The organizers of the World Food Program remind us that hunger is a problem that has plagued humanity for millennia. But just because it persists does not mean that we can’t be the generation that ends hunger. Based on statistics gathered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Maine now ranks seventh worst in the nation for food insecurity. When it comes to what is called “very low food security” — that’s real hunger — we are third worst in the nation.

But thanks to the passage of the Hunger Prevention Act, signed into law by Gov. Mills in July 2021, you finally have the opportunity to send a contribution to the state’s Emergency Food Assistance Program Fund by checking off a box to give a voluntary donation, No. 8 on Schedule CP on your 2022 Maine income tax form 1040ME.

This contribution from the people, this grassroots effort, is meant to close the gap to end hunger in Maine and will only achieve that mission if current individual, institutional, and government efforts to feed the needy in Maine continue to be supported. It is a temporary measure while solutions to the complex underlying causes of chronic hunger are created.

But in the meantime, compassion for those suffering from chronic hunger can be our siren, our call to immediate action.

Even if you are already donating to your local food bank or working at a food kitchen, please consider taking this additional step. It will support food pantries and community hunger prevention programs around the state in any and all nonprofits working to feed those in need, from the tiniest churches and pantries in northern Maine, where much of the chronic hunger exists, to the islands, to larger organizations including Preble Street Food Security Hub, Good Shepard Food Bank, Mid-Coast Hunger Prevention Program, Wayside Food Programs, and Seeds of Hope, among others. Funding will be distributed to qualified applicants by the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.

If just half of Maine income taxpayers check off the $25 box, it will bring in $10 million in 2023. Larger donations are also welcome.

But let’s get the word out to encourage many more than half of our 800,000 Maine income taxpayers to step up and check a box. As Maine House Majority Leader Maureen Terry, the sponsor of the bill, points out, it is a gesture of kindness, just like taking a neighbor’s hungry family out to a reasonably priced dinner.

It is a civil and a divine right to have one’s hunger met first with charity, that is, an adequate amount of nutritious food and then with social justice, that is, concerted efforts made through public policy actions and additional grass roots efforts to eliminate the causes of poverty.

Sara Lambert Bloom is a resident of Biddeford.

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