Hunger in New Mexico a Harsh Reality
- Aug 16, 2008 - comment
Imagine what it feels like to not be able to sleep because your stomach is aching and your anxiety level is at an all-time high. You suffer all of this misery because neither you nor your children have eaten all day, and you don’t know where the next meal is coming from or when. This is hard to imagine for many Americans. For many others, however, it isn’t their imagination, but a harsh reality they have to live with every day. Sometimes, with our full bellies and pantries we think that hunger is a Third World problem. Please, think again.
Hunger or food insecurity abounds in the United States, but nowhere is the need greater than in New Mexico. New Mexico has the highest food insecurity rate in the nation, with a 15.87 percent food-insecurity rate. This may not mean much by itself, but when we consider that Latin America is 11 percent, we realize that New Mexico, in relationship to World Hunger, is worse than many Third World nations.
Who are the hungry people in America? According to the Census Bureau 2002 report on poverty, it is the children and the elderly. An estimated 12.1 million children under age 18 reside below the poverty line. Some 3.6 million citizens over the age of 65 have incomes below the poverty line. A large percentage of them would go hungry on a weekly basis if they did not receive home-delivered meals. Other groups are the homeless and those who cannot make ends meet on minimum wage.
Now consider that New Mexico is in worse shape than the national average. There are a lot of poor and hungry people in New Mexico; many of these people are in our churches, schools and places of employment. Some of them most of us will never see, but the churches that operate food pantries or soup kitchens see them all the time.
There are a number of feeding ministries in New Mexico, but they are in great need right now. Some major problems have hit our food pantries in the gut. The rising price of fuel has caused the food prices to go up, which means a dollar doesn’t buy as much food as it once did. The rising price of fuel has also taken money from the poor, so they can’t buy the food they once did. The third problem that has really hurt is that World Hunger Funds have all but dried up and the funds for food pantries are disappearing.
What can we do? We can promote World Hunger Awareness Day. Sunday, Oct. 12, is designated World Hunger Awareness Day across the Southern Baptist Convention. This would be a great time to inform our churches of the dire need and to promote a special offering to support our pantries.
This article is reprinted from the July 26, 2008, issue of the Baptist New Mexican, the newsjournal of Baptist Convention of New Mexico. The author, Carl Russell, is Central Baptist Association’s ministry evangelism coordinator.
Further Learning
Learn more about: Citizenship, Hunger/Homelessness