Editor:

Nov. 10 marked the 5th anniversary of the St. Augustine Food Not Bombs, one of the longest-running actions in the nation which feeds anyone who is hungry in public places.

To celebrate, more than 100 homeless people, advocates and church group members participated in the first annual March of the Impoverished, advertised in your own paper. It's dismaying that only one of all the invited city and county officials attended. It's regrettable such a watershed event did not merit coverage by this paper.

At one end of the Plaza de la Constitucion, a small group of citizens sat listening to bands playing "patriotic" music in honor of Veterans Day. At the other end of the Plaza, many enjoying the Food not Bombs celebration of human dignity and empowerment were in fact homeless veterans needing a meal among countless other things.

Anyone else see the sad irony in this?

--Mary Lawrence
Originally published in the St. Augustine Record