Closely associated with poverty and unemployment is hunger, which is adequately described as a silent epidemic.
Hunger is one of the most pressing of all the problems that we face in our country today.
One in every six households is living with food insecurity. If your household isn’t hungry, don’t you wonder who is living in the other households? So, someone who works with you? Someone who goes to your house of worship? Someone whose children go to school with your children? Very probable.
In March 2010, an article in The Birmingham News reported that Alabama had the highest percentage in the country of people who are food insecure — some 126,500 households — and you can be sure that number has increased since that date.
Our immediate area has escaped the most dire results of the recession, but food insecurity is here in Opelika, just as it is everywhere.
The Food Bank of East Alabama serves a much larger area than the Opelika-Auburn area. Director Martha Henk and her staff (which includes volunteers) do a remarkable job of serving more than 187 food charities located in Lee County and six adjoining counties.