Maybe controversial - Religion IS bad, but.....

[The Grand Nudger]

I don't say the religious charity system failed. It did, as a matter of recorded fact in recent history. In the 30's the existing charitable structure was completely overwhelmed. It became apparent to our government and the public that secular funding would be need to fill those gaps the depression made painfully clear. Church donations had fallen off a cliff. The satirization of the american man of god had begun in earnest in the 1860's, a project accelerated by the many, many millennialist real estate scams perpetrated on equally stupid and faithful lowlanders - which today form what amounts to the last mainstream or near mainstream denomination emergences in the us in the contemporary period. Simply put, americans found that they both could not and would not donate to churches when the need for charity was the greatest. Secular government stepped in - and it kept those churches afloat too.

At any rate, you certainly were helped by atheists. Not only by the funding of a secular government taxing an increasingly godless people..but because churches have about as many people who don't believe in gods in them as any place else does. The land acquisition and development choices of churches over the years has more to do with what makes them good locations for food banks than their religiosity or the religiosity of the client population. A particularly well run food bank, at a church, likely operates in a way that avoids the failures of churches in past (and present) by assiduously avoiding both worth and means testing. You wouldn't know how many atheists helped you, they will not ask whether or not you were an atheist, they won't even ask you if you're really poor or just pretending. They just give.

But lets cut to the chase. Hunger in the us is a wholly artificial situation. We can fix that, and when we were done fixing it life will still not be perfect, but it will be better*. Reducing the religiosity of charity has proven to be a more effective way to deliver charity even and especially for religious charities. Ultimately, though, there should be less need of charity and more of it when needed. My wife and I ran and supplied a food bank from a non profit farm we operated for years - and this was for people who worked long hours at what counted as a decent wage. Before that I volunteered and donated to foodbanks at the churches my inlaws attended. We were always short labor and product, especially fresh product, and the framers and hvac techs needed to install decent cold storage. The food bank you went to is very likely to be in the same situation. You have the address, if you wished atheists did more, go be the change you want to see.

*this, ultimately, is the motivating fear of religious regresives that leads them to gut secular programs to their own detriment. The example of an alternative to their organizations is not tolerable, much less a successful one.