Give, share

There’s still room at the nation’s table.

In the depths of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called on Americans to give humble thanks for the blessings bestowed upon us. For far too many families in November 1933, those blessings must have felt rather thin. With unemployment nearing 25 percent, jobs were scarce and even a full meal was hard to come by. Yet Roosevelt asked Americans to be true to the example of those who came before them and to refuse to compromise their values.

“May we recall the courage of those who settled a wilderness,” Roosevelt said in his Thanksgiving Day proclamation. “The vision of those who founded the nation, the steadfastness of those who in every succeeding generation have fought to keep pure the ideal of equality of opportunity and hold clear the goal of mutual help in time of prosperity as in time of adversity.”

Since then, our nation has survived a second world war, a Cold War, an impeachment proceeding, a terrorist attack of unprecedented destruction and the most severe financial crisis since Roosevelt’s time. Yet after all that struggle and adversity, the United States economy has never been larger.

It comes with a prosperity that Houstonians are happy to share during Thanksgiving. The City Wide Club’s annual Super Feast, held this year at the George R. Brown Convention Center, helps provide a proper turkey meal for more than 20,000. Even while Hurricane Harvey recovery efforts have burdened our region’s nonprofits like never before, donors and Houston First, which manages the convention center, were able to step up in time to bridge a funding gap and ensure that all Houstonians, rich or poor , could be treated to a true Thanksgiving meal.

That is the spirit of the holiday.

Children hear the story of pilgrims who fled their homes and arrived upon foreign shores where they were met with a welcome, not a wall. Strangers let them in and offered their bounty. That spirit of mutual dependence, that rejection of the instinct to hoard our prosperity, is what Thanksgiving is all about.

This year, let’s take care that we not allow this spirit to be packed away along with the gravy boats and carving knives when we return to our routines.

Let’s remember that even as the American cornucopia continues to overflow, not everyone has a seat at the table.

Not even record-low unemployment and a decade of economic expansion has lifted real wages for most workers. Small towns have been left behind while urban cores grow flush with wealth. For many Americans the recession never really ended.

Individual acts of charity can help offer a holiday meal, but, as we learned during the Great Depression, only by building a society that embraces the value of shared prosperity can we truly celebrate our thanksgiving.