This month, we celebrate our national Thanksgiving holiday: giving thanks, overeating, watching football, and gathering with family and friends.

While I am most thankful on so many levels and look forward to this special holiday, I cannot help but acknowledge some of our community’s many challenges and disparities.

SAN PEDRO: I am so thankful to have been born here, grown up here, and lived my entire life in this special community. A lifetime of fond memories, community engagement and support, family, and lifelong friends — many of whom I met while attending the San Pedro Boys Club as a kid.

But while our community is making several upgrades, including downtown, West Harbor, coming employment opportunities, and more, one cannot forget the everyday struggles of so many of our neighbors: lack of affordable housing and a living wage, lack of accessibility to proper physical and mental healthcare, internet connectivity limitations, and the recent increase of gun violence in a handful of our neighborhoods. A true “Tale of Two Cities” for far too many of those we live near and pass daily.

TURKEY DAY: Most of us will enjoy a robust turkey dinner on Thanksgiving with all the trimmings, overeating and loving it. We will give thanks for the bounty we will enjoy that day, which many of us have probably experienced most of our lives.

At the same time, Thanksgiving will be just another day of limitations and a lack of food in many households. While we will enjoy turkey and all the rest, they will struggle for just enough to eat and with very little to be very thankful for.

My organization will soon open our eighth food pantry in response to this reality, but much more is needed to fully address the food insecurity facing far too many in this, the richest country in the world.

LOCAL OFFICIALS: While at the national level, our government is not supporting us well, I am most thankful for our local elected officials who have supported our community and our Boys & Girls Clubs with their advocacy and prioritization of the needs of those we serve.

Thank you once again to Supervisor Hahn, Councilman McOsker, Congresswoman Barragan, Congressman Lieu, State Assemblymembers Gipson and Muratsuchi, and State Senator Bradford. Each has been most supportive of the youth of San Pedro and our greater Harbor Area communities, and I am most thankful for that.

NONPROFITS: I am thankful for the bevy of nonprofits doing great work supporting our San Pedro community. I am most grateful to have been the Boys & Girls Club director for so many years and for the tremendous support provided by local individual donors, businesses, corporations, foundations, and our elected officials.

But the “angst” I and my nonprofit director peers face every day is intense. Do we have enough financial resources, staff, sites, comprehensive programming and services, and overall impact to meet the varied and growing needs of those who need us most? While thankful, this angst is on the mind of all executive directors each and every day.

Thanksgiving is a time of celebration and recognizing all our blessings, and I hope we all have a great holiday. But at the same time, while being thankful, we — individually and as a community — must remember all those who are not as fortunate as us. Hopefully, we will commit even more to supporting them locally and worldwide in the future. For that, I am most hopeful and thankful. spt