Please Don't Starve Them to Death

Typically, every afternoon when I come home for lunch, I catch up with the news on MSNBC (I'm a news junkie). However, this week, because of the death of Tim Russert, I haven't been able to watch my favorite channel without crying. Although Tim was my 2nd favorite commentator - Keith Olbermann being the first - the fifth day of mourning him was just too much for me, so I decided to catch up on local news instead.

Boy, was that the wrong thing to do! During the noon news on WLEX TV, I heard two different news stories that were the most heartbreaking stories I think I've heard in a very long time. The first one was an Austrailian couple who starved their 18-month old twins to death. The second story was a Danville couple who starved their 9 and 12 year old children to the point of malnurishment.

How can a parent starve their own flesh and blood to death? How can anyone just withhold food from another person?

I would go without EVERYTHING before I could let my children starve to death. I realize the US economy is in the dumpster, but come on people, these were young children! There are too many organizations willing to help people, this just shouldn't have happened. This just reaffirms my belief that not everyone should be a parent.

In light of this disturbing news, I went to my cupboards and gathered up cans of food this morning and dropped them off at our local Christian Life Center Pantry. Even though our family is on a tight budget, I figured every little bit would help. According to the volunteers at the Center, the past few months have been really hard on low income families. They told me the request for food donations has tripled in the past few months, but donations have not increased to meet the demand.

So, if everyone would donate just one can of food, Food Pantries around the country might be able to meet their increasing demand. Do it in memory of the 18-month old twins who died from lack of food; do it for all the children who are starving all over our great nation.

Here are the websites for the two stories mentioned above:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,368464,00.html

http://www.amnews.com/public_html/?module=displaystory&story_id=41739&format=html