, Marek, Rosa, and I are – for a restful and reflective Thanksgiving, celebrated with family and friends.  I have much to be thankful for this year … not least for your extraordinary support, and for the opportunity to work hard in the coming days to be of service to our community.

I am mindful, perhaps this year more than ever, of just how lucky my family and I are to know the comforts of hearth and home – at a time when so many families have lost homes and jobs, been torn apart by violence, or approach the holiday season without the prospect of enough to eat, much less a plentiful Thanksgiving table.

If you are looking for ways to extend Thanksgiving reflection into action, here are a few thoughts:

• The Corporation for National and Community Service this week launched a new United We Serve initiative, Feed a Neighbor, to focus on hunger and food insecurity – highlighting the fact that 17 million households (14.6% of all households in the U.S.) had difficulty putting enough food on the table at some time during the year.  www.serve.gov 

• The New York City Coalition Against Hunger encourages people to go beyond one day of volunteering, or donating food, to contribute services (e.g. grant-writing, web design) year-round to a soup kitchen or food pantry.  www.nyccah.org/unitedweserve/one.html

• The Interfaith Assembly on Housing and Homelessness (working together with the Coalition for the Homeless and the Legal Aid Society), asks you to write a letter to Governor Paterson urging a reversal of rules implemented by the City of New York to charge rents to families living in shelters and impose new sanctions that could push homeless families onto the street and homeless children into foster care.  www.iahh.org/take-action/change-rules

Hopefully next Thanksgiving will find us further along the road to economic recovery, and taking more of the steps that we can and should to end poverty and hunger here in New York City, throughout the United State, and around the world.

In the meantime, I hope Thanksgiving brings the comfort of family and friends, the peace of quiet reflection, and the optimism of service.

Brad

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