Mr. President, I rise to submit a resolution that would designate Thursday, November 16, 2006, as ``Feed America Day.'' The United States today is marked by an economic prosperity unparalleled in the…
Mr. President, I rise to submit a resolution that would designate Thursday, November 16, 2006, as ``Feed America Day.''
The United States today is marked by an economic prosperity unparalleled in the world. Every year we gather together as family and friends in a great Thanksgiving feast to celebrate the goodness of God and the bounty that He has provided us. Unfortunately, not all in this world participate in this bounty. There are thousands among us who suffer from hunger and want, including far too many children.
Hunger was something our forefathers who instituted the first Thanksgiving feast understood all too well. Nearly half of the small band of Pilgrims who first arrived upon the bleak shores of Plymouth on December 11, 1620, perished from hunger and sickness that first winter. It was only through the generosity and goodwill of friendly native inhabitants that the Pilgrims were able to become self-sufficient and enjoy a bountiful harvest the following year.
It is with a sincere desire that others may partake of our plenty, that I offer this resolution designating Thursday, November 15, 2006, as ``Feed America Day''. That day, before we sit down to our own feasts of thanksgiving, I ask that all Americans share their food with their neighbors just as the Pilgrims and the Indians shared with one another, and all were able to sit down and rejoice together.
The concept of Feed America Day is very simple. On the Thursday before Thanksgiving, I urge every American who is able to fast for two meals and give the money saved to a church or charitable organization engaged in feeding the hungry. Fasting means to go without food for a higher purpose. What higher purpose could there be than to share our blessings with those in need? As we feel the hunger for a brief time that so many in the world experience every day, we become more sensitive to the needs of others. And this strengthened generosity of spirit will reverberate throughout our Nation and the world.
Sarah Josepha Hale, recognized as the Mother of the American Thanksgiving, engaged in a nearly 40-year campaign to have Thanksgiving accepted as a national holiday. She summed up her vision for this holiday in one of her many editorials on the subject published in the women's magazine she headed for many years. She wrote, ``Let us consecrate the day to benevolence of action, by sending good gifts to the poor, and doing those deeds of charity that will, for one day, make every American home the place of plenty and of rejoicing. . . . Let the people of all the States and Territories sit down together to the `feast of fat things,' and drink in the sweet draught of joy and gratitude to the Divine giver of all our blessings, . . .''
This is the purpose of Feed America Day.
Through this program of fasting and charity, we as a nation can truly embody the spirit of Thanksgiving that was amply demonstrated for us between the first European settlers to this land and its native inhabitants in 1621, and later urged by Mrs. Hale.
I urge my colleagues to support ``Feed America Day''. It is my belief that participating in such selfless sacrifice will breed a genuine spirit of Thanksgiving, affirming and restoring the fundamental principles that form the foundation of the United States of America.
