Too many veterans need help with food

From today's PittsburghPost-Gazette  (but I'm fairly certain it's true everywhere! - Gloria)


As we mark another Veterans Day with people around the country lining streets to cheer their heroes as they parade by, we need to be aware of another, less honorable, parade of veterans, which is growing at an alarming rate.

That parade leads to the local food pantry or soup kitchen. According to a recent Feeding America report titled “Hunger in America,” here in southwestern Pennsylvania a growing number of households that receive assistance from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank include a veteran or a person now serving in the military.

Additional statistics show that there are about 230,000 veterans in the Pittsburgh region, with approximately one-tenth of those falling below the poverty level. And while nobody in our country should be at risk of not having enough nutritious food, it is particularly troubling that so many veterans — men and women who gave so much to protect the freedom and prosperity we as Americans enjoy — struggle daily with this challenge.