American Hunger
The line outside the soup kitchen stretched all the way down the main street of town. The line is filled with children, young adults and elders. One by one they enter the building and they are warmly greeted by the volunteers. Once everyone is seated the priest of the church leads a prayer and blesses the people and the meal before them. Approximately 49 million Americans struggle to put food on the table, which is why soup kitchens like the one described are becoming a well known thing. Soup kitchens appeal to mainly one group of people and that is the homeless; this is because the soup kitchens give them some place warm to be for a few hours and they can get a good meal. The only problem with the soup kitchens is that they are very rare, because they are funded by churches or private organizations. These churches and private organizations can run these soup kitchens thanks for volunteers and donations from people in their communities, both church and city communities. If the government funded soup kitchens they would be more wide spread, larger amounts of food to feed people, and they could be open more times in a week to give everyone a chance to dine at the soup kitchen.
Most soup kitchens in America are run by churches and private organizations. The food is either donated or sold at cheaper prices to the soup kitchen. The people who prepare and serve the food are usually all volunteers who give up their time to help others. In my hometown; Troy, Ohio I know we have one soup kitchen and it is run by my church. That soup kitchen alone helps feed people all around my town and the towns next to mine. There are other churches that will once in a while invite people to come have a home cooked meal at their church, but there is only one fully running soup kitchen in Troy. There are approximately 250 plus food banks in the United States that distribute food to nearly 50,000 local feeding programs in communities across the country; including soup kitchens and food pantries (Sodexho Foundation). If the government helped to fund these programs by opening up government run soup kitchens those numbers could double and we will be able to reach out to double the amount of people. With the governments help soup kitchens could open up in areas in poverty which is where most people who need the food live. Overall the government funding for either food banks or soup kitchens would make them more wide spread and create easier access for those who need them.
As of right now a lot of soup kitchens are only functioning on certain days since they are run by volunteers who have other responsibilities like jobs where they get paid and families. With the governments help they could acquire more workers which could result in the soup kitchens being open every day instead of certain days. The soup kitchen in Troy, Ohio is open every week day from only 5-6 p.m. and the last Sunday of every month during the same time. It helps that the hours never change so everyone can get at least one meal a day, but it would be even better if they could get all three meals a day; this could happen if there was help from the government. The government could supply jobs to people which would also fix our unemployment problem. Another alternative to get more people working in soup kitchens is make it a community service job for those who break the law and are required to do community service. If the government supplied jobs at the soup kitchens that would cost even more money because they would have to pay the employees, so in that case the community service alternative would work better
Currently the food soup kitchens serve food that has been donated or they bought for cheap because they are a charity. Soup kitchens can only prosper if they have enough food to serve everyone, and sometimes they could not receive enough donations to be able to feed a large group of people. In Troy the food for the soup kitchen has is donated from members of the church and the catholic school affiliated with the church; people from the outside community also help with the donation process. This soup kitchen specifically does a great job at always having enough food to feed the people who come, however in some places they are not so fortunate to have so many donations. With some government help they could make sure the soup kitchens always have enough food to feed everyone a meal and have enough to send some food with those who need it. This could cost the government a lot of money, but they have us pay taxes for things that we should not be taxed for so instead of taxing us for random things they should put the money from taxes to use and help the homeless. By putting the money from taxes into funding soup kitchens there could be more food and even healthier food.
Government involvement with fixing the hunger problems in America could potentially reach out to other countries as well. If the government can get involved with helping out the soup kitchen then we can feed more of the homeless people in our cities. There are many different ways the government can help out the soup kitchens. They can put the money we pay in taxes toward them for one. Secondly the government could even just donate a certain amount of healthy food to each month to each soup kitchen in the United States. Another way to help make soup kitchens more flexible would be if they had more workers to be open at all sorts of times. The more they are open and serving the homeless the better chances for them to be healthy and get back on their feet to go find jobs. If we can fix our hunger problem with the help of our government maybe it could motivate other countries to fix their hunger problems and help fix the undeveloped countries hunger as well. World hunger is the big problem, but in order to fix the big problems we need to start small and work our way there.
Works Cited
“COST OF DOMESTIC HUNGER: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS.” (n.d.): n. pag. Sodexo Foundation. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
“Overview of Homelessness In America.” Homelessness In America. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2015.