On pasta, collard greens, bread, cling peaches
Blessed Is the Full Plate
A terrible shortage of food for the poor grips the country. Where is the political will to do the right thing for the hungry?
By Anna Quindlen, NEWSWEEK
One of the most majestic dining rooms in New York City is in the Church of the Holy Apostles. After the landmark building was nearly destroyed by fire in 1990, the Episcopal parish made the decision not to replace the pews so that the nave could become a place of various uses. There are traditional Sunday services, of course, and the gay and lesbian synagogue on Friday evenings. And every weekday more than a thousand people eat lunch at round tables beneath 12-foot stained-glass windows and a priceless Dutch pipe organ.
"You can't get more Biblical than feeding the hungry," says the Rev. William Greenlaw, the rector.
Holy Apostles has fed the hungry for 25 years now without missing a single weekday, including the morning after the fire, when the church lay in ruins, still smoldering, and 943 meals were served by candlelight. There's a queue on Ninth Avenue by midmorning; sometimes tourists think there's a wait for some exclusive New York happening until they notice the shabby clothes, piles of shopping bags and unshaven faces that are the small unmistakable markers of poverty.
The poor could be forgiven for feeling somewhat poorer nowadays. The share of the nation's income going to the top 1 percent of its citizens is at its highest level since 1928, just before the big boom went bust. But poverty is not a subject that's been discussed much by the current administration, who were wild to bring freedom to the Iraqis but not bread to the South Bronx. "Hunger is hard for us as a nation to admit," says Clyde Kuemmerle, who oversees the volunteers at Holy Apostles. "That makes it hard to talk about and impossible to run on."
(Continued here.)
A terrible shortage of food for the poor grips the country. Where is the political will to do the right thing for the hungry?
By Anna Quindlen, NEWSWEEK
One of the most majestic dining rooms in New York City is in the Church of the Holy Apostles. After the landmark building was nearly destroyed by fire in 1990, the Episcopal parish made the decision not to replace the pews so that the nave could become a place of various uses. There are traditional Sunday services, of course, and the gay and lesbian synagogue on Friday evenings. And every weekday more than a thousand people eat lunch at round tables beneath 12-foot stained-glass windows and a priceless Dutch pipe organ.
"You can't get more Biblical than feeding the hungry," says the Rev. William Greenlaw, the rector.
Holy Apostles has fed the hungry for 25 years now without missing a single weekday, including the morning after the fire, when the church lay in ruins, still smoldering, and 943 meals were served by candlelight. There's a queue on Ninth Avenue by midmorning; sometimes tourists think there's a wait for some exclusive New York happening until they notice the shabby clothes, piles of shopping bags and unshaven faces that are the small unmistakable markers of poverty.
The poor could be forgiven for feeling somewhat poorer nowadays. The share of the nation's income going to the top 1 percent of its citizens is at its highest level since 1928, just before the big boom went bust. But poverty is not a subject that's been discussed much by the current administration, who were wild to bring freedom to the Iraqis but not bread to the South Bronx. "Hunger is hard for us as a nation to admit," says Clyde Kuemmerle, who oversees the volunteers at Holy Apostles. "That makes it hard to talk about and impossible to run on."
(Continued here.)
Labels: Anna Quindlen
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