In the hope of improving the lives of children

As you know Pam and I are involved with several other partners in Baltimore City, including Heart's Place Services, Inc.  to provide food for homeless children during the weekend.  It is a goal that with the help of the Maryland Food Bank we will be able to work with all of the Baltimore City Schools to ensure that these children and their care givers/parents are fed during the weekend when there are few resources available to help these people, or the resource is too far to get to for these children..

We were requested by the Maryland Food Bank to assist them in handling this program throughout the state of Maryland, but the area requested that we involve ourselves is very large and as there are only a limited number of individuals involved in this program therefore we believed attempting to help the children of Baltimore City would be a tremendous achievement in itself.

At each school we travel to within our city we learn of an increasing number of children who are homeless, last year's statistics created by the Baltimore City Public School system indicated that a total of 1,700 children who were homeless were registered in the school system.  1,700 children who more than likely would be hungry over the weekend left their schools each Friday knowing that perhaps they would not eat over the weekend.  What a horrible way to start the weekend, don't you agree?   I don't know what the figure is for this year as the statistics are still being calculated, but I firmly believe that the figure of 1,700 children only represent the tip of the iceberg.

On Monday these children return to their schools; not with learning on their minds, but run to the school's cafeterias to eat a meal, perhaps the first one over the long weekend.  How can we allow this to happen?  How can we as a city think for one moment that they can learn when all their thoughts are on food?  Why do we keep on expecting that these children will grow into adults with goals and dreams when the only thing on their minds is hunger?  We can do something and should do something that will improve the lives of these children and that is making a donation of any kind to:  Heart's Place Services, Inc. - 2640 St. Paul Street,
Baltimore, Maryland 21218.  Make this donation your Thanksgiving donation to the hungry that exist in the open and in the shadows of this city, or a Christmas donation to ensure that a child will get some nourishing food for the weekend.  Our backpack program is unique in that all of the food within the backpacks do not require refrigeration and/or heating and provides the calories to help a child grow.

We don't want you to discontinue your contributions to any other cause that you may consider, but to give you an opportunity to share what you have with a child.  Think about it, a child is worth helping, don't you agree?