To the editor:

On a rainy morning recently, I delivered a large backpack of groceries to the Kelowna Community Food Bank at 1265 Ellis St. While there, I was dumbstruck by the poignant scene of many people lined up to register for eligibility or already selecting items—their faces mirroring despair, defeat, dejection and even embarrassment.

I thought, thank God for Okanagan food banks during these troubled economic times which have not only the jobless and homeless, but also worried, working-poor families relying upon compassionate generosity from their community neighbours to ensure bodily sustenance as they stretch their food budgets.

Contrast our good fortune in having food banks accessible in this most blessed of nations vis-a-vis those many Third World nations where tearful, skeletal children hold empty soup bowls.

Yet, last I heard or read, was that our local food bank is 43 per cent below average in contributions—thanks to the economic meltdown.

No excuse, though, for this region so immersed not only in supernatural splendour but also in abundant affluence.

Several stone throws away from the Ellis Street food bank, for example, massive cranes dot the sky as work continues on projects advertising “luxury living.”

While I’m hardly a Mr. goody two-shoes, having been myself prodded into the food donation, I despair reflecting upon the disparity of food bank shortages where the capability exists to overwhelm our hungry, struggling neighbours with groceries.

That anyone should go hungry is an ugly scar on Kelowna’s and the Okanagan’s beautiful portrait. Are we not, each of us, as the saying goes, our brother’s (and sister’s) keeper? Are we not, as religions urge, to feed the hungry?

For a nation esteemed worldwide as caring, compassionate, and so neighbourly, just as Kelowna demonstrated so remarkably during the 2003 fires when Good Samaritan forces were overwhelmingly on the scene to help others in need.

Imagine the results if each of us stepped up to the plate with contributions to the food bank.

Kelowna, as in 2003, would shine again for its devotion to neighbourly duty.

Wally  Dennison, Kelowna