Several years ago, a fellow named Lionel Bart wrote a hit song, "Where Is Love," for the Broadway musical Oliver. Based on the Charles Dickens classic, Oliver Twist, the musical tells the story of an orphaned child struggling to survive the cruelties of the streets of England amidst the Industrial Age. No one seems to care, except those trying to use him for profit. "Where is he, whom I close my eyes to see?" Oliver sings. "Will I ever know the sweet ‘Hello,' that's meant for only me? Where is love?"

Few of us have ever faced the hardships of life as a street orphan, but we need not look far to see that the cruelties of Dickens' world still exist in our own. The young and the very old, the ill and the poor are still exploited and abused, forced to scrounge for daily sustenance. Orphaned o…