Open your refrigerator. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
OK, what do you see? Milk? Juice? Fruit? Vegetables? Eggs? Cheese? Chicken? Steak? More? A food repository teeming with nutritional goodness.
Now, open your cupboard. You know, the one above the bread box housing sliced, Italian, rolls, maybe some doughnuts. I’m certain there’s a logjam of canned fruits and vegetables, packets of rice and beans, boxes of pasta and cereal, peanut butter, cookies, chocolates, coffee, tea, and more.
Now, look at your mail. Lots of bills, right? Bills you can afford to pay, right?
Now, I’d like you to imagine a home with a near-empty fridge and cupboard. I’d like you to imagine hunger and need among too many of our neighbors. I’d like you to imagine their empty shelves, broken appliances, broken toys, and broken dreams.
Now, what I’d like you to do is reach into your heart with one hand, and into your pocket with the other. All you have to do is give; we’ll do the rest.
The Burlington County Times’ Give a Christmas program kicked off recently. For 53 years, the BCT has coordinated a fundraiser that assists needy families during the holidays. The coronavirus pandemic has impacted everyone in some way over the past 17 months, but none so devastatingly as those who were struggling to make ends meet even before then. Lost jobs, reduced wages, reduced work hours, and higher prices at the store and the gas pump. Needy families needed your help before. Now, they need just a little bit more.
Your generous donations will be distributed in the form of $50 Walmart gift cards, with a maximum of four gift cards per family, and will begin reaching those families the week of Thanksgiving.
The Times has partnered again with NJ 211, a nonprofit that links needy folks with community resources that provide living necessities, much like the food items in your bursting fridge and cupboard.
County residents interested in benefiting from the program can text GAC to 898211 to learn if they qualify. Eligibility is based on income, and recipients may include, but are not limited to, parents with sick children, single family households, folks with addiction, and the unemployed.
A few years ago, after I had written a column urging folks to donate to Give a Christmas, I encountered a living, breathing Scrooge. He used raw numbers to try to convince me there really isn’t much need in the county. Said the poverty level in America is about 12 percent, twice that of the county, which is true. Said the need here isn’t great.
Scrooge offered raw numbers. I did the same.
“I agree the poverty level here is lower than across the country,” I told him. “Let’s say it’s only about 6 percent.”
He nodded.
“OK, do you know how many actual people that is? How many moms, dads, and children in need? How many elderly folks living alone on fixed incomes in need? It’s about 25,000 people living in poverty. Basing your opinion on a single digit percentage doesn’t come close to telling the entire story. There’s not much hunger and need until it’s your belly that’s growling and your door the bill collector is knocking on.”
He got into his Lexus and drove away.
Don’t do what he did. Don’t drive away. Don’t turn away. One of the best things you can do for our needy neighbors this holiday season is also one of the best things you can do for yourself: Give generously.
It will fill their need.
And your heart.
Phil Gianficaro, a columnist for the USA TODAY Network, can be reached at 215-345-3078, pgianficaro@theintell.com, and @philgianficaro on Twitter.