TGPlan Essay TGPlan Reflective Essay The world will never be perfect.

There will always be a hungry person, an endangered animal, or a polluted city. However, just because our world will never be exactly flawless doesnt mean we shouldnt strive to make it that way. As a group we decided to f ocus on one issue-Austin area hunger- and use our talents and resources to make an impact, to make a positive difference in the world around us. Approximately 925 million people in the world were hungry in 2010. Thats equivalent to every single person in the United States being hungrytimes 3. 18.6 million children received food stamps in the United States alone, thats more than 23 times the population of Austin. Hunger isnt just a statistic, though; it affects each and every one of us. Most likely, we know at least one or two people that are chronically hungry, not that we could ever tell, however. In fact, over 82% of the people that the Capital Area Food Bank serves are not homeless. The most disconcerting fact though, is that 41% of all the people that the CAFB serves are children. Is was facts like these, the ones that directly affect our peers and friends, that really got us motivated to go out into the community and attempt to make a difference. The first step was meeting with and interviewing a local expert on the issue which we were addressing. Some of my fellow group members interviewed food-distribution volunteers and actual homeless people, but I interviewed Mr. Alan Graham. Going into the interview, I was aware that formerly he was a very successful real estate agent, but he dropped everything to found the homeless-feeding organization called Mobile Loaves and Fishes. Perplexed by why a person would do something so drastic, the first question I asked him was essentially, Whyd you do it? He replied candidly, In 1996 I went on a church retreat, had a close encounter with Christ, and felt very called to do what Im doing today. The organization has spread to 6 other cities around the United States and they have cumulatively served nearly 3 million meals to the homeless and hungry. When I was researching the organization I noticed a very strong emphasis on them providing not only food, but also dignity to the people they served. During the interview I inquired about this, and he respond with, Food is just a way to connect personto-person. God set us all as equals. Color, language, nothing matters to God, and we should be able to give dignity to our brothers and sisters as equals. Impressed by this mans utter devotion to this cause, I was ready to get to work. Having four kids in the group all involved in sports and extracurricular activities, it proved very hard to find a time in which we could all do service work at the same time. This didnt deter us, however, from individually going out and doing some type of work geared toward feeding the homeless. My mom and I went to our church and participated in a Room at

the Inn night, where we served food and conversed with local homeless before giving them a room to stay in at the church for a night. The joy and satisfaction I felt from feeding and talking to the homeless came as a very pleasant surprise; I had expected most of them to be grumpy old men but they turned out to be quite the opposite! Working their way through the line were men, women, and teenagers, all very friendly and exceptionally grateful for the food and place to stay for the night. With a few of the people I sat down to talk with, it was evident why they were homeless, typically drinking or drug issues, but for most, that was not the case. Most of the homeless people I ate and conversed with were simply down on their luck! Whether they had a burned down house or simply couldnt find a job, the majority of the homeless simply just got dealt a bad hand. Although feeding a line of homeless didnt put much of a dent in the hunger issue in Austin, it opened my eyes to the situations in which most of these people were placed, therefore leading me to believe that if we solved other problems first, homelessness and hunger would diminish as a result. Thus I believe that we, as a community, should focus our efforts and resources on solving issues that cause homelessness and hunger as by-products, and as a nation we should strive to improve the status of families in general because as Mr. Graham observers, I think most homelessness stems from family problems. Its a problem with our nation and homelessness [and hunger] is just a symptom. The world will never be perfect, but that doesnt mean we shouldnt put forth our full efforts to make it that way. We need to reach for that goal one nation, one city, one meal, at a time.

Works Cited: "World Hunger Education Service." 2012 World Hunger and Poverty Facts and Statistics. 08 Apr. 2012. Hunger Notes. <http://http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm>. "Every Child Deserves to Thrive." Understanding Childhood Hunger. 08 Apr. 2012. Share Our Strength. <http://www.strength.org/childhood_hunger/?gclid=CJnhwZzoq68CFWlgTAodJAyxnw>. "Hunger is Unacceptable." Capital Area Food Bank of Texas. 08 Apr. 2012. <http://www.austinfoodbank.org/hunger-is-unacceptable/facts.html>. Graham, Alan. "MLF Trucks." 08 Apr. 2012. Mobile Loaves and Fishes. <http://mlf.org/locations/>.