Like roughly half of the remainder of the American voting public, I’ve had a tough week. The information that Donald Trump can be reelected to the presidency regardless of being an unrepentant racist and misogynist punched me proper within the intestine because the outcomes rolled in on Tuesday night time. I’m unhappy, scared, and anxious about what’s to return, however I refuse to be cowed by the looming specter of fascism. As a substitute, I’ll prepare dinner a meal for somebody.
Within the days following the election, a lot has been stated about what might want to occur subsequent as we glance towards the havoc that Trump will possible wreak for immigrants, for queer individuals of shade, for Gazans, for any marginalized particular person. We have no idea precisely what that impression will probably be but, however I agree with those that have advised that to outlive the chaos, we’re going to need to be there for one another in so some ways. Meals is not any exception.
Trump has already proposed deep cuts to SNAP, or the Supplemental Vitamin Help Program, also known as “meals stamps,” which can possible improve meals insecurity for thousands and thousands of People. Costs at grocery shops are already excessive, and his proposed tariffs on imported items might improve the value of important gadgets — meals included — by as a lot as 60 %. Because the threadbare security internet on this nation is additional dismantled by Trump and his cronies, the need of coming collectively to offer assist for medical care and different necessities will solely turn into extra necessary. We can even have to feed each other.
If you’re not already conscious of organizations that sort out meals insecurity in your space, now’s a good time to search for them. Think about becoming a member of your native chapter of Meals Not Bombs, a nonprofit group that distributes meals to these in want in communities throughout the nation. Discover your nearest meals financial institution or mutual help group, get your hands on free pantries and fridges close to you, and ask those that are already doing that work what your neighborhood wants most. Possibly it’s one thing so simple as making a number of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for distribution at a close-by neighborhood middle, or maybe it’s as concerned as doing weekly meal prep for an aged particular person in your neighborhood.
Feeding packages are among the most impactful organizations on the market, which makes them a superb automobile to your post-election malaise. The work that meals banks and mutual help teams do with restricted assets and time is staggering. The thought which you could spend a few hours assembling weekend snack packs for college kids with a bunch of mates on the meals financial institution and probably find yourself feeding lots of of individuals is the precise form of increase that almost all of us want proper now.
Cooking a meal for somebody is without doubt one of the easiest and most accessible types of offering care to others. It doesn’t need to be a flowery meal, it doesn’t need to be made with the most costly elements, it simply needs to be ready with the intention of providing nourishment to others. A bowl of rice and beans, spiced with cumin and chili powder you obtain on the greenback retailer, offers the identical quantity of diet and luxury as a dish that prices 10 instances as a lot. A loaf of bread is cheap to make, and who amongst us isn’t glad to obtain a heat loaf? It doesn’t damage that cooking itself will be such a cathartic factor to do — as my colleague Jaya Saxena wrote, you may’t doom scroll in case your arms are coated in flour.
The broad feeling of hopelessness amongst so many individuals proper now could be completely justified. This end result sucks, and it’s arduous to flee the sensation that issues are solely going to worsen. However watching my telephone and stewing in my very own anxieties and prognostications isn’t going to make me really feel any higher, both. If we’re going to outlive the following 4 years — bodily and emotionally — we’re going to have to point out up for each other. And in my thoughts, there’s no higher means to try this than to feed them.
