Food for Hope, written by Jeff Gottesfeld and illustrated by Michelle Laurentia Agatha, is an informative picture book about John van Hengel, the man who invented food banks to help feed the poor.
John van Hengel was a man who seemed to have it all. In the late 1950s, he was a corporate vice-president living in California with his wife (a former model) and two sons. After his wife left him, his life began to fall apart. He lost his job and moved back to Wisconsin, where he had grown up. While there, he broke up a fight between two men and was injured in the process. After surgery, doctors suggested the climate of Arizona might help him heal.
This picture book begins with him in Arizona, waiting in line at a soup kitchen run by a local church. He eventually began working at the soup kitchen, rented a room above a garage, and deepened his faith with Fr. Ronald at St. Mary’s Church. He began going out to gather leftover food from orchards and delivering it to other charities. He wanted to do more to feed people, but he didn’t know how.
One day, he met a woman who told him about the wonderful food she found at a local supermarket’s dumpster. She said it was her store, but she was “sorry she couldn’t put the extra in a bank.” He never knew the woman’s name but always gave her credit for the idea. He would start a food bank that would share food that would otherwise be thrown out. He reached out to supermarkets and local farms to get food. He then opened the St. Mary’s Food Bank. Above his desk, he posted the statement, “The poor we shall always have with us, but why the hungry?” Eventually, van Hengel’s idea grew into the charity “Second Harvest,” which opened many food banks across the country and eventually around the world.
Food for Hope explains how food banks came to be. It also encourages conversations about our Catholic responsibility to feed the hungry as a corporal work of mercy. It would be wonderful to read this in conjunction with making a donation to a local food pantry.
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