My sincere thanks to Jono Kinkade for the sensitive article, “Lunch crowd” (Oct. 17). I’ve been quite humbled to find myself needing help from the People’s Kitchen since last year. Though college educated and working hard at a commission sales job, I have put my few resources into rent, gas for my car, phone, and prescriptions for my wife.

I could calmly accept this badly needed aid, or proudly starve and greatly reduce my efficiency. So I show up in nice clothes and tie and converse with many other educated people struggling to get by, while thanking God for the nutrition. Hopefully my crisis will end, but what of the others?

I appreciate the efforts of the Grover Beach City Council to do the right thing, yet I honestly submit that they blew it. Group hysteria is a powerful force. I sincerely submit that the residents of Longbranch have mistakenly brokered a fallacious bill of scapegoat fear and prejudice.

As the article quoted, I concur that their proximity to the city core and county buildings—serving all manner of people—has always and will always expose them to the very problems they wish to avoid. Who will they blame, and to whom will they turn, then?

I truly wish no one ill, though it was no fun having myself blithely and naively associated with pedophiles and thieves. I pray that none of them ever experiences poverty, thirst, or hunger. Yet if they do, I wish them a good memory.

-- David W. Buckland - Arroyo Grande