Darlings! It's time to get serious for a minute. I want to talk to you about hunger....REAL hunger. The kind of hunger you might not have ever had to experience yourself. The hunger that comes from being hungry but not being able to satiate that hunger by going to the refrigerator, the kind of hunger that comes from not actually having enough food to eat. La Diva is talking about hunger pangs where you are given water or tea instead of food to make the pangs go away.
This is the hunger many, MANY American children are experiencing right now. Yes, in AMERICA. And that is a crying shame.
Two days ago, I was asked to participate at
Miami Area Food Bloggers Bake Sale for Share Our Strength
at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens on Saturday, May 14, 2011. All I did was say that I'd like to support a fellow Florida Blogging Buddy Freakin' Flamingo, and next thing you know, La Diva was on the team, given my own pledge page and raising money!
I have been asking for donations since 7 am this morning and now, at 3:30 pm Friday, I have more than doubled my goal of $250 with $600 in donations! Why? Cuz I'm a pushy Diva and I truly believe in this cause. Here's what helped bring the issue home to La Diva personally:
CBS 60 Minutes "Hard Times Generation: Homeless Kids."
I am from Michigan and my sister works for a non-profit in the suburbs of Detroit. She sees first hand families that have lost their homes and now reside in run-down yet exorbitant hotel rooms. These are people like you and me, people who had a nice home before now and people who had jobs. These are not crack heads. These are not people that "don't want to work." These are good people that lost their jobs, these are families. They could be your neighbors. Or a child your kid goes to school with.
And if you think to yourself, "I don't have a lot of money to donate," let me illustrate what your money can do to help:
- $1 can help provide a hungry child with 10 healthy meals.
- $4 can help provide a child facing hunger with a backpack full of healthy food over a weekend when school meals are not available.
- $9 can help connect a child with healthy lunches during summer when school is out.
- $35 can help a child care center provide free afterschool snacks and suppers to at-risk children all year long.
- $65 can provide a grab-n-go breakfast cart to an elementary school so that every student starts every school day with a healthy meal.
So, PLEASE donate TODAY and help feed a hungry kid! Because no kid in this great country of ours should go hungry. Click HERE to donate.
Also participating at the bake sale tomorrow are local celebrity bakers, Cupcakes Nouveau of Coral Gables and 2 Girls and a Cupcake of Miami, and they are contributing cupcakes to sell, Dunkin' Donuts of South Florida, delicious and unusual Freakin' Flamingo is offering local micro-batch jams and other baked delights. Paula from Mango and Lime dulce de leche oatmeal cookies, blogger Trina from Miami Dish is offering FABULOUS coconut sandwich cookies with mango papaya jam. Additionally cookbooks, cooking classes and a gift certificate to Chef Michael Schwartz's Michael's Genuine will be raffled off!
Here is my contribution to the bake sale tomorrow, my luscious lime custard and toasted coconut bars! You can get the recipe for these delightfully tart and tasty treats by clicking HERE.
If you are in Miami, please stop by Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and buy some of our tasty delights!
For more information on Share Our Strength, please click HERE.
and THANK YOU. XO
FINAL NUMBERS:
LA DIVA: $680 in donations, $20 towards baked goods and contributed 30 $2 lime bars. Our total take for the day was $1,689! Thanks to all who donated! xo
UPDATE:
Fab U Lous work!!
ReplyDeleteI will donate locally, cause ya inspired me so--
an' I might even try to make them cocolime bars, YUM!
Thanks so much Aunty Belle, you are an angel! And of course, you know that Miss Boxer was one of the first to donate, don't you? Thank you. xo
ReplyDeleteGreat cause-glad you are pushy.
ReplyDeleteThose coconut lime bar are amazing.
Velva
Thanks, Velva! x
ReplyDeletevery nice, la diva. and i do believe the doctor says put the lime with the coconut (and call me in the morning, wooooo oooo oooooooo)
ReplyDeleteI donate a good bit of fresh grown produce to Feed Fannin. I also painted the mural on their shed for which there is a horrific picture in the paper of me, but nevermind about that, good on ya for bringing attention to this.
I told my mother in law while she was visiting here that nobody ever thinks about poor white rural people. as if cities were the only hurting folks. farming has been lost on this latest generation it seems..ironically the new farmers is people like me who started out in protest of hormone lasced GMP schizze.
I will tell you what makes me sad though. I can deliver fresh food to the food bank. but what the needy families really want is boxes of kraft mac and cheese. Not spinach.
whoa. beaucoup typos. so sorry
ReplyDeleteChickory chica chickie, don't worry about them typos! The thing is we see what we know and what we live. I don't live in a rural area but the city and my sis lives in the burbs. I'm sure there is plenty of hunger to go around...
ReplyDeleteI need to get more involved with teaching others how to cook veggies and incorporate them into daily meals. They want the mac and cheese cuz some don't know what to do with the vegetables! Too easy to open up a box and boil it up.
And if I hear "I'm too busy to cook, I don't have time" one more time....People don't seem to realize if we don't eat right, power our bodies up right, teach our kids how to eat right, well, we can't be leaders, educators, thinkers cuz were not taking care of ourselves to begin with. I love how your heart and mind works, Chickory, we'll just have to lead by example!
The i dont have time to cook excuse is a basic lack of understanding about the creative aspect of cooking. Especially if you are hurting for food because you are unemployed. Unemployment is a great time to take up gardening and learning to cook real food.
ReplyDeleteIf we saw it as entertainment, which it is, then half the battle would be won. Imagine a family spending the early evening hours not on Wii or watching tv, but finding a recipe and preparing the meal together! and of course, I love setting a great looking table too. We dont live as well as we could in this culture. and its not about money either, i should know i dont have any. grrrrrhahahah
Chickory, I love that idea about the family cooking together, that's how it should be (and is in some houses) I just got back from demonstrating to 60 teachers for health and wellness day...showed them a stir fry sauce and veggies, great for week night and not a bit processed. They all loved it, not as hard as people think. If we don't take the time to take care of ourselves, who will? And how can you teach your children to do it if you don't?
ReplyDelete