Honor Thanksgiving founder with letter on ending world hunger [opinion]

We have a Thanksgiving holiday because Sarah Josepha Hale of New Hampshire was a great and persistent writer. We should honor her legacy by using our own pen to make a difference on Thanksgiving Day.

In the mid-1800s Sarah Josepha Hale took up the cause of making a national Thanksgiving holiday to unite the country. Previously there had been sporadic Thanksgiving celebrations but not the national, consistent holiday we enjoy today.

Sarah started writing about Thanksgiving a lot — in magazines and through letters. In 1863 she wrote to President Abraham Lincoln, “You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution.”

Sarah encouraged Lincoln to use his influence to make Thanksgiving happen ”by the noble example and action of the President of the United States, the permanency and unity of our Great American Festival of Thanksgiving would be forever secured.”

Lincoln did just that issuing a Thanksgiving Day proclamation in October 1863. This was during the Civil War, and Thanksgiving was seen as a day to pray for peace, unity and healing.

The president proclaimed on Oct. 3, 1863: “I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. … and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”

Thanksgiving is one of the great holidays we enjoy thanks largely to one person’s idea and willingness to take action. Let’s honor her spirit by each of us writing a letter to the president and Congress about feeding the world’s hungry.

After all, Thanksgiving is a day where we enjoy great food and turkey dinners. But many people on this day are starving like in war-torn Sudan, Yemen, Afghanistan, Somalia, Gaza, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burkina Faso and many others. Some countries are in the midst of a civil war like we were when Sarah Hale was writing Abraham Lincoln about starting Thanksgiving. They long for their own Thanksgiving Day of unity and food for all.

You could write to your elected officials about the importance of food aid to save lives and help nations build stability.

Gen. Dwight Eisenhower did this on Thanksgiving Day in 1945 with a written statement and testimony to Congress about feeding war-torn Europe.

As president, Eisenhower proclaimed on Thanksgiving Day 1960, “I urge my fellow Americans to support and assist the efforts which we as a nation, working individually and in cooperation with other nations, are directing toward the solution of the world-food problem.”

You could do this using your pen on Thanksgiving Day, writing to your elected officials about supporting the UN World Food Program and other hunger relief agencies. They are short on funding right now with so many hunger emergencies across the globe.

So take a few moments on Thanksgiving Day to write, in honor of Sarah Josepha Hale, a letter about feeding the world’s hungry. Your words can lead to food for those who desperately need it and may someday help a nation enjoy their own Thanksgiving Day celebration.

William Lambers is an author who partnered with the UN World Food Program on the book “Ending World Hunger.”