Inspirations on the Fly

A Fancy Schmancy Speech

Because I know you want to spend your morning/afternoon/evening/whatever reading a speech we had to write in class, I copied and pasted this just for you!! *mwah*

(Just be glad you don't have to read this in front of your entire class and hope you don't fail too miserably)

-KK-chan

Fighting Back Tooth and Nail

It prowls through the cover of night, striking down the weak and weary as an unexpected visitor. It is an invisible foe one rarely views, but it is lurking just outside your door. The hunters can't kill this beast no matter how many tracks their hounds sniff out. We, the people, cannot evade this monster. You can run, but you can't hide. This fiend has a name. Say hello to hunger.

This immortal demon, hunger, just keeps growing and growing in the shadows, shunned by society and shoved aside. We keep sitting on our couches pretending that it doesn't exist. "Oh? Another world hunger commercial? I hope someone helps that poor child in Ethiopia! I can't stand these commercials!" Click. See? This task is left to this imaginary superhero we keep waiting on. Get it out of your heads. Please.

Hunger sounds thousands of miles away, tucked into some third world country, don't you think? I hate to break it to you, but it is sitting in your backyard. Food Summit Fact Sheet states around 175,000 people are receiving food stamps in Duval County. A little too close for comfort huh? Hunger is seen in the form of battered cardboard signs, glued to the leathery hands of the starving who are buffeted by the wind of the people who stride by them, acting as if they don't exist. You're not my problem, they think. Winding lines in front of soup kitchens and homeless centers scream out boldfaced all capitals HUNGER. But. Hunger can play hide and seek. It can disguise itself in "normal" people walking down the street, their mounds of clothes hiding the limp of hunger within, their fingers shoved inside of jacket pockets attempting in vain to flush their problems down the drain. Because we don't see hunger around us and aren't constantly exposed to it, we don't believe that it's truly there. It's like seeing something dart out of the corner of your eye. You're not sure if you truly saw something. The people who can make a real difference are those who have seen hunger in its true monstrous form.

Those people begging on the side of the road battle and fend off hunger every meal of the day all over our country. Even I see them. In Portland, a woman stood on a curb with her doleful black lab, clutching her sign. My neighbor once pulled over to give a man three dollars to symbolize the Holy Trinity. The man replied that those dollars would buy him lunch. I don't think I will ever forget that. Another lady paced on the same highway, day after day, asking for food. Children like you and I are scavenging for food to support their families in our city. All of us sitting here today are extremely fortunate. We don't go to bed starved or feel the need to worry about our next meal. One in seven Americans suffer from hunger according to Feeding America. If you do the math, that's a little less than 46 million people. Individual people all over our country, not some humongous number a mathematician dreamed up. It is up to us to give voices to the people with the cardboard signs.

Everyone cries and waves signs of "Stamp out hunger!" Or, "Feed the hungry!" This is only the tip of the iceberg or a slight eye opener. Starvation is invisible to most of the world, and there's not much that we can do except fight tooth and nail to change that. So what can we do to help? Make more signs? Play to your strengths just as Mad-Eye Moody advised Harry Potter in The Goblet of Fire. Use your talents to contribute to the duel between us and hunger. God gave them to you for a reason, so use them! Writing, drawing, sports, photography! Many organizations have risen to aid the hungry such as Catholic Charities, Stop Hunger Now, AARP, or Feeding America. Some may think the littlest task doesn't fix a thing, but it really does. Praying, starting a monthly can drive, donating money. Whatever it is, it makes a difference no matter how big or small it is.

To quote Albus Dumbledore, "We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided." This address to all of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry after the second rise of Voldemort is true. Troops that are split up and scattered do not stand a chance against the enemy. Only together can we gear up for this battle and vanquish hunger from our planet. We can truly uncover hunger's cloak of invisibility. I am challenging you to act on this, or will you sit on your couches, fast forwarding though another world hunger commercial?