Why You Need To Organize a Food Circle Now
About a year ago, when it was evident that more and more people are becoming either homeless or “financially challenged”, some of my friends started to seriously worry about having enough to eat. Many of us were going through times when there was just no money to buy food. Constant hunger blinds you to a lot of other things, and the human body needs to eat. Living in a vehicle makes it harder to eat at all, much less eat healthy. If you have some money left over from your job, or if you have an income that is at least modest, you can eat at restaurants every day. However, many now do not have that much money – it gets expensive to do that. If you are living in an RV you at least have a refrigerator and cooking facilities. If you are in a van or car it gets tougher to prepare meals.
There’s things you can do when you are in a car or van to help on this, but it is another subject for another post, and I welcome reader comments on your experiences. This post is about creating what we call a “Food Circle” or Food Meet-Up. When the realization hit that food was becoming a problem, we started to exchange information about where to get cheap meals, places to get free food, where to “dumpster dive” for food, and other topics. The information led to us getting food and then distributing it (for free of course) to each other and to other needy folks. Now a part of our lives has become constant searching for food solutions, the first of which is GETTING the food.
Talk to a few of your friends about this and form a mini food “co-op”. Find out where to get free food. Each person gets a bag or two. Markets and market dumpsters are good for fresh stuff. I will have more detailed posts on places to get food, but now GET ORGANIZED. I don’t mean elect presidents and secretaries, this is not the film club. Get a few of your friends and agree to get food for free (or cheap) and share it. Meet at least once a week. Give your excess to others who are unable to physically participate. Once you start looking for food you will find it, but believe me, with friends helping friends it is much easier. 10 -20 people is a good number for a Food Circle. Everyone goes to different places and gets food. At the weekly Food meet up you share it. This will give you a new attitude on the real meaning of life and friendship. There is nothing better that sharing food and love with your friends, and then with others you don’t even know. You can even have a food “picnic” once a month, where your group goes to the park and have a fun pot-luck food festival.
In some parts of the cities the problem of hunger is really overwhelming. You can’t do it all, but you can start with one Food Circle and help your friends. Meet up now, and get started in a meaningful way. Urge others to do the same. When this first started, some of us were really embarrassed that things had gotten so bad that food was such a problem. The truth is that the economy is not good and getting worse. The VALUE of your dollar is going down, the more the banks print money, the more the money is worth less. It’s called inflation. Think back to 1960 (if you are old enough and still have some memory cells). A gallon of gas was 25 cents. A pack of cigarettes was 25 cents. A cup of coffee was 5 cents or 10 cents, the same with a coke. A paperback book was 25 – 35 cents, comics were 10 – 15 cents. Are you starting to get the picture? You could rent an apartment in L.A. for $50 bucks a month. How much are all these things now? Everything has gone up 10 to 15 times since 1960. Except of course, YOUR WAGES, if you even have a job. Because of inflation, the minimum wage should be around $30 an hour, just to keep even with 1960.
When the government tells you that there isn’t much inflation, they are lying. They don’t count food, rent and gasolene, some of the most important things in your life. Now you can clearly see the seriousness of our situation. Don’t feel embarrassed about it, it’s a crushing fact. Now all we can do is to help each other out of this. Solutions are there for us. We are thinking about a new slogan: “Starve a banker, feed a Senior”.
Future posts will cover:
Where to get Free food
Where to get cheap food. Much help is around for Seniors especially.
How to prepare food in your car or van.
