Hunger Log

Jenny Fogel works in our Development Department and she also serves the community as one of our lawyers at the LAW Center here at Central Dallas Ministries.

What follows is a part of her journal reflections from Monday's experience of going without meals as a part of our Hunger Awareness Day.

I am hoping that many readers here joined us yesterday or, if not, will decide to engage in a day without food during one day this week and then donate what is saved to our Blog Campaign (see upper right corner here--for each $1,000 raised from this appeal, we will paint another house green--details can be found by clicking on the thumbnails).

You can also read more about our hunger awareness day by returning to my post on Monday, September 25.

Please consider joining us. We need your help.
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7:53 a.m. Just arrived at work and am already starving! I’m a breakfast person, and this is going to be tough! I’m just trying to imagine all the little kids in our city today who went to bed hungry last night, will wake up hungry this morning, and will still be hungry tomorrow, long after I’ve filled my stomach again.

9:24 a.m. Okay. This is tougher than I thought. My stomach is already growling, and it’s not even 10:00. I just drank some juice to get energy. People who truly have nothing don’t even have juice!

10:40 a.m. The juice helped. For about half an hour. Back to feeling very, very hungry.

11:45 a.m. This is when I would ordinarily be eating lunch. It’s amazing—I would pay $20 for a Subway sandwich right now. It’s incredibly hard to focus when you’re this hungry. I can’t even imagine trying to function well in school or at a job with nothing to fuel your brain. It’s amazing how many people are forced to do that every day.

1:18 p.m. My stomach actually hurts right now. Not just the empty, growling feeling, but it actually hurts to not have any food. So hard to concentrate!

2:50 p.m. I wish the entire country would do this for a day. I won’t soon forget this feeling. It makes me want to drive up and down the streets of Dallas to give food to every single hunger adult and child. Nobody should have to feel this way.

3:26 p.m. I’m feeling pretty lightheaded. My stomach no longer hurts, but it’s just generally kind of an empty, exhausted feeling. And it hasn’t even been a full day yet.

4:50 p.m. I broke down and had some applesauce. My rationalization is that since I didn’t really have to chew it, it doesn’t count as food. But I know that it does. I can’t imagine what it must feel like not to have the option of even a little bit of applesauce. I keep envisioning parents feeling physically poor themselves and having to combine that with the anguish that comes from watching their beautiful children go through the stages of hunger that I’ve experienced today.

5:23 p.m. Okay. I have a new term. “Hangry.” It’s a combination of “hungry” and “angry.” I’m hungry from lack of food, I’m angry from my own lack of food and from the fact that hunger exists like this every day for thousands of people right here in Dallas, Texas. I think we should do this every year. I don’t think it’s that people don’t care about those around them. I think it’s just that they don’t really get it. When you remove hunger from the theoretical realm and place it into your own reality, it really opens your eyes. And makes them sting with tears.