When I wake up for my 8 a.m. class, the first thing I do is turn on the coffee pot. Before I even get dressed, I pour myself a bowl of cereal or grab a granola bar from the cabinet. If I'm running late, I can stop at Starbucks on my walk to class. I swipe my TigerCard filled with my parents' money. My stomach barely starts to growl before I fill it again.
For most of us, we wonder where we're going to eat lunch each day. What time will we eat? Who will we eat with? We don't wonder if we're going to eat.
When I think about hunger, I think about starving children in Africa. I think about how there is nothing I could do to help them because they're so far away and I'm only one person.
Meanwhile, 16,000 people in Lee County and surrounding areas rely on the East Alabama Food Bank each month. Some of these people are children whose only meal each day is lunch at school. Some of these people are parents who have to choose between paying their electricity bill and buying dinner for their families.
These people are our neighbors.
Local, short-term hunger is a problem that tends to be ignored. It's not obvious. People who are on food stamps don't look different. It's uncomfortable. No parents want the feeling of not being able to provide for their children. No child wants to be embarrassed in the school lunch line for a specialized free lunch.
Hunger is a bigger problem than we know. It's complex, and there is no simple solution. One person cannot end hunger. But if people work together, we can fight it.
There are 25,000 students at Auburn University. If every Auburn student donated $6.18, we could supply the food bank with enough food for an entire month. For some people, $6.18 is too much to ask. For others, it's sacrificing two Starbucks lattes.
Elizabeth Segarra
Junior
Public Relations
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