UNICEF. Project (RED). World Vision. The list of international charities goes on. Charities fighting hunger, poverty, AIDS – all extremely worthy causes, yet causes all focused on ending strife somewhere else on the globe. Is it really so hard to see what’s happening on the chunk of land between 38º 00’ N and 97º 00’ W? Not to say the “land of the free” is necessarily worse off than the people of warring nations in Africa, but don’t we owe it to ourselves, no pun intended, to take care of our neighbors first?

I’ll admit, I too have fell victim to the irresistible smiles of children scattered around the globe, but it’s easy to remind myself that our children are suffering too. Abandoned children living in swamplands and abandoned children living on the streets are essentially in the same situation. In both cases, children are put in what could amount to mortal danger, danger they should never have to be exposed to. But who’s to say those children in the Philippines are more important than the children that will inevitably become part of the future that both you and I as Americans will be living in? Isn’t it more logical to first fix the problems ailing our own nation and put a permanent stop to them rather than attempt to play doctor to a waiting room full of other nations?

Take poverty as another example. America is plagued with it. Why should I feel compelled to give my money to someone I’ve never seen before when across the street there’s a man struggling to simply find a place to sleep? It’s arguable by many that that man has ‘done this to himself’; but what if he was born into the patterns that made him that way? According to the US Affordable Housing Institute, childhood poverty will essentially lead to poverty in adulthood. So for the most part, many impoverished American adults could, technically, have little to no control over the means that led them to a life of poverty.

So why? Why can’t we as Americans come together to put an end to the problems festering on our own piece of the globe? We seem to relish the opportunities we can shell out a pocket full of cash to a child we can’t relate to, can’t see, can’t even talk to if we wanted to because of language differences, yet we’re reluctant to help the family that would celebrate Independence Day with us if only they had the money to do it. Why can’t we instead invest our money in programs like the Big Brothers/Big Sisters chapter of St. Louis? Or perhaps the Children’s hospital downtown, a hospital that helps local children? Or even the regional Children’s Home Society, helping our own children stay off the streets? If we could for once all come together to end the problems happening in our very own towns, just imagine the things we could accomplish around the rest of the world.