A Thanksgiving Thank You for Sharing Your Strength

To all of Share Our Strength’s friends and supporters:

“I’ve got to step up my game in terms of doing more for my community” chef Tony Maws (Craigie on Main, in Cambridge, MA) told me prior to recording an episode of our podcast Add Passion and Stir last Friday morning. Tony, active on behalf of Share Our Strength and other nonprofits is already doing a lot, and more than most, but it’s a sentiment I’ve heard at least a dozen times in the last 2 weeks days as so many people respond to the presidential election by committing to become more active either politically or civically.

A challenge facing those of us in the nonprofit sector is to create vehicles that go beyond fundraising appeals, in which people can share their strengths and engage in ways that feel meaningful to them.   We’ve got to provide paths for direct service and paths to advocacy that improve public policy as well. In addition to Share Our Strength, there are organizations like Be The Change, of which I’m on the board, that offer creative and powerful ways for everyone to get involved here.

I wish you a great Thanksgiving holiday and well-deserved time with friends and family. Thanks to all of our supporters for making this another incredibly productive and impactful year.  Compared to when we launched the No Kid Hungry campaign, American children at risk of hunger are substantially better off today by virtually every measure – participation rates in school meals, USDA food insecurity statistics, access to emergency food assistance via food banks and pantries, and especially the consensus we’ve helped build that childhood hunger is a solvable problem and that we can and will solve it.

We still have a ways to go to finish what we started. But it’s hard to imagine anything more worthy of our gratitude than the opportunity we’ve had to make a difference in the lives of millions of kids and families in every part of America who are healthier, stronger, and  more secure because you shared your strength.  Thank you and have a wonderful holiday.

Billy