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Some 15 years ago, a friend of mine asked me to accompany him on a long-awaited visit to his birth father and wife, who happened to be living in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Although he was looking forward to it after so many years, he knew it was going to be emotionally very challenging: His dad and wife are severely hearing impaired.

The midday visit to the couple's apartment seemed to be going quite smoothly after the initial hugs and tears - until the subject of lunch came up. My friend and I had thought it convenient that we all go out to a local diner, a reasonable food option in that city. What was to ensue almost broke my heart.

We could see immediately that the suggestion brought extreme distress to the wife of my friend's dad. She clearly needed to be with him privately for a moment, and I asked my friend what was wrong. It took a little doing, but when communication was finally sorted out, my friend and I were invited to have spaghetti with Ragu sauce right in the couple's apartment.

They had wanted to treat us for coming to see them. As it turns out, they were on fixed income and did not have the funds to do more, nor did they want to depend on us to pick up their tab.

I came to learn that many folks who were similarly situated gravitated to Las Vegas for its low food costs and - at least at that time - housing options.

I had remembered stories told by my grandmother about her best friend, Rose, an Italian immigrant woman from Naples, who had nothing to feed her large family with on Easter Sunday in the 1950s but plain boiled macaroni. As a child, I could hardly imagine this, never having to worry about whether there would be food on the table, even though restaurants and even diners were never a part of my experience growing up in working-class Ridgewood, N.Y.

People do not talk to their neighbors about hunger issues in their homes. But they were there in the '50s when I was a kid, and there in the '90s when I visited my friend's dad - and are still here in our own communities today.

In the 14 counties of our Albany Diocese, 159,000 people are living below the poverty line. One in six New Yorkers are "food insecure." That means they may not know where their next meal is coming from. They may well skip meals periodically or have to ration food to their kids.

In the city of Albany alone, 43 percent of our children live below the poverty line. They are our neighbors. They need our help. Like most Americans, we are more than willing to be generous in assisting them. But they will rarely be asking us directly, for reasons we can all understand. It's downright embarrassing to ask a neighbor for something to eat, even for one's children.

Fortunately, there is a way to help, and we can do it right now.

"Feeding Our Neighbors" is a statewide campaign to raise awareness about hunger in our community and to raise funds to replenish the shelves at our food pantries and soup kitchens. It is running throughout February - the time when food supplies at our soup kitchens and food pantries are at their lowest.

Catholic Charities and the parishes of the Diocese of Albany operate and support more than 50 food pantries and soup kitchens. Last year, more than 41,000 people sought help from the food programs of Catholic Charities. These are often hard-working adults, children and seniors who simply cannot always make ends meet and may be forced to go without food.

All who seek assistance receive help regardless of race, religious affiliation, ethnicity or lifestyle choice. Sponsored and managed by Catholic Charities, 100 percent of the contributions to the campaign will support local food pantries that serve non-Catholics and Catholics alike.

How can you help? If you have not yet come across an insert in a local newspaper or parish bulletin, or received notice through one of our schools, just go online at www.ccrcda.org (under "Feed Neighbor"). There, you can get much more information about "Feeding our Neighbors" and the many other ways in which Catholic Charities has been serving persons throughout our diocese for 100 years.

Even a small gift goes a long way. Every dollar, at the food bank, purchases six pounds of food! You may never see the child your gift will feed, but our Lord will surely know, and will thank you for feeding Him![[In-content Ad]]

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