The song by Kris Kristofferson is free to listen to on YouTube.
In school students learn about the hardships endured during The Great Depression, especially the the thousands of families going hungry after losing their farms and their livelihood. Many American farmers and sharecroppers in the central states, The Dustbowl area – Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas, experienced a years long drought, lost their farms and migrated to California looking for work picking fruits and vegetables just to make enough money to eat.
Now during this Coronavirus pandemic where many people are still out of work, families are again feeling the pain of food insecurity. Lines are long at food banks across the country. Having students make sense of this by understanding our history brings a higher level of understanding.
Normally during this time of Harvest and Thanksgiving schools have canned food drives. This is an easy way for children to be part of contributing to their community food bank as cans of soup and vegetables are inexpensive ways to contribute. Now it’s hard to even bring up as so many families are struggling. I urge everyone who can to let your child take a can of food to a local collection site to help them be a part of making someone’s life a little easier during these trying times. Students enjoy doing a random act of kindness. In this case, helping a family eat.