Support the Underdog--Give to the Freestore Foodbank!

Cincinnatians love underdogs. (And hot dogs. But that's another post.) Our favorite historical Reds and Bengals teams are teams that overachieved. Neither UC nor Xavier spend nearly as much on their athletics departments as do bigger schools, and that's why we get so excited when they're able to compete with the Big Dogs.

Our love of the underdog is another reason to support the Freestore Foodbank this season. I'm not sure if you've given this much thought, but when the Foodbank predicts "record need," it's not because the stereotypical homeless person is going back for seconds. It's because record numbers of people--the real underdogs of life, if only temporarily--need help.

Some of the people who need help this year are probably in your neighborhood. They're the couple with kids who was struggling to just get by, but is now in dire straits since one of the parents lost his or her job. It's the single mom or dad who lost one of his two or three part-time jobs. It's the senior citizen down the street who's desperately trying to avoid having to make a choice between buying groceries and filling prescriptions. Most of these people aren't chronically poor or low-income, but are caught in the harsh vice of these tough economic times. They'll go--reluctantly--to the Foodbank to get through the next few months, and then get back on their feet. These same folks, a year or two from now, will be generous donors to the Foodbank once they're able.

Your love of the underdog should also inspire you to help the Cincinnati Blog in its efforts to do well in the Battle of the Blogs. Hard to believe, given this stature Griff earned for this blog, but we really are the underdogs. Look at our competition, most of which has oodles of donors at its disposal: The Dean requires registration to comment on his ramblings, so he's got the email addresses of everyone who's ever commented at the Beacon, and he's using them. Alex Triantafilou, in addition to being of counsel to one of Cincinnati's largest firms, has the HamCo GOP email list at his disposal--and he's purportedly using it. David Pepper (besides receiving all those royalties from the sale of Dr Pepper*) is an associate at one of America's fifty largest law firms. And now we're in the hole--someone just added $5,000 to Pepper's tally! (Great work, Commissioner!!!) Here at the Cincinnati blog, we don't require registration for comments and we're decidedly middle class.

So click on this link to help two groups of underdogs: people who really, really need and deserve your help this season, and we humble Cincinnati bloggers.

And let me add this to my fellow lawyers: if you're at a firm where you're getting a bonus this year, you need to spend some of that money to reduce your tax liability. What's better than a charitable contribution to the Freestore Foodbank? If you're a solo practitioner or a small-firm attorney who's settling a case or collecting fees in these final six weeks of the year, same thing--got to burn some of that cash, or you're gonna get hosed on April 15th. So get yourself a deduction: you know you want to. (Check with your accountant, of course. I'm not a tax lawyer and don't pretend to be one.)

Once more: the Freestore Foodbank.

*Really. It's a law. Anyone with the last name "Pepper" automatically gets five cents for every can of Dr. Pepper sold.