Upper Saddle River May 9, 2012 THE VILLADOM TIMES III • Page 11 Memorial Run proceeds will support ‘Susan’s Suite’ Late last month, 900 runners participated in the Susan Zabransky Hughes Memorial Run, a 5K Family Run/Walk held in honor of a Saddle River resident who lost her battle with cervical cancer in July 2011 at age 46. Proceeds from this event will be dedicated to the construction of “Susan’s Suite,” a dedicated treatment center for cancer patients at the Emergency Trauma Department at Hackensack University Medical Center. Plans call for a 10-bed, cancer-only emergency room with its own staff and private rooms to streamline the treatment effort. Friends, headed by Cindy King, organized the run, (continued on page 20) John Gonzalez, northeast regional organizer for Bread for the World, will speak at Church of the Presentation, 271 West Saddle River Road in Upper Saddle River, on Tuesday, May 15. This 7:30 p.m. event, sponsored by the Justice and Peace Ministry, is free and open to the public. Gonzalez will discuss the growing crisis of poverty, hunger, and food insecurity in the U.S. and abroad. His talk is given in preparation for the annual Offering of Letters sponsored by Bread for the World. Church of the Presentation and thousands of other houses of worship participate in this national effort to raise awareness and advocate for funding of programs that address domestic and international problems of hunger. The U.S. poverty line for a family of four is $22,350 (gross). It is estimated that one in seven people (one in five children) in the U.S. live at or below the poverty line. A person working 40 hours a week at the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour would make approximately $14,500 (gross) Gonzalez to discuss poverty and hunger a year. Consider living in a suburb of New York City and budgeting for housing, utilities, health care, transportation, child care, and all the other necessities of life out of such a paycheck. Now think about also trying to provide nutritious, healthy meals for a family as food costs soar. Is it any wonder that so many people, 49,000,000 in 2010, live in food insecure households and must choose between eating and which bill to pay? This is a crisis affecting every community in the U.S., with statistics climbing at an alarming rate in the suburbs. In New Jersey, it is estimated that over one million people live in food insecure households, 85 percent of which include either a child, senior, or disabled person. Bread for the World will focus the 2012 Offering of Letters campaign on domestic nutrition assistance programs and tax credits for low-income families, poverty-focused foreign assistance, and international food aid.