When we were growing up, our parents instituted a weekly "Dollar Night"--a night where our family of five partook of a meal that cost under a dollar. The purpose was two-fold: first, to donate to a food shelf the margin between the cost of a normal dinner and the cost of a Dollar Night dinner; and second, to give us an ongoing, consistent awareness of the existence of hunger and those for whom it is a daily reality.

While I had little appreciation for Dollar Night as a child (I grew to hate split-pea soup and open-face cheese melts), I now have deep gratitude for the experience--for how it has undoubtedly contributed to my commitment to feed others, how even as a kid it somehow connected me to people who were hungry.

I was reminded of Dollar Nights last week when someone was telling me about a similar concept: eating a quarter cup of cooked rice for dinner once a week to maintain an awareness of the bulk of our global population for whom that portion is a whole day's sustenance.

Perhaps your initial reaction mirrors my own: "But my kids will be so hungry. I couldn't do that to them." But the more I considered it, the more I realized, "I owe this to my children--this opportunity to grow as human beings in compassion and empathy and generosity and global consideration; to pass on to them a legacy of seeing beyond themselves and thinking bigger than our family and helping where help is needed."

And so, the dawn of the New Year will mark the beginning of regular "rice nights" in the Caswell household. Will you join us in this commitment?