CONSERVATIVE columnist George Will recently noted that a person doesn’t have a moral duty to do something that’s impossible. In other words, if there’s nothing you can do about something, you can’t be blamed for not doing it.
   He lists genocide in Darfur and the Sudan as examples. The average American can’t do much about such things, he says, so it’s not fair to judge someone who doesn’t.
   I suppose there’s some truth to that. Our hearts may break over a situation, but what do you do when a problem is so huge and so far away?
   Of course if that’s the case, Will’s logic also applies to our ongoing disaster in Iraq. If there’s one thing the Iraqis are teaching us, it’s how hard it is to just walk into a country and make them do things our way. Even when you’re the most powerful nation in the world.
   Oddly enough, Will doesn’t really apply his logic to Iraq. He wants to keep fighting there and says we should — which shows us something important. Because Will actually wants to change Iraq, he plainly sees that as more “possible” than changing the Sudan. This makes me suspect that what we really want to do, will seem more “doable” than something we don’t want to do.
   I can’t claim to be any better than anybody else on that point. I admit I’ve turned “I don’t want to” into “I can’t” a few times in my life. And I don’t think I’m the only one.
   Here’s another point. It’s mighty easy to mistake “I can’t do it all” for “I can’t do anything.” None of us, as individuals, can make the huge nightmares end.
   So, as Will says, we shouldn’t be morally required to.
   But I think we can — and should — try to do what we can, when we can.
   Poverty is one more issue that’s so broad and deep, it seems impossible to even dent, let alone solve completely. Yet there are ways even the average person can nibble at the corners.
   For example, school kids may just be starting to think about summer vacation right now. But over at the Family Self Sufficiency Board, the Community School Supply Assistance Program people are already getting ready for next fall.
   School supplies aren’t free for kids. Teachers regularly send kids home with a list of necessities that their parents are expected to supply them with. Pencils, erasers, glue, paper, etc. We all remember our desk full of such goodies from our school days.
   Kids need these things, and someone has to pay for them. If that doesn’t happen, the kids without them are marked, right from Day 1.
   This doesn’t cost a lot by the standards of most of us. But there are plenty of families out there who have all they can do just to pay for rent, heat, and food — if they can even pay for that.
   I can’t think of a single kid who asked to be born poor. Yet at this moment, nearly 20 percent (yep, one out of five!) of Indiana children live in poverty.
   That includes a surprising number of families in Bartholomew County. And it’s getting worse, not better.
   School supplies don’t cost that much for someone who has the money, but they cost plenty for someone who doesn’t. Kids who can’t walk in the door with these supplies —the way their classmates can —are hamstrung right from the word go. They don’t perform as well, that problem builds each year, and they get farther and farther behind. A close a look at AYP test scores shows that performance is solidly linked to family income.
   Ten or 12 years on, the child is out of the school system and looking for a job. But decent jobs go to people with decent educations, so the poverty just gets recycled. Recycling is a good thing for newspapers and soda cans but a bad thing for people.
   Here’s the good news: the school supplies we’re talking about (and a backpack to put them in) can be had for about twenty bucks. Last year, using community and corporate donations, the Community School Supply Assistance Program provided filled backpacks for more than 1,000 kids. That gave each one of those kids a better shot at a decent future. Every single child who manages to take advantage of that shot is one more small victory over poverty.
   If, as George Will says, we’re not morally required to do the impossible — aren’t we doubly required to do what’s helpful and easy? Donations can be sent to the Community School Supply Assistance Program, 1531 13th St., Suite G600. Columbus, IN 47201.
The Rev. Dennis McCarty is a Unitarian Universalist minister living in Columbus. His opinions are his own and not necessarily shared by members of his church. He can be reached by e-mail at columnists@therepublic.com