Maybe it's all those ads featuring roaring fireplaces and perfectly cooked Thanksgiving dinners, served at a table surrounded by friends and family, that made last Wednesday's reality check sound so cold:

During the 2005-05 school year, 184 Corvallis students were homeless at some time or another. More than half of them were younger than 10. Many lived like nomads, trying to find a safe, warm place to sleep. Many also were hungry.

In Linn County, the Albany school district listed 159 homeless students, Lebanon had 78, and Sweet Home had 67.

Imagine a life where your school lunch was the most substantial meal of the day. That's the reality for 2,300 Corvallis students who qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.

It's easy to sound a sorrowful drum and list all of the reasons that contribute to this sad - and dangerous - state of affairs. Certainly the booming methamphetamine problem has hit children hard.

Students who should be spending their evenings studying instead are taking jobs flipping burgers to bring home food and a paycheck to help support their siblings. Some students involved in the SMART reading program hide their books from their parents, who otherwise would sell them to buy drugs.

What we can push for is support of the drug treatment programs that work; for more early intervention; for bolstering and boosting tax incentives to get more good parents involved in fostering the children whose parents are neglecting or abusing them.

It isn't charity I'm talking about here, although the Dickensian images of hungry, homeless children living among us certainly inspire feelings of charity. But it's actually in our self-interest to address the issue of homeless children. Dickens wrote, in "A Christmas Carol," that we have most to fear from society's twin orphans of want and ignorance.

What was true in 19th century London is true in 21st century Oregon: We pay in the long run for ignoring suffering children.

The numbers of hungry and homeless children living among us are not yet overwhelming. Their problems are not insurmountable. In this season of giving, let's be thankful that is still the case, and let's help, any way that we can.

Theresa Novak is the Opinion page editor at the Corvallis Gazette-Times.