Letters: Help the YMCA with your own ‘mini-food drive’; A call to donate stimulus checks
Help the YMCA with your own ‘mini-food drive’
The State College area YMCA is one of 26 food distribution sites in our area. As a whole, they are up to serving close to 2,000 families per day in this pandemic. If you are able, please consider doing a mini-food drive in your neighborhood on a weekly basis: Email a small group of your neighbors, have them set out food in a bag on their porch for a pre-set pick-up day, then pick up the donations and deliver to the Y. They will take the items out of your car and no contact is needed. They are there 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Kudos to Cindy Lupton (YMCA employee) and her family for their tireless work to help feed our community. Check their website for more details: https://www.ymcaofcentrecounty.org/ymca/anti-hunger-program-updates/.
President Trump lacking key lessons in responsibility
When we were raising our children to become adults, we tried to teach them that if they wanted credit for something they had to take responsibility for the effort. And responsibility meant owning the effort, accepting defeat, learning from mistakes and graciously welcoming credit when successful. Denial of responsibility and boasting were not options. Causing an error that harmed someone was taught as a reason to apologize, to ask for forgiveness. Donald Trump apparently has not yet received those lessons. Given his public tantrums, his withholding any pretense of an apology, and his refusal to accept any responsibility for any unsuccessful outcomes from his administration’s choices, he has not yet attained adulthood.
Join a virtual Earth Day 50th anniversary celebration
The very first Earth Day began with 20 million Americans taking to the streets in 1970 (I was in a Philadelphia park with 60,000 others to demand greater protection for our planet). On its 50th anniversary April 22, Earth Day is looking a bit different. Events have shifted online amid the pandemic to practice physical distancing.
Help make this Earth Day the largest secular observance in the world by being one of the billion who are expected to be connected via cyberspace. The theme in 2020 is a global demand for transformative climate action. The climate emergency, like COVID-19, is also a global health crisis. Air pollution kills an estimated 7 million people worldwide every year (250,000 because of global warming alone).
Google the Earth Day Network, March for Science, the Citizens Climate Lobby or 350.org to link into history. Note especially that the Sunrise Movement’s youth-led climate strike has also been relocated from city streets to digital avenues here in Centre County on Earth Day.
If you think the economy is taking a hit from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, wait until you get a load of the bill when the climate crisis tab comes due if we continue business as usual in a post-coronavirus future. Join me and countless others on your device this Earth Day for an alternative vision.
A call to donate stimulus checks
Millions of people have recently lost their jobs and their incomes. This is a difficult time for them, as they wonder how they will put food on the table, pay doctor bills or pay the rent.
Some people have not had their incomes reduced. Some people are still working, and others, like me, are retired on Social Security, which will continue uninterrupted.
To me, it doesn’t seem right to keep the $1,200 bonus check from the government when my income is not being reduced. I hope that people who can afford to do so will join me in donating their check to a local charity or other worthy cause.