Other Make a Difference Day celebs:
Writer Anchee Min on the value of education
Wally Lamb brings the expressiveness of writing to prison inmates
Bestselling author Matthew Klam is enriched by a handicapped child
Robert Putnam, writer of Bowling Alone, is optimistic toward youth
Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays With Morrie, finds his late teacher's words live on.
Arthur author Marc Brown believes where kids read, kids help others
Christopher Paul Curtis, author of Bud, Not Buddy, hails a hero he overlooked -- his dad.
Marc Parent, Turning Stones author, makes a difference to a dying woman's cat.
Ana Castillo, poet and author, tells how a gathering replenishes women who make a difference.
Justin Timberlake makes a difference through music
Wish You Well writer David Baldacci, learns a lesson from young writers
Patricia Cornwell, writer of The Last Precinct recalls what a world-renowned evangelist did for a scared little girl

Feeding the hungry nourishes body and soul

Ann Hood, author of Ruby and the upcoming Do Not Go Gentle: My Search for Miracles in a Cynical Time, comforts the spirit by feeding the sad, the lost and the lonely.

cook. It does not seem like an important talent, or a talent that will change the world. I cook because my mother cooked, and her mother cooked, and her mother's mother cooked. We are a family who spends much of our time in the kitchen, standing at the stove, stirring, tasting, mixing. We consider the need for salt or garlic or fresh parsley carefully. Our food has part of our heart in it. And so, after we cook, we feed people.

My grandmother, Mama Rose, taught me that feeding people is the greatest gift. When someone walked into our house when I was a girl -- a house that contained four generations -- Mama Rose began to feed them. She never asked if they were hungry. She just began to put food on the brown and green enamel table: last night's leftovers; this morning's bread and pies; a bit of whatever was cooking on the stove. Her china was mismatched. It was ordered with forms found on boxes of Lux detergent, or salvaged by her cousin the junkman, or "bought" with Green Stamps she carefully pasted into books. But she served her food proudly, with one order: "Eat."

We fed everyone. We fed the kids who lived at the bottom of our hill, the ones who wore Wonder bread bags over their shoes in winter because they couldn't afford boots. We fed the old women in our neighborhood who struggled financially after their husbands died. We fed cousins of Mama Rose's grandchildren when they ran away from home, or came back from war, or got divorced. We fed the men who put aluminum siding on our house, delivered our oil in winter, mowed our lawn, rewired our electricity, fixed our roof, refinished old furniture, painted our patio. We fed in-laws even when they were no longer in-laws, lovers after they had stopped being lovers. Then we fed their children.

"Never ask if someone is hungry," Mama Rose used to tell me as she hastily placed food on her oversized chipped platter, the one her mother had brought to America with her from Italy. "Just feed them."

Perhaps because we -- all of us -- eat three meals a day, it is easy to forget the power of food, how preparing it and giving it to others can be the most satisfying act. But that power lies in its simplicity: hot soup on a winter's day, iced tea in July, roast turkey every Thanksgiving, bacon frying on a Saturday morning. Such an easy thing to give, food. And for the one to whom we give it, such a satisfying gift.

When I lived in New York City's Greenwich Village 10 years ago, my neighborhood was devastated by the AIDS epidemic, a disease I could not help fight. But every Saturday morning I joined a group of others and cooked high-calorie meals for the people in our neighborhood suffering from the disease. I did what I do best: I chopped and stirred and simmered and sautéed. I baked and whipped and blended and puréed. Hollandaise sauce, pesto, meringues, gratins. Every Saturday, I cooked. Though that small gift did not cure anyone, I know the comfort that food brings. I know the difference giving it makes.

There are so many ways to feed people. We can do it globally, grandly, in our neighborhood, at our church, on the street corner, in our home. We can feed our children, our family, friends, strangers. When we feed someone, we are nourishing more than their bodies; we are nourishing their souls. Any time someone calls me because they are sad, worried, heartbroken, lost or lonely, I tell them to come over. Then I begin to cook. I do just as I was taught. I do not ask if they are hungry. We are all, every one of us, hungry. I just fill Mama Rose's table, the brown and green enamel one that once sat in her kitchen and now sits in mine, with food. I give them food, and I say: "Eat."

Shawn G. Henry for USA WEEKEND