Last night NBC Nightly News used a newly released Feeding America report on hunger in America in 2014 as a jumping off point to report on the need of many military families to subsidize their income through visits to food banks. See the story here @ ow.ly/AqR2R
The Feeding America report covered a lot of additional ground, showing that Feeding America’s network of emergency food assistance providers serves 5.4 million Americans each week and a total of 46.5 million over a year. It describes the choices that many have to make between food and medical, rent, utilities and transportation costs.
But NBC focused on one of the more surprising aspects of hunger in America which is the number of enlisted military families, defending our freedom, who are not free themselves from hunger and want. You can’t watch the NBC report without feeling that something has gone terribly wrong not only for the families involved but for our entire society if we are not able to provide a basic level of support for even the soldiers who have volunteered to protect and defend us.
The NBC report reminded me of the way Martin Luther King advanced the struggle for civil rights by highlighting the gap between our ideals and our reality, by shaming once indifferent Americans for not living up to their own ideals.
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