Hunger

“In September of 2014, the Economic Research Service at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its most recent report on food insecurity, indicating that 49 million people in the United States are living in food insecure households, 16 million of whom are children.” (www.feedingamerica.org)

I remember reading this statistic from Feeding America while serving in South Africa and being shocked by this information. Could this be right? Were there really this many people in the “land of plenty” who were hungry? In my own backyard??? The 2015 population census for South Africa listed the population of the country to be just over 53 million. So, in essence, there were almost as many hungry people in my home country as the total population of the country I was sent to serve.

This was a true wake-up call for me and many of my friends as we began to discuss this crisis and our call to respond. God used Matthew 25:35 to catalyze our mission and through that Cul2vate was born. The need is great right here within our borders, and we must do everything we can to respond with the compassion, love, and urgency Christ modeled for us!  If our churches, non-profits, local companies, and consumers will work creatively together, we can and will impact the lives of the hungry that live amongst us.