Feed the hungry in North Jersey during Action Against Hunger food drive – NorthJersey.com

Every year around this time, when area charity food pantries begin their push to replenish shelves for the long winter ahead, I think of my favorite Bible story from primary years — the one about the loaves and the fishes.

The one about the little boy, “the lad,” in the King James, who happens to have “five barley loaves, and two small fishes,” with which Christ will proceed to feed a “multitude.”

I imagine theologians of every rank can analyze this story, this miracle, a sort of parable with Christ as central character, in a dozen different ways.

For my money, though, the message is simple: Let us all give a little of what we have, no matter how much, so that our neighbor might eat.

“It’s really important that people know that no matter where you live in this state, there are people next to you going hungry,” said Adele LaTourette, director of Hunger for NJ, part of Center for Food Action in Bergen County.

The charity is one of three emergency food pantries — along with Meeting Essential Needs with Dignity in Essex County, and Interfaith Food Pantry in Morris — that will receive and distribute food donated through this year’s Action Against Hunger Food Drive, which takes place Oct. 6 from noon to 4 p.m. across North Jersey.

In a telephone interview on Thursday, LaTourette explained to me why this year’s food drive is so important, namely because some in federal government in Washington are attempting to cut Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for some current recipients. 

According to the non-profit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in fiscal year 2017 there were 818,000 people in New Jersey receiving some type of SNAP benefits. If changes proposed by the Agriculture Department were to go through — the closing of what the administration calls “a loophole” — it would mean roughly 61,000 state residents who now depend on SNAP would lose benefits.

If that happens, LaTourette said, people “will not have anywhere to go” except to “their food pantry, their soup kitchen, or their shelter, those charities serving people emergency food.”

“Tragic” would be one way to describe this situation, where our working poor (80 percent of SNAP recipients have jobs) must continue to rely on federal assistance or emergency charity aid to make sure their children have enough milk for their growing bodies, and enough protein to carry on through their school days.

Tragic, yes, but not hopeless, at least not here in North Jersey, where our people manage to come together every year to perform their own miracle of the loaves and fishes, to dig deep and help restock pantry shelves for the coming months.

So let’s do it again, give what we can to this most worthy of causes, because as Interfaith Food Pantry Executive Director Carolyn Lake told my colleague Ricardo Kaulessar, “Supplies are running low and the demand is high.”

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One special way to give is to make cash donations, which enables pantries to buy in bulk and to target the shortages they see on their shelves.

Of course, as “the lad” in the story reminds us, we can also just give what we have, whether that be a can of sliced peaches or box of powdered milk or a bag of rice. In the end, it all serves the same higher purpose.

It is giving season, after all, and there are hungry among us.

• The annual drive, now in its 28th year, is administered by the Foundation of Northern New Jersey, formerly the North Jersey Media Group Foundation. Sponsors include 1010 WINS, Acme, Foodtown, The Record, Kings, ShopRite and Stop & Shop. For more information, call 201-646-4306 or visit https://actionagainsthunger.com/

Bruce Lowry is the editorial page editor for The Record.

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