Bush Urges Americans to Aid Needy

After packaging canned peaches and spinach for a holiday-season charity food drive, President Bush exhorted Americans Thursday to give more heartily of their time and money to help the needy.

“More Americans need to volunteer,” Bush said, fellow volunteer and First Lady Laura Bush by his side. “There are more who hunger and less who are giving.”

Apologizing that “sometimes I get a little wordy” on the topic, Bush nonetheless delivered a stern message before the volunteers he briefly helped to bag food collected by the Capital Area Food Bank from the White House and federal offices.

The president was put in charge of doubling up the plastic bags, then putting two cans of spinach and peaches in each. “I’m bag man, peach man, and spinach man,” he boasted. He asked the nation to follow suit and make this holiday season “a season of service” to those who hurt and go hungry.

“Those who are poor, those who suffer, those who have less hope, are not strangers in our midst, they’re our fellow citizens. And in this time of joy and time of blessing, we got to remember that,” he said.

Repeating a favorite refrain, Bush said government has a role in addressing social ills.

But, he said: “Government can spend money but government cannot put hope in people’s hearts or a sense of purpose in people’s lives. Government can help but government should never crowd out the great compassion defined in programs such as this right here.”

The Agriculture Department reports that last year about 11.5 million U.S. households did not have enough food to meet basic needs.