Today's post is written by Lisa Thomas-McMillan, who runs a small nonprofit food bank, Calisa, Inc., and restaurant in Brewton, Ala.

Seventeen years ago when I moved back to my hometown of Brewton I had no idea where I was headed in life or what I was going to do. After a few months at home I noticed a lot of elderly people were struggling with food issues and other problems that they needed help with. I had no funds for the more costly problems, but I did manage to put money together to prepare hot meals and food boxes for people and deliver them. They were ever so grateful and as word spread so did the demands for the meals and food boxes.

As circumstances changed in the community so did my efforts to make a difference. I am still delivering meals to the elderly and poor because there is still a demand. My food box delivery has dropped because there are several other organizations doing that now. I always look for ways to contribute to my community that are not being tackled by other organizations. The area I am most concerned about now is feeding college students at the local community college. While talking to a friend in Los Angeles, Calif. she informed me that a room had been set aside for a food pantry at UCLA because students were going hungry on campus. She went on to say that it was a growing national trend in this country.

I was shocked that this was happening. I could believe and did believe it but it still shocked me. I started noticing the students at our community college and noticed signs of students being hungry. I was already running a restaurant in the student center at the college and always kept the prices cheap ($3.50 a meal), but I realized that was a lot of money if you did not have it. I asked permission from the college to feed the students free and they agreed. We feed close to 100 students a day, four days a week FREE at Jefferson Davis Community College.

It makes me feel good to know that not only are we feeding the students but we might be influencing them to forge ahead and make a difference in other people’s lives. We are feeding our future. My call to action to all of you is to invest in our future by inviting college students over for Sunday dinner, feed them for a week, buy some groceries and take them to the dorms, or give them a few dollars. If you live in a college town you are so blessed, you are surrounded by youth and spirit and you never know one of those students might be the one to pull you out of a pinch one day.

 OK all together now “NO COLLEGE STUDENTS WILL GO HUNGRY IN MY HOMETOWN!”