Because children are starving in ... America.

Will this campaign never end? It lurches on from day to day, with speeches by both presidential candidates that could just as easily be given by playing the same tape over and over and continued divisive, offensive Palin rallies. I think America is reaching the end of its rope. Campbell Brown suggests in a column today that the candidates could give everyone a break and help America at the same time, by scrapping their negative advertising for the rest of the campaign and donating the combined $30,000,000 per week to food banks and other charities.

That’s astounding, don’t you think? Thirty million dollars a WEEK spent on ads that have been shown to be having the opposite effect of what’s desired, while homeless shelters and soup kitchens across America are stretched to their limit by the influx of the newly homeless. Just as more citizens need their services, these charities are feeling the crunch of lessened donations from Americans who are hoarding their money out of fear for their own livelihoods.

This is a scary state of affairs. The story Ms. Brown tells of a woman who has taken her three small children to the shelter for all three meals a day, every day since her husband lost his job and they lost their house, hits awfully close to home. So many of us are a few missed mortgage payments away from foreclosure, and in economic times when nobody feels secure about his job, it could be you and it could be me bundling our small children up against the cold to ask for help.

The candidates are not likely to accept the challenge to divert their advertising budgets to feed the hungry. Our tax dollars are lined up for the foreseeable future to “rescue” banks and pump money into the Iraqi economy, but people here need our help. If the thought of your fellow Americans already suffering today is not enough by itself to move you, think of it this way: the time may come that you, too, will need the services and the compassion offered by our nation’s charities. The possibility is a lot more real than it was a few months ago. Money, food or time that you donate to a charitable organization now is like an insurance policy for the future. The more people that give, the more likely these organizations will be there as more people need them, and the more we renew a culture where it is natural to help one another.

America prides itself on the idea that its citizens are incredibly resourceful, and able and willing to sacrifice in the face of great challenges, but most Americans haven’t been tested on that front in many years. The potential scope of the current economic crisis constitutes a great challenge, and there is no denying that we are all going to have to make sacrifices. Why not start now, by helping us all to help ourselves with a few dollars for a homeless shelter?