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just write loan cfelan© A DAY OF WANDERING...During the last several months, my husband and,I have had several home repairs going cm at our house, projects which caused a lot of grit and dust and eventually necessitated that we have our wooden floors sanded and refinished. Since we could hardly put our furniture on the front lawn, the upstairs hall, stairs and living room were tackled first, and then, after those floors dried and the furni- ture could be moved back, the dining room and kitchen were completed. Anyone who has endured such a project knows that the products that are used smell rather foul (I hate to think of their toxici- ty), especially so on hot and humid sum- mer days when drying takes longer than usual. The result was that once the work- ers had finished, my husband and I beaded out, not to return until the eight hours needed for drying had been completed. And so, in one week, we went to the movies twice, something we rarely do because there's usually not much we want to see. We headed to cooler interior spaces, ate out, visited some friends, and usually came home after sundown. As we wandered about, I could not help but think of those folks who don't have the alternatives we have, people who have no decent place to call home or who are actu- ally homeless. In the volunteer work I do, I meet numerous people living right in our own community who pay expensive monthly rents and whose living conditions are deplorable. Like many communities, Baldwin also has a few homeless who seem to stake out a particular part of the town as their own. I wondered how they were doing in the blis- tering heat since some of them seem to wear their entire wardrobe in layers, no matter the temperature. When we returned home after die sec- ond portion of the project was completed, we still had to wait another day for the workers to return to move the heaviest fur- niture back in place. And so, for a day, three rooms of furniture were in our living room, and we watched a gerrymandered television set-up through a narrow open- ing that was not obstructed. \We have too much stuff,\ I told my husband, who graciously didn't respond to the not-such-a-problem problem. When we finally had everything returned to normal, I realized how unnerv- ing such unpleasant living conditions can be despite the fact that the situation was one of our own choosing. And so, after some heavy cleaning and window wash- ing, I was glad to sit down, air conditioner on, to enjoy life as it used to be, everything in place. Coincidental!}' that same day, I received an e-mail from a volunteer group to which I belong announcing that the 2007/08 year would be one in which interfaith groups would be joining together with the goal of ending poverty on Long Island. This ambitious objective, called MIC AH (Mobilized Interfaith Coalition Against Hunger) wiB include educational forums, interfaith programs, and lobbying of legis- lates - a multi-pronged approach intended to sort out the facts, change hearts, and address those governmental initiatives needed to produce meaningful change. The statistics regarding poverty and hunger on Long Island are staggering and often are very different from the percep- tions that many have about the poor. According to statistics gathered from a study conducted by Long Island Cares and bland Harvest, two groups which feed CALL TODAY ABOUT OUR 2 FOR 1 OFFER* To ROUND Ou YOUR KIDS EDUCATION, Encourage your children to read the newspaper!! For the best in local news, look no further than the Freeport Baldwin Leader. Whether at work, school ^ or play, you can find everything you need and more | in the newspaper. Start your subscription today. Please send a Gift Subscription to: Name Address_ Town _State [^PAYMENT ENCLOSED - $15 Charge My Q VISA QMASTERCARD Phone Card* . Exp. Date. My Name_ Address Town _State_ -Zip- Mail to: Freeport Baldwin Leader 1840 Merrick Ave. • Merrick, NY 11566 • Call 378-5320 'Nassau County Resident Only - Offer Exp. 6/3O/O7 those in need, approximately 259387 res- idents turned to soup kitchens, food pantries and shelters for help during the year on Long Island. During the last four years there has been an increase in the number of clients at more than 2/3 of the food pantries, 54 per- cent of soup kitchens, and 32 percent of shelters. During the summer, when most children are not in school and receiving free or reduced price breakfasts and lunch- es, the number of children served increased by 38 percent at food pantries and 36 percent at soup kitchens. Unfortunately, at least in Baldwin, donations also tend to fall off during this same period, since many organizations and school groups who usually donate are not meeting or in session. The question often asked is who are the poor living on Long Island, one of our nation's wealthiest regions? Certainly some of the poor are those people suffer- ing from mental illness or folks suffering the results of poor decisions which led them to alcoholism or drug addiction. But statistics show that such people do not make up the majority of the poor on Long Island. More than 1/4 of the clients of food pantries and soup kitchens have complet- ed high school, 25 percent have completed some college, and five percent have com- pleted college or higher. Only 38 percent have less than a high school education. The racial/ethnic breakdown shows that 37 percent are white, 32 percent are black/African American and almost-23 percent are Latino/Hispanic. In terms of work, almost one half of the client house- holds have one or more adults employed. These are the \working poor\ we some- times hear about but don't really give much attention to. These are the workers who cannot survive on minimum wage or low-income jobs when rents and other costs are so high. While many of us are aware of the poverty in third world and developing nations and perhaps have had our con- sciousness raised in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when we saw the underbelly of poverty in our own nation, few of us are fully aware of the day-in and day-out impact of poverty within our own communities. In a few weeks, children will return to school and be expected to buy an assort- ment of back-to-school materials. For the poor, a few notebooks and looseleaf paper require monies they don't have. New clothing, sneakers, and backpacks, much less i-pods, calculators, and cell phones are totally beyond the realm of possibility. An excerpt from the policy paper \Poverty hi America: A Threat to the Common Good,\ presented in 2006 by Catholic Charities USA, noted: \The tolerance of widespread poverty undermines our social contract and weak- ens our democracy. It violates our basic sense of fairness. Ours is a very prosperous nation, and we have the resources, experi- ence, and knowledge to virtually eliminate poverty, especially long-term poverty.\ As summer moves toward a close and our local organizations and schools begin their activities anew, we urge our readers to consider how they as individuals and the groups to which they belong can meaningfully address the issue of poverty within our own communities. 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