Does anyone else feel empty and lost now that they no longer receive 87 text messages a day from all the political campaigns?

I’m from Arizona, so most of mine were even more boring because they were written at a fourth grade level and full of grammar and spelling mistakes.

Rest easy, because even though I’m about to make a pitch to you, it’s for a much better cause.

But before we get to that, I want to tell you about an email I received from Ken Coker, who has been working for a long time Democratic Press subscriber, so you know he’s a smart guy. Either that or he has a lot of fish to pack or bird cages to line up.

Regardless, he notes that my Give the Editor the Bird campaign on behalf of Redwood Empire Food Bank is somewhat meat-centric, given that we’re talking about putting turkeys on the table for the holidays.

Fortunately, this did not hinder his generosity. But he’s right.

I assured him that the people at the food bank were doing everything they could to help people with all kinds of dietary restrictions, whether religious, health-related or philosophical, even though they would probably need a ticket from the doctor if you said you could. eat only Wagyu beef and truffles.

In fact, food bank expert and all-around personality Rachelle Mesheau tells me that more than 40% of the food they provide is fresh produce, and that proportion jumps to 50% in the summer. They also provide staples like rice, beans, and pasta, while dairy and protein combined usually only make up about 25% of what they offer.

With that settled, Ken and I had a discussion about the merits of Tofurky, a vegetable substitute for turkey, and quickly agreed that there was none, which goes to show that if people of different beliefs – vegetarians and carnivores, for example – can come together on controversial topics like this, there are hope for our country.

For the record, Rachelle tells me that the food bank does not offer Tofurky. Or turduck, by the way, which led me down a strange rabbit hole on the Internet (thanks, Al Gore). Suffice it to say, this has done nothing to dissuade me from my long-held personal philosophy of never eating anything that starts with poop.

Anyway, if you’ve made it this far, you’re probably waiting for the pitch I promised in the second graf, which is newspaper lingo for paragraph, in case you were wondering.

So here it is: We’re two-thirds of the way toward our Give the Editor the Bird campaign goal, which means we’ve eclipsed last year’s total of $50,000 for the Redwood Empire Food Bank . That means if we get $25,000 more, we’ll hit this year’s goal and I’ll have to take $1,000 out of my kids’ inheritance. This also means that our PD Editor, the lovely and talented Eric Johnston, will be donating a large sum from the money he received from drag racing for pink slips on Friday nights.

So if you would like to help fight hunger this holiday season, especially childhood hunger (which, despite the immense wealth we enjoy in North Bay, is still rampant and growing), consider making a Don.

You can make a donation by by clicking here or go to refb.org/givethebird and following the instructions.

For those of you who don’t trust the Internet (or Al Gore), you can send a check to Redwood Empire Food Bank, 3990 Brickway Blvd., Santa Rosa, CA 95403. Be sure to include that this is a donation to the publisher. the bird route; otherwise it will not be credited and I will have to continue writing these columns.

And God knows my sense of humor isn’t for everyone (just ask my wife, or the Tofurkys for that matter), so I’ll be happy to give you a pass if you want to start seeing other food drives.

In fact, on Saturday, November 16, many community groups come together to support the food bank.

They will include a Super Saturday gathering with 200 volunteers preparing food to distribute at the food bank warehouse; the Boy Scouts’ annual Scouting for Food event, which involves collecting donations from the neighborhood and delivering them to the food bank; the Cruisin’ North Car Club Turkey Race, whose members deliver turkeys to the food bank; Safeway’s Nourishing Neighbors campaign launched, with volunteers in all stores encouraging monetary donations; and Cranksgiving, a bicycle food drive and scavenger hunt organized by local cycling groups, collecting Thanksgiving-related food for delivery to the food bank. For more details, see the group’s events page at refb.org/news-media/events.html.

So dig deep and dig often. And for those of you who like to skip to the end and not read everything in the middle that I worked so hard on, here’s that donation link again: Click here or go to refb.org/givethebird and follow the instructions.

John D’Anna is editor-in-chief of The Press Democrat. Look for his multi-volume series on the history of the turducken in bookstores near you next summer. In the meantime, you can reach him at [email protected].