America’s food banks: A nation of "desolate shelves." Let’s help fill them this weekend.

When we started this series, eighteen months ago, the United States was already a year into what would prove to be the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Back then, it was estimated that 1 in 8 Americans faced hunger at least part of the time.

It is now one in six.

Yes, you read that right. One in six Americans (more than 50 million people in this country) will face hunger this year. The richest nation in the history of the world includes 17 percent who can't afford food.

And our nation’s food banks -- which can mean the difference between a meal on the table or nothing to eat -- are struggling to survive.

Just in the past few days, there were news stories about a food bank in Fort Lauderdale, Florida that is weeks away from closing, and about another in Fairfield County, Connecticut where the shelves are bare. The food bank in Hollister, California provided food to 4,000 families two years ago; now it is serving 7,000. Local food banks are under pressure from the North Shore of Chicago to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana.

As one foodbank volunteer told the Stamford (Ct.) Times: "I have been volunteering here for 25 years, and I have never seen the shelves so desolate . . . . It is like a wasteland."

Your donation this weekend will help foodbanks across the United States restock those empty shelves.

The purpose of this series is to raise money for Feeding America, an amazing organization that helps those struggling food banks do just that:

Our network of more than 200 food banks serves all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, securing and distributing more than 2.5 billion pounds of food and grocery products annually. Those member food banks support approximately 61,000 local charitable agencies and 70,000 programs, which provide food directly to individuals and families in need.

Source ~ Feeding America

As a result of economies of scale and corporate participation, one dollar donated to Feeding America provides $14 in groceries to food banks throughout the country.

And, this weekend, thanks to support from the Con-Agra Foods Foundation, a dollar donated can mean even more to a hungry child.

You can never be too rich or too thin. ~ Wallis Warfield, the Duchess of Windsor.

We are all too rich so long as there is a hungry child anywhere in the world. ~ My friend, Marion.

You can help prevent a summer of hunger for 20 million American children.

For nearly 20 million American children, free or reduced-cost breakfasts and lunches provided at school -- and the weekend backpacks of food provided by volunteers -- mean the difference between hunger and having a meal. But schools are closing for the summer, and the safety net their meals provide is ending.

You can help! Please consider a donation today to Feeding America’s Magic Lunchbox program, which provides three meals a day to a hungry child all summer long. The cost: $39.

Donate to the Magic Lunchbox program here.

If you donate to the Magic Lunchbox program this weekend, the ConAgra Foods Foundation will match your gift, dollar for dollar (up to a total of $250,000 in May).

If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one. ~ Mother Teresa

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Please read and recommend all the diaries this weekend! Schedule of posters:

The first essential component of social justice is adequate food for all mankind. Food is the moral right of all who are born into this world. ~ Norman Borlaug

Thank you.