Sunday, October 14, 2007
Post 9 : Omaha's Hunger Problem
A growing problem in Omaha, Ne is the number of homeless and hungry people. During the winter, many homeless shelters become full to capacity and have to turn people away. I think it is our responsibility as privileged citizens to do something about these extreme conditions. The Open Door Mission is one particular organization in Omaha that is trying to break the cycle of poverty.
Poverty is a continuous cycle that causes people to be homeless and go hungry. In my opinion, one of the main causes of homelessness is no education. If people are not educated, they won’t get a good job. And if they don’t have a good job, they won’t be able to provide sufficient food for their families. It is a continuous cycle of problems that can only be broken through education. If we can educate the less fortunate about their living conditions, we could show them that they could have a better life.
Hunger and homelessness are nation-wide problems that need to be addressed. One particular group in Omaha that is working to end hunger on a worldly level is the Christ Community Church. This group packaged about 220,000 meals that will be sent to Mali. So many of the children in Mali are malnourished and many die of hunger within their first year. There is enough food in the world to feed everyone; we just have problems getting it distributed to the areas that need it most. I think our government could keep a better eye on problems like this and spend more money on attacking the hunger problem in our country instead of spending so much money on the war.
During my freshman year in high school, I had the opportunity to go to Chicago on a service trip with my school. One of the service projects that we participated in was a trip to the La Casa soup kitchen. Normally, most volunteers would have gone inside and served the less-fortunate their food, but on this day we waited outside in line with the less-fortunate. It was a different experience, because it really made me think about how everyday they wait out in the sub-degree weather just to receive a hot meal. Waiting in line with them showed solidarity with the poor. After we received our meals, we were able to sit and talk with some of the men and women. They had amazing stories of how they came to be where they are at. Many of them didn’t seem to mind that this was their lifestyle. Others were attempting to turn their lives around. One woman I remember told me that she had just gotten a job and she was trying to make a better life for her kids.
This trip to Chicago really opened my eyes to the fact that poverty, homelessness, and hunger live not only in Chicago but in my own city as well. After I got back from the trip I realized that I had ignored these problems for so long and had no idea that they existed! After this, I started doing more service projects that allowed me to confront these issues head on. I volunteered with habitat for humanity, I became a mentor for less-fortunate child through Big Brothers and Big Sisters of the Midlands, and I helped fix up a community center in one of the Hispanic neighborhoods. Small projects like these are the start of make a change. The change may not be immediate, but overtime the little things will add up to a big change. Maybe someday our society will no longer have to recognize poverty, hunger, or homelessness as major problems.
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