Executive Director, Interface Children & Family Services
In my 48 years on the planet, I’ve never gone without food for 24 hours. That seems amazing now that I have put it in writing. So what would compel me to go without food all day on Tuesday?
I have been supporting the Ventura County Together (vctogether.org) fundraising blitz week and been part of the planning committee for this effort for several months. VCT is a group of 40 local non-profits all focused on addressing the unmet basic needs of so many across our county – the hungry homeless, sick and disconnected.
One morning last week as I woke up, this idea hit me: I needed to devote one day for each of the areas that VCT supports (food, shelter, healthcare, 2-1-1). So Tuesday was a day of fasting, a small sacrifice to “join” those who were also hungry yesterday in our community.
After skipping breakfast, I was fine until about 11:45am when I started to notice the food in my office, and the food that my colleagues were eating here at Interface. I realized what it must be like for kids who went to school hungry on Tuesday, seeing their friends with their Lunchables and sodas, and getting that tight feeling inside – a quiet humiliation, of going without.
At about 1:30pm, I put a sticky note on my “snack drawer” in my office just in case I got distracted and reached for one of the snacks. I didn’t dare look inside the drawer! How could it be that in our country, in one of the wealthiest counties in our state, we have kids hungry this afternoon? What are we doing wrong as a society that we keep plowing forward without stopping to pick up the little ones? I remember that someone once said as a society we are measured by how we treat those who are most vulnerable amongst us. We’ve got work to do.
I received a few encouraging Facebook posts in the afternoon, and the couple of donations that came in that day were especially uplifting. At those moments I didn’t mind being a little hungry – it’s working!
By dinner time I was watching the clock. I always grab a cookie or a bite of something as soon as I walk in the door from work, so I was feeling lost and realized four times that my body had walked over to the snacks on the counter. “You can do it, you only have until 10:30pm,” I told myself. “Why did you eat so late yesterday evening? If you last ate at 6pm we’d be done by now…” Yes, I was actively arguing with myself.
I kept myself busy with a project at home, but when I sat down to read at 9:00pm, I was actually having a hard time concentrating! It took extra effort to focus my thoughts and track the text. My thoughts again went to that hungry child who I imagined at the same time staring at her homework – “got to think, think, think…” What a horrible extra burden to lay on a hungry child.
By the time 10:30pm rolled around, I was so ready to savor that first bite of an Austrian pastry that my wife had made the day earlier. I usually give thanks for my food, but this time, I was sobered by the opportunity to eat.
Maybe that’s what we’ve done, is we’ve forgotten that eating is a gift, an opportunity and a blessing. I hope many join the VC Together effort to raise funds for our local food providers today – they have more mouths to feed these days and without a whole lot of money to do it with. In the end, I just want to find a way to assure that that young girl in my imagination two days ago has food for tomorrow.
(You can learn more and donate online at VCTogether.org or text VCT to 27722. Thank you!)
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