We can help many by working together | GUEST VIEWPOINT

Published 8:34 am Wednesday, December 15, 2010

By Kathy McLaughlin

Have you ever dug down deep in your purse or wallet and pulled out loose change, the only money you have until pay day, and said to yourself, “What can I do with $1.25?”

Then you see it: macaroni and cheese on sale; four boxes for a $1. “Sure it’s not the best,” you say to yourself, “but the kids like it, and we may be able to stretch it into multiple meals.”

Have you ever…

… not eaten so your children could have more?

… skipped a meal so you could use the money to help pay your heating bill?

… gone to bed, unsure of how to feed your family tomorrow, and tossed half the night because of the anxiety?

South Whidbey Good Cheer has seen more than one economic crisis during our 48-year fight against hunger. Many more of our neighbors are now hungry and in need, pushed over the edge by the current recession.

News that the recession ended months ago makes little difference to those who still face the daily stress of struggling to provide for their families. Try telling the 772 families that we currently serve each month that the recession is over.

At a typical food bank, you see the lines outside the building as people wait to receive their weekly or monthly allotment. You are visually made aware of the need. Good Cheer Food Bank is a little different: our parking lot is often full, and sometimes our waiting room, but because we are open six days a week, seven hours a day, it is rare to see lines outside our doors.

The need however, is just as real — and at times just as overwhelming.

With the support of our caring and giving community, we have created a food bank with expanded hours; a food bank which provides clients with choice, with dignity and with anonymity.

The Good Cheer team builds and supports programs and systems that are fair, responsive and accountable to the families they serve. They have created programs that promote health while fighting hunger.

• Good Cheer Food Bank’s point system is designed to charge more points for processed food and fewer points for healthier foods.

• Good Cheer’s onsite garden produced 5,200 pounds of produce for the food bank this year, resulting in more than 7,500 bags of a wide variety of one-point vegetable items.

• Good Cheer Gleeful Gleaners harvested more than 1,900 pounds of apples, pears, plums and Asian pears.

• Together in the Good Cheer cooking classes, food bank clients with local renowned cooks prepared meals using beets, bok choy, carrots, cucumbers, green onions, kale, leeks, mixed greens, parsley, pumpkins, radishes, spinach, tomatoes and winter squash — all items that were harvested from our onsite garden.

As a community, we can all be proud of these accomplishments that are validated with facts and statistics. It is much more difficult to put into words what we as staff and volunteers experience daily as we do our work, such as:

• The child that left a note on my desk: “Thank you for being heer for us. We would be very very down in money with out you. So we want to HELP you and we will work in the garden! THANKS!”

• The elderly women who in the beginning walked in with her oxygen tank, shoulders slouched and head down. She now calls us by name, shoulders and head held high, though still on oxygen, smiling as she tells us about her now-favorite food — chard.

• The pride seen in the face of a young man who, as a volunteer, coordinates our home delivery program, upon receiving a note from a house-bound woman to whom he delivers food, which read: “Thank you for your universal goodness of heart for us old folks! You’re great — God bless you.”

The individual stories are what really matter.

They make what we do have value, and encourage us to continue our work in creating a hunger-free community.

Good Cheer was founded because of those who would not stand idly by while their neighbors were in need. Throughout the years, Good Cheer has been able to enrich and expand our services because of support.

Please help us to continue our work by sending a tax-deductible, year-end gift to PO Box 144, Langley WA. 98260, or by making a secure donation on our website at www.goodcheer.org.

May you have a joyous holiday and a new year full of hope and happiness!

Kathy McLaughlin is the executive director of the Good Cheer Food Bank & Thrift Stores.