October 15 - Blog Action Day does Poverty

Today should be Wino Wednesday, right? Not today. Today is Blog Action Day-- a day in which almost 11,000 bloggers the world over each commit to bring attention to a selective cause to their individual audiences. The topic for 2008 is poverty, and I'm not going to lie... this topic didn't hit as close to home for me as it should. I go out to lunch with my work girlfriends and eat in fun restaurants all the time. I don't know what it's like to go to bed hungry because I don't have money. And honestly, I don't spend enough time thinking about those who do and resolving to help my fellow man. It's easy to think about poverty as some obscure epidemic that only touches the developing world, but I know better. I know that poverty is lurking in my back yard while I sleep comfortably with a full stomach in my little patch of suburbia.

So I felt like this would be as good a time as any to educate myself about just how poverty touches the world around me.

* As of 2007, the poverty rate for the entire US was 12.5%, remaining the same from 2006. (source)
* As of 2006, of the 631,366 living in Baltimore City, 21.5% were living below the povery line. That's around 116,800 people. (source)
* Over 1,000 people will die just this hour the world over from hunger (source)
* Maryland is apparently the least impoverished state in the union, but 100,000 people is still too many (source)
* Each week, over 50,000 people rely on free food from soup kitchens, pantries, and shelters in Maryland alone (source)

I found a few things to do help the hungry at home and abroad

* Print a letter to send to W. asking him to honor the agreement he signed at the 2002 Monterrey Conference and Johannesburg Summit to "make concrete efforts towards giving 0.7% of our national income in aid to poor contries." Most countries have reached that goal already, or have at least made a schedule to have it accomplished on our before the year 2015. Those that have yet to even schedule that goal are Switzerland, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and our fine US of A.
* Support local businesses and employers who pay a living wage
* Donate goods to pantries or your time to an organization dedicated to feeding the hungry in order to ensure that the impoverished are being helped year round. Two of those in Baltimore include Moveable Feast and the Maryland Food Bank.
* Throw a party. Seriously. How many parties do I go to in a month for the sole purpose of benefiting the people in attendance? I'm sure you could hold a party with the secondary purpose of feeding the hungry and invite all of your friends to bring food items and money to donate to food banks. In fact, that's definitely going to be the theme for my fall harvest beer-tasting party coming up in a few months. I would encourage you to do the same.

Check out any of the resources that I've linked in this post. That's just a start, but with the advent of the internet came more information on any one topic than we ever wanted to know. That knowledge is power, though. Use it to help those in need around you. And check out the Blog Action Day website. They have links to all of the Blog Action Day posts around the web. I'm sure most people are far more articulate than I am when it comes to talking about poverty. Support and learn from them as well.