<\/p>\n
I had the honor this morning of emceeing the Stanwoodopolis\/Camano Food Bank Fundraiser, an event to help kickstart and support the new grocery store style food bank in town.\u00a0 When I mentioned to a buddy last weekend that I would be doing this shindig, he wanted to know why they needed more money.\u00a0 \u00a0Now understand, we\u2019re talking about donations from biznesses and the public, you and me and the shops on the island and in town.\u00a0 What I never understand and never will are the folks who begrudge the homeless, the hungry, the deprived, the single mom trying to raise a kid or two, the people who lost their job, the downtrodden begrudge just giving them a helping hand.\u00a0 They think, I guess, that these folks are losers or drug addicts or alcoholics or they\u2019re just lazy good-for-nothings.<\/p>\n
Life can be cruel for a lot of us. \u00a0Society has a game that\u2019s rigged for the privileged, the white, especially us males, for those whose parents could live in the right places, send their kids to the right colleges, feed them well, love them, educate them.<\/p>\n
But \u2026 for a lot of us we might have been created equal, that doesn\u2019t mean we have equal opportunities for life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.\u00a0 Don\u2019t kid ourselves.\u00a0 And don\u2019t listen to the hard hearted who had an easier time navigating the American system.\u00a0 Folks get left behind, folks become homeless and hungry thru no fault of their own.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have to blame anyone, not them or the government or the American Way of Life.\u00a0 We just have to find it in our hearts to help the folks who never had the same advantages, who fell on hard times, who ran into a streak of bad luck.\u00a0 We just have to be part of the safety net.\u00a0 We have to help these people who, after all, are part of the family.<\/p>\n
This is what I said to the assemblage this morning.\u00a0 But ya know, I\u2019m preaching to the choir.\u00a0 My buddy wouldn\u2019t have ears for this.\u00a0 He\u2019d tell me the government gives the foodbank subsidies and grants, why should he be obligated to spend his taxes or make a donation.\u00a0 Why should anyone get what my buddy thinks is a free ride.\u00a0 He made his, they could have too.\u00a0 Like I said, I\u2019ll never understand this kind of thinking.\u00a0 And he\u2019ll probably never have to walk a mile in their shoes.\u00a0 Or even a few yards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had the honor this morning of emceeing the Stanwoodopolis\/Camano Food Bank Fundraiser, an event to help kickstart and support the new grocery store style food bank in town.\u00a0 When I mentioned to a buddy last weekend that I would be doing this shindig, he wanted to know why they needed more money.\u00a0 \u00a0Now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[5040,5039,5041],"class_list":["post-15946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-feeding-the-hungry","tag-food-bank-fundraiser","tag-walk-a-few-yards-in-their-shoes"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15947,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15946\/revisions\/15947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}