What do basketball and hunger have in common? Not much, really. Though professional athletes often establish philanthropic organizations to address community needs, including hunger, “basketball” and “hunger” don’t intuitively go together. Until now, that is.

At this year’s Gus Macker 3-0n-3 Basketball Tournament registration, a Neighbors’ Place table will collect food donations and provide information about area hunger. The table also will hold materials promoting this fall’s “Wausau Area Empty Bowls” event. The “Empty Bowls” that attendees will decorate and glaze at the October event, along with a simple meal of soup (from chefs from local restaurants) and a silent auction, will draw attention to local hunger and raise food pantry funds.

While we live in a prosperous area with much bounty, many among us go hungry.

The statistics showing the extent of hunger in the United States are grim but, worse yet, the faces behind those statistics are often not visible to us. It’s not the face of a child in sub-Saharan Africa who looks obviously malnourished. But it is the senior citizen or parent who skips a meal or the child that is given nutritionally and economically “cheap” food because that is all the family can afford. In Wisconsin, households with children are nearly twice as likely to experience food insecurity — a term the government uses to describe households experiencing hunger or risk of hunger, households unable to provide adequate amounts or quality of food — as households without children. And it’s not just the poor: 65 percent of food-insecure households have incomes above the federal poverty line and more than half of all food-insecure households have at least one full-time worker in the home. Indeed, at least 42 percent of Americans will experience food insecurity at some point in their lives.

It’s also not just something that happens among the urban poor of Milwaukee, Chicago and Minneapolis: after central cities, the next highest rate of food insecurity is in non-metropolitan areas, ironically areas often abundant with commercial agricultural plenty.

The problem is real and it is here. And in many respects, it is getting worse. With rising food prices — by one estimate, food prices are up 7 percent just this year — the need for well-stocked food pantries is heightened. Use of The Neighbors’ Place food pantry shows the impact of rising prices, with 13,977 individuals served in 2007, up 36 percent from the year before; 32 percent of those served were children and 27 percent were senior citizens.

Though the need is rising, food pantry contributions have not kept up. Tom Rau of The Neighbors’ Place notes that, while need for food is highest in summer because kids are not being fed in school through the School Lunch Program, contributions to the food pantry are lowest during the summer months.

The reasons for food insecurity in the United States are complex. And so are the answers. But some of the answers are simple. The Gus Macker, and the presence of The Neighbors’ Place and the Empty Bowls organizing group there, reminds us that we can do something. While we can’t control food prices and many of us feel powerless to affect government and its programs to help the hungry, we can make a difference locally through food pantry contributions.

If you are participating in the Gus Macker games, bring a food pantry item to Friday’s registration (noon-7 p.m.), with the hope that we can fill the coffers, at least for a day. If you aren’t attending Gus Macker, check out “The Top 10 Food Items We Need” (www.neighborsplace.org) and bring a food donation to The Neighbors’ Place, 745 Scott St., Wausau. And plan on attending the Wausau Area Empty Bowls event at University of Wisconsin Marathon County on Oct. 25.

Ann Herda-Rapp is a board member of The Neighbors’ Place.

Column originally posted on the Wausau Daily Herald website.