At a recent social event I met a lot of people. As so often happens here in Florida, one of the first questions one stranger asks of another is "Where are you from?"

This time, I got a slightly different question. I was asked where I was born. When I answered "the coal regions of Pennsylvania," I was asked if it was a poor part of the country.I answered by saying the coal regions might be referred to as a poor area by some, but the people there are rich. At least they were when I lived there.Growing up in the coal regions, I soon understood families were rich in all the ways that counted. To this day I am warmed by memories of how we call cared for each other.My Aunt Mary is a case in point. Although she lived with her family of four in a small half double with just 2½ bedrooms, (the half was more like a closet) she took in my parents, brother and me when we needed a temporary place to live. She just shoved aside some things in the attic and called it "a big bedroom."I was only a kid back then but I will never forget her neighbors. They had a habit of breaking into homes. Well, let me clarify. They didn't have to break in, they walked in, because doors were never locked in that neighborhood.If no one was home, neighbors simply walked in. But it wasn't to take stuff. It was to put something there.Sometimes it was a pot of homemade soup or a homecooked meal someone wanted to share. Often it was garden produce.Neighbors took care of each other in a beautiful way. Years later, when I married and had a family of my own, we moved to a wonderful house in a nice neighborhood where all the homes were far apart from each other.One thing I noticed through the years was the further apart people live from each other, the less they have to do with each other. At the end of each day, we go home after work to our nice, air-conditioned homes, push a button to lower our garage door and are hermetically sealed in our own small world.I'm sure most people would want to help a neighbor in need if they knew about it. But we don't have those kind of homes anymore.Everyone has a favorite charity. Mine is feeding the hungry. My friend Pat, who runs the local food pantry, explains how a sudden change in circumstances can leave someone in dire straits. A husband dies or a guy abandons his family … a single mother living paycheck to paycheck can't feed her family when her hours are cut.We might not know them personally, but we can all help to feed the hungry. When there's a two-for-one sale, we can put the second item aside and we can buy a few staples a week.In addition to food, there are other hungers we can help fill. I sat with a group of women who recently lost their husbands and listened to them talk of their loneliness and despair.One woman said an entire day can go by when she never hears the sound of her own voice because no one calls and there is no one to talk to. "If I die in my house," said one woman, "I wonder how long it would take for someone to find my body."How much do you think it would mean to someone like that if you spend a few minutes with her? A friendly greeting from a neighbor or a simple invitation to share a pizza with you can mean more than you think.It doesn't take much to feed the needs of others.I need to feed myself, too, in a different way. I hunger for positivity, for a return of feeling good about my world and those in it.I long for a return to the days when we respect the opinion of others, even when we don't agree.I long for a return to a time when we didn't insult each other or inflect harm on those who don't share our views.When we feed bad stuff to our bodies, we can see it in our appearance. We can even measure all that bad stuff by getting on a scale.When we feed bad stuff like hatred and intolerance to our minds, we can't see it and we can't measure it. But it seeps into our very being all the same.I long to live once again in a world where we all care about each other.Unlike the innocent days of my childhood, it is no longer prudent not to lock our doors.But we can't afford to lock our hearts.Because we have enough to eat, that doesn't mean we should not help to give food to the hungry or help fill other hungers.Because we are secure in our own families, that doesn't mean we should ignore the plight of the lonely or the oppressed.When we help to feed the needs of others, our spirit is lighter and brighter, just like those of long ago who knew the true concept of neighbor.Contact Pattie Mihalik at

newsgirl@comcast.net.