Last year I ran a food drive for the River Food Pantry, but it wasn’t your average food drive. I put my hair, my lovely hair on the line. For every donation, a person could vote on my next hairstyle. The winner by a large margin was bald. I was nervous, the last time I was bald was right after I was born, and I looked like a spitting image of the late Pope John Paul 2. But I went through with it.

This year, I am going to do it again. This time, the donations will go to the Road Home Homeless network. It is an organization that helps homeless families find homes and work. They need diapers, toiletries, cleaning supplies, toothbrushes, toothpaste and bedding – things you cannot buy with food stamps.

The fact that we have the largest rate of people living below the poverty line – $22,000 for a family of four – is outrageous. According to the census in 2010, 46.2 million people were below the poverty line. That’s the largest number in the 52 years that the U.S. Census Bureau has published poverty estimates. As long as the economy is stagnant and people are losing their jobs these numbers will increase.

The rate of poverty is linked to the rate of homelessness. An illness, accident or one parent being laid off is all it takes for many families to be suddenly found homeless.

There is a shortage of affordable rental properties as well, and that is growing. The working poor are poorer than they were in 1979. The minimum wage has lost 24 percent of its value in 31 years, and at the same time CEO’s earnings grew to 300 percent.

Conservatives also want to cut out government assistance. They say everyone who is poor or homeless can only blame themselves because they are lazy.

“If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself,” said Herman Caine, the current Republican leader for the nomination.

It’s this mentality that helps exacerbate the homeless epidemic in this country, and the sad thing is this is the reigning opinion of the current Republican Party

What I’m doing is a small thing, but I truly believe that one person doing something is a drop in a bucket. And if many people do something, it’s an ocean.

So I will put my hair on the line once again. These are the possibilities – silver fox, ’80s rocker black, Conan O’Brien red, surfer blonde, and the reigning champion, bald. I am hoping for silver fox. I went bald last year and it is old hat, but I would like to see what I would look like at age 70.

Last year I got over 200 donations. I would like to top that this year. Please have some fun for a good cause and fill in the circle next to your choice on the ballot or take the poll online at theonlineclarion.com.