Across Staten Island, the city, the state and the nation, we gathered with loved ones and friends Thursday to take stock of what we have to be thankful for — starting first with the bounty on the tables before us.
Like no other celebration on the American calendar, Thanksgiving gives us a chance to slow down and dwell in the essentials: family, food and warmth as we head into winter. “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures,” Thornton Wilder so aptly said.
But as we consider our own treasures, Thanksgiving also calls upon us to bring our neighbors to the table. It is in this act of giving we create the ties that bind and strengthen our community.
In the weeks leading up to the holiday, Project Hospitality provided nearly 1,500 turkeys and all the trimmings to Staten Islanders who would otherwise not have been able to afford such a feast.
As a chilly wind whipped the waterfront the Friday before Thanksgiving, Project Hospitality and Food Bank for New York City outreach workers met at the Holy Rosary Church parking lot in South Beach to distribute the makings of Thanksgiving to more than 250 hungry families, many of whom are still recovering from Superstorm Sandy. 
“This is going to really help,” said Kevin, a single father of two young children, who returned to his native Staten Island from Florida last year, after his wife suddenly passed away. “I’m thankful for what we have here.”
For Guadalupe, a mother of four, a traditional Thanksgiving dinner would not have been possible without the donated frozen turkey and box of trimmings she cradled in her arms.
“We do what we can; we go to the pantry when we have nothing,” said Guadalupe, a housecleaner. “We wouldn’t have a turkey without this.” 
On Thanksgiving Day, thousands of Staten Island families, senior citizens and individuals bent their heads over warm plates of holiday food prepared by volunteers at St. Sylvester Church, at the CYO in Port Richmond, at Temple Emanu-El, and at other such gatherings across the borough. Sharing the company of others who understand the exhausting and unrelenting gnaw of poverty helped the guests feel less isolated and more hopeful, even if for just one meal.
Indeed, all of this help is necessary because people don’t make enough money to keep a roof over their heads and food on their tables. Funding has been slashed repeatedly in recent years to government programs that help people who simply cannot stretch their dollars far enough to feed their families.
Despite record stock market highs, one in six New York City residents struggles against hunger, and more than eight out of 10 Staten Island food pantries saw longer lines this year as a result of federal cuts to SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, according to the 2014 Annual Hunger Survey released last week by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. (www.nyccah.org/hungersurvey).
By year end, Project Hospitality will have served nearly 2 million meals to our neighbors. Many of those who come to us work full time jobs but do not earn enough to make it through the month.
“Our local pantries pull food, funding, and volunteers together to feed the needy,” said Daniel Kennedy, director of food advocacy for Project Hospitality, as the new hunger statics were unveiled by the New York Coalition Against Hunger last week. “Operating a pantry is a complicated Rubix cube of logistics. But through partnerships and alliances, food makes it to the pantries and is distributed.”
We at Project Hospitality are thankful to our many partners for volunteering and giving what they can to ease burden on their neighbors. We on Staten Island know how to count our blessings, and we make it a priority to share our blessings, especially at this time of year.
“We are filled to the brink – in the dining room, in the hallway, in the kitchen, in the storage area, in the truck – we were extremely blessed with donations this year,” said Trazy Richter, program director of our food and nutrition services, who is knee deep this season in the intensive work of distributing meals to hungry Staten Islanders at our Stapleton Community Center and in neighborhoods across the borough.
The generosity of Staten Islanders was also exalted by Bishop John O’Hara, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York — the key note speaker at Project Hospitality’s 17th Annual Poor People’s Dinner November 24, at the Hilton Garden Inn.
“All of you here have seen the face of God in the homeless person, the hungry person, the abandoned person, the addicted person, the abused person, the forgotten person. Oh my, [Staten Island], you have a great heart. You bring them healing. You bring them hope,” he said, calling the nearly 600 gathered to sponsor our feeding ministry “beacons of hope in a society that has grown cold.”
And yet, despite our greatest efforts, the yawning need persists.