Editorials

The Anniston Soup Bowl served 68 people last Friday. That actually was a slow day for the soup kitchen. On average, servers provide for 70 to 80 people a day. That’s up to 400 people a week who take advantage of the simple, but necessary service the soup kitchen provides — a hot meal.

In a small house in a residential neighborhood in the city, dozens of folks line up each day to take part in that most fundamental of activities — eating. Last Friday, they shuffled in in slow waves. Most of them were black men. Some were gaunt and quiet, shy and retreating. Others were talkative and good humored. They were softly appreciative and diverse in their appearance and, most likely, their stories. Hunger drove them to the soup kitchen for many reasons. Unemployment drove them there, but some also arrived in work clothes, stained with paint and oil and concrete dust. They had been painting houses, working on cars, pouring foundations. They were a portrait of the working poor.

Hunger in America should not exist. We are one of the most prosperous and highly developed nations in the world. A wide variety of safety nets have been established to meet the needs of those in danger of going hungry in this country — food stamps and the WIC program, for example. Yet today, “one in 10 people in the United States lives in a household that experiences hunger or the risk of hunger,” according to the Society of St. Andrew, an ecumenical nonprofit dedicated to eradicating hunger. National Public Radio notes almost 38 million people in America are considered “food insecure.” The problem stretches across all communities. It is rural, urban and suburban.

In Alabama, according to the Children’s’ Defense Fund, there are 215,029 children on food stamps and 111,049 women and children receiving WIC assistance. The federally funded Women Infant and Children program serves low-income mothers, pregnant women and infants and children up to age 5. Despite those high numbers, the Defense Fund notes that 62 percent of people eligible to receive food stamps in this state don’t.

At the Anniston Soup Bowl, the people served at a recent lunchtime were young and old. Their faces were both youthful and lined with age. There were older men and women who took slow, tentative steps and young men who still had bright eyes and a spring in their stride. There were some who used wheelchairs, walkers and canes. They all took their turn in line and were given lunch for the day — on the recent Friday it was hotdogs, eggs, grits, gravy and cake. They all said thank you and some smiled, but there was a sadness there, too, in doling out and receiving what is a meager portion in the greater scheme of things. They took their green cafeteria-style trays and moved off into another room. Mostly, they ate in silence.

Programs like the Soup Bowl provide a much-needed service. We can’t afford not to have them. Many reasons prevent people from receiving food stamps, even if they are technically eligible. People fall through the cracks. Transience, embarrassment, substance abuse, language barriers and a lack of access are just some of the reasons for not getting food stamps. People who might not be eligible for food stamps still suffer the effects of “food insecurity.”

It’s sobering to note the number of people the Soup Bowl serves on a daily and weekly basis. The fact that people still go hungry today in America is a stunning shame. This nation can do better, and it must.

— Mary Jo Shafer,
Knight Fellow