When the stock market crashed in 1929, it didn’t just erase fortunes–it erased certainty. Factories went dark. Payrolls vanished. The hum of American industry fell to silence, replaced by the hollow echo of empty stomachs.

By 1933, unemployment had soared to nearly fifteen million–more than one in five workers. Families who once counted on a paycheck now counted pennies, or borrowed bread from neighbors who were just as poor.

In city after city, long lines snaked around corners, men in threadbare coats clutching tin cups and children holding out chipped bowls. Hunger had no party, no region, no mercy.

And then came the dust.

As if economic ruin weren’t enough, the early 1930s brought a second catastrophe. The Great Plains–once called the nation’s breadbasket–became a wasteland. Years of drought and over-farming tore the topsoil loose, and winds carried it east in storms so dense they turned day into night.

By 1934, one hundred million acres of farmland lay barren. Crops withered. Livestock suffocated. Entire families packed what they could onto rattling trucks and fled west, their lives reduced to dust and memory.

But out of that dust, compassion took root.

Ordinary citizens–neighbors, church groups, and volunteers–refused to wait for government relief that was still tangled in red tape. In living rooms and church basements, they poured

kettles of soup, handed out bread loaves, and opened their doors to strangers. These homegrown soup kitchens ran on donations, not directives.

In Detroit, Capuchin friars opened a humble kitchen that would serve thousands each day, surviving on faith and flour. Even Chicago’s most unlikely philanthropist, Al Capone, set up a soup line–not out of sainthood, of course.

Across the nation, gymnasiums became dining halls, union halls became food depots and women’s auxiliaries became engines of mercy. The system was imperfect and chaotic, but it worked.

No one knows exactly how many Americans were starving, but by 1932, a quarter of all families had no wage earner at all. Hunger was not a number–it was a cold morning, an empty pot, a mother whispering to her child, “We’ll find something tomorrow.”

Out on the plains, where the dust blotted out the sun, the same story unfolded. Farm wives gathered wild berries. Neighbors shared seed and sugar. Churches turned barns into relief depots. At train stations, small-town committees left buckets of milk and bread for migrants heading west. And in California’s orchards, locals organized food drives for the endless wave of families who had lost everything but their will to survive.

By the late 1930s, those collective acts of kindness–migrant relief kitchens, church pantries, and conservation efforts–had begun to turn the tide. Fields were reseeded. Families found work. The wind still blew, but hope had returned to the soil.

Things may change by the time you read this, but as of now, the federal government shutdown has halted the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program–known to most as food stamps or EBT. More than 42 million Americans rely on that card to buy groceries and feed their families. A judge has ordered the administration to make the payments, but delays mean refrigerators are empty.

Wherever you stand on the issue, I hope we can all agree that when the system pauses, the people must not.

Throughout our history, when hardship struck–whether in the breadlines of the Great Depression or the barren fields of the Dust Bowl–it wasn’t bureaucracy that saved us. It was we, neighbors, who refused to look away. Church volunteers stirring soup at dawn. Farmers who shared seed they could barely spare. Americans have always filled the gap with compassion and courage, long before any program or policy could.

That’s the tradition we inherit. That’s what makes this country strong.

So go to the store. Pick up some rice, beans, noodles, pasta sauce, peanut butter, honey and bread–whatever lasts and nourishes. Drop it off at your local food pantry. Share this with your friends and encourage them to do the same.

Please don’t wait for permission or for Washington to solve it. The U.S. is swimming in food; no one should go hungry.

America’s greatness has never come from government checks–it has come from human hands, and from hearts that move.

That’s the American way.

• Toby Moore is a Shaw Local News Network columnist, star of the Emmy-nominated film “A Separate Peace,” and CEO of CubeStream Inc. He can be reached at feedback@shawmedia.com.