This is National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week

The National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week will be from 11th to 19th of November. The first National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week was in 1975 in the University of Virginia. It is now held at more than 700 locations all over the country.

The National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week has a very important mission – to make people aware of the severe hunger and homelessness problem around us. We need to realize that the current situation is completely unacceptable. Homelessness and hunger are problems all over the world, not just in our country. There are many poor countries where many people go to bed hungry every day. The same shouldn’t be happening in our country. It is one of the most prosperous countries in modern history, and the greatest country in many regards right now.

How is it that we are home to some of the richest people in the world yet there are so many people going to bed hungry? That there are so many people who don’t even have a safe and sheltered place to sleep? This week is about spreading awareness of how prevalent this problem is. The reason that this problem has persisted for so long is that when we are young our elders tell us to ignore the ‘bad and dirty’ people we see on the streets. We end up making an image in our mind of these people as being a part of our environment. It doesn’t seem out of place to us that a person who doesn’t even have clean clothes and has been hungry for days, lives in one of the richest countries in the world.

Giving a helping hand

Awareness is important because a lack of empathy is not the problem. We have many generous people in our country who would love to lend a helping hand to people. We have many people who would love to give to charity if it meant that no one went to bed hungry at night. We all want to create a society where no one has to face homelessness. Awareness is important so these problems come to the surface. The mental blocks we all have that make us ignore these people need to be broken so we can consider them and think about solutions to their problems.

A country isn’t judged by how its richest live – it is judged by how its poorest live. We are lucky enough to have a great middle class population that has more purchasing power than the upper class of most countries. This gives us the great opportunity to help the hungry and the homeless live better lives. Spread awareness about the homelessness and hunger problems in your own city and get people involved in solving these problems.

Spread the word about National Hunger and Homeless Awareness Week on social media and look for local events around you. Raise funds, talk to your loved ones and ask them if they want to help out, and be the one who starts something great. Connect with organizations like Community Homeless Solutions (www.CommunityHomelessSolutions.org) to learn more about how you can help those in need.