Blog Action Day 08: On Poverty
I’m participating in an international movement called Blog Action Day, sponsored by Blog Action Day.org. From their site:
Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.
The subject of this global discussion today is poverty. And I know more of us are feeling impoverished as the world’s economy teeters on its axis. But feeling impoverished is not poverty. For many of us, it’s likely to be an emotional feeling rather than physical state of homelessness, hunger, cold…
In the Oregon area, requests for food assistance have grown by almost 5% over the past year, for the first time in four years, according to the Oregon Food Bank, which served more than 792,000 boxes of food to people in need last year. Some stats from their most recent report:
- More than 200,000 people per month ate from an Oregon Food Bank box this year, up from 192,000 in 2006/7
- Every dollar donated to the Oregon Food Bank will buy five pounds of food to supply the food boxes
- About 61% of the food in food boxes comes from the food industry themselves, but that still leaves 39% on our shoulders
- About 16% of the food comes from food drives - learn how to hold your food drive here.
- Anyone can drop off food at one of the food banks, if you’d like to donate. They’d just like you to contact them first, so they can be prepared for you.
I’m a big believer in blogging for social good. I hope this little post will inspire someone to contact the food bank and either donate, learn how to hold a food drive, or drop off some food for those in need.
