Today’s challenge: Donate money to a local food bank.
Good morning to all 222 readers. Thanks to those who've responded with their experiences completing these challenges. Keep 'em coming—just hit reply. As always, you can share this email by forwarding it along or using the “view online” link at the bottom to post elsewhere. —Jack
People shop at grocery stores. Grocers pay landlords, and employees, who shop at grocery stores and eat at restaurants, and pay rent and mortgages to landlords and banks. Banks borrow and lend money to businesses and people, who send their children to schools, who pay teachers and staff who shop at grocery stores and eat at restaurants and buy books from bookstores, who pay employees ... and so on.
Crisis makes clear the countless ways that people, and organizations, and institutions, depend on each other. It reveals both how the world is connected, and the fragility of those connections—morning dew on a spider’s web.
Yet there are those who were aware of this fragility all along. Helpers who've had first-hand experience. Food banks, for instance, who even before this sudden global crisis, have been battling ongoing local crises, working to provide sustenance to any and all who need it. Strengthening the weak points in the web.
With schools shuttered or shutting, children who rely on meals from school programs are at immediate risk, as are laid-off and furloughed workers. Food banks are ramping up to do what they do best: Feed the hungry. These organization use their partnerships with manufacturers, grocery stores, and restaurants to get deals on food that would otherwise go to waste. Thus, each dollar to them goes a long way—multiple times farther than non-monetary donations like canned goods. Supporting food banks, financially, now, is more important than ever.
If you’re in the U.S., you can visit Feeding America to find a food bank near you. Other countries have their own resources too—just search online or ask people in your network about ones the might already support.
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.