Break up a violent argument! (Ha, ha, HA, NOT!)

I heard a big fight outside my house as I tried to use the bathroom alone for the first time all day. Two women and a man were yelling in increasingly frantic spanish, while a baby screamed. Then suddenly the baby went silent.

Why look, I can navigate our stairs really fast when motivated to do so!

Outside, I asked if anyone needed help, only to be reminded by Devon that they were arguing in spanish.

“Necessitas Ayudas?” I asked/yelled.

“Si! Si! Telephono la Policia!” responded the most frantic of the women. I told Devon to do so as the man began to walk off with the baby, the frantic lady following as close as she could and the other woman dragging the stroller behind her.

The police showed up fast enough to make me happy, and were interviewing the people before they made it halfway down the block.

I am so certain this experience will lessen my inexplicable yet completely palpable anxiety.

If you are like me, you want to help, but feel like you don’t have the time or the money to do so. I think about hungry babies and children and I just ache inside, thinking that there is no reasonable excuse for children to go hungry.
I am appalled when I read about the poverty statistic in the U.S. In 2005:

* 37 million people (12.6%) were in poverty
* 12.9 million (17.8%) children under the age of 18 were in poverty
* 20.5 million (11.3%) of people aged 18-64 were in poverty
* 3.6 million (10.1%) seniors 65 and older were in poverty, an increase from 3.5 million in 2004.
(U.S. Census Bureau. Income, Poverty, and Heath Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2005)

The problem seems overwhelming, and the majority of the organizations who claim to help are either making the problem worse by sending money and food to the people in charge in countries where that only makes things worse, or by mishandling the donations. American citizens are largely ignored in the demand for hunger relief. As the richest country in the world, we hide our hungry like a gauche wedding gift from an easily offended family member.

Well, here is something you can do to help. The Hunger Site provides food and resources to America’s Second Harvest, and the MercyCorps.

All you have to do is click on the button and the sponsor will donate food. If you buy something from one of the affiliate websites, they will donate even more food, but since July 2006, over 46 million cups of food have been donated simply by clicking. There are other tabs for sites for breast cancer, literacy, the rainforest, etc.

So click on The Hunger Site button on the sidebar to get to the place you can help with very little time and no money spent.