IN THE LAND OF PLENTY

Posted by Lorraine Bartlett, and her alter ego Lorna Barrett

When people think about poverty in the United States, they tend to only think about the urban poor.  Certainly you don’t have to look far in a city of any size to find poor people.  But the vast majority of this nation’s poor (or is the PC term now disadvantaged?) don’t live in cities.  They live in small towns and along rural highways.

I’d never given the subject much thought until I traveled out west.  Sure I’d seen ramshackle homes and kids with dirty faces in my home state of New York, but nothing prepared me for the abject poverty I saw on the Arizona Indian reservations.  When I returned home from that trip, I began to notice just how many people in my own state easily fit into that “abject” category of the disadvantaged.

None of the characters in my latest Booktown Mystery has ever known poverty.  My heroine, Tricia Miles, doesn’t really think of herself as wealthy, but she is.  She came from money.  She received a large inheritance from her grandmother, and a hefty divorce settlement.  So when she learns that people in her own Village of Stoneham are dependent on an emergency food pantry, she’s rather shocked about it.  After all, the village streets are lined with beautiful Victorian homes, nice tract homes, and a revitalized main street that brings in the tourist trade.

In the current economic times, with unemployment going sky high, many middle class families are finding it difficult to make ends meet.  Not only are food pantries serving the urban and rural poor, now they’re being asked to serve people who in the not-too-distant past were supporting them.

In Bookplate Special, the third in the Booktown Mystery series (which is released today), Tricia attends the opening of the newly expanded Stoneham Food Shelf.  Here she learns that looks are deceiving, and how she can help those going hungry in her own town.

The holiday season is fast approaching, but hunger knows no season.  I hope that my readers will be touched by this storyline and motivated to help their local food pantries, not just during the holidays, but all year round. Charles Dickens may have said it best, in A Christmas Carol, when three gentlemen called on Scrooge to make a donation to the poor:  “We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices.”

The need for donations (non-perishable food items and monetary) has skyrocketed.  If you can, I hope you’ll consider donating to your local food pantry so that those who are hungry (children, adults, and the homeless) will have won’t have to face the holiday hungry.

Comments

[Edith]

(Thought I posted a comment an hour ago...??)
Great post, Lorraine. I can't wait to read the new book - I have it preordered through Mystery Lovers Bookshop.

At my church, we have a basket out year round for our local food bank and people bring in extra groceries for it. Need is indeed way up.

Edith

[Dru]

Great post and also people can volunteer their time to help at food shelters and such.

[Mare F]

It is a great post and very timely. We donate to the food bank, a turkey for the baskets that our students make up for families in our district towns, and I plan to start knitting mittens and hats for the shelters. I fear that it will be a tough winter.

[Angela]

Our local library has a cool thing going right now. If you bring in non-perishable food items, your late book fines are forgiven. I think that helps everybody out!