Community Meals

Today I'll join a group of educators for a potluck Thanksgiving meal in Yokohama. For my contribution, I chose to cook up locally grown vegetables that I bought from the Kamakura Ichiba--Kamakura Vegetable Market.


As I was peeling and chopping, I was thinking about Kodomo-Shokudo, also described in English as children's cafés. Japan has a high relative poverty rate--one of the highest for OECD countries, and the poverty rate for single parent, and especially single mother families is particularly high. Yet in Japan, poverty is often deeply hidden.

Kodomo Shokudo provide free or reduced-rate meals to children--in safe-space shops, homes, restaurants and temples--with the key element of community. They are typically opened several times per month through local volunteer and, in some cases, municipal, support. In Japanese, here is the Kodomo Shokudo Network website's help page, where you can learn about volunteering and donating.

I love the concept of Kodomo Shokudo--with local community involvement and the opportunity for connections across generations. Here is a link to a Kodomo Shokudo in Yokohama.

So here is my poem for #PoetryFriday in hopes that we may all become more aware of the social realities in our communities and find ways to assist groups that are providing support to children around us who may be struggling through childhood in conditions of poverty.

Just This

a place
you can go for
warm meals at a table
seated together with strangers
now friends


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