Hunger in Phila.

TERRENCE STAFF WRITER MMT723@CABRINI EDU

MEGHAN SMITH STAFF WRITER MES733@CABRINI EDU

Imagine having four children and only one can of beans to feed them for dinner. This is a reality faced by people living in the Philadelphia area who are not able to make a dollar stretch far enough to feed their families. One in four Philadelphians lives in poverty, meaning a family of four makes less than $20,000.

While the holiday season is a time of joy and celebration for many, for the 25 percent of Philadelphians living below the poverty line, the holidays can be a burden, struggling to put food on the table and gifts under the tree.

Students at Cabrini and in schools and churches across the country are very generous at Christmastime. But after the holidays, people sometimes forget about giving food to those who are hungry.

“It’s difficult to care when it is not the holidays,” Shannon Keough, event coordinator of Poverty Awareness Month, said.

One who does not forget about the hungry is Kevin Murphy, a sophomore at LaSalle University. He has been volunteering in the Philadelphia area all year round for the last six years. Murphy is a dedicated volunteer who would rather spend his time helping the less fortunate instead of playing sports with his friends.

Murphy met a 42-yearold man named Mike whose life as a husband and father turned into one of addiction and alcoholism. After four months of complete sobriety, Mike fell back into his addictions following an open-heart operation that saved his life.

For years Murphy has assisted at a soup kitchen in the Kensington section of PhilaHUNGER, page 3