I’ve come to take it for granted, because I visit every time I get on the Internet. But today, I paused a second, struck by the fact that an Internet phenomena called The Hunger Site is celebrating nine years of existence.

Hunger is literally all around us — especially in New Mexico, which, as Roadrunner Food Bank reports, has the second-highest percentage of hungry people in the nation (16.7 percent). It can be overwhelming and make one feel inadequate as far as being able to help.

That’s why I like The Hunger Site. If you’re reading this, you’re one of the folks who spends at least some time on the Internet, and if you haven’t seen it yet, consider this a recommendation.

With a simple, daily click of the yellow "Click Here to Give - it’s FREE" button at The Hunger Site, visitors help provide food to those in need. Visitors pay nothing. Food is paid for by the site’s sponsors and distributed by Mercy Corps worldwide and by America’s Second Harvest to food banks throughout the United States.

Since the site was launched in June 1999, "clickers" have provided 573 million cups of food, the site says today. New Mexico’s food banks are among those that benefit from America’s Second Harvest, so some of it actually helps here at home.

The site also is bundled with five other sites, which, if you click on the different colored buttons, provide books for children (Literacy Site ), fund free mammograms for women in need (Breast Cancer Site ), provide vitamins and treatments for children in need (Child Health Site ), purchase acreage of rainforest lands for preservation (Rainforest Site ), and feed unwanted animals in shelters (Animal Rescue Site ).

The key selling point here: It costs nothing. The food is paid for by the site’s sponsors.

If you sign up for the "Remember to Click" option in the upper-left-hand column of the site, you will be emailed daily reminders. Taking it from there usually takes less time than responding to a single piece of one’s regular email.

Each site also has a "store" where one can buy everything from fair-trade accessories to car insurance, which triggers the giving of even more cups of food, depending on how much you spend. The fact that the sites provide a market for handcrafted items from around the world also helps families and communities "pull themselves out of the poverty and hunger cycle," according to the site.

This is in no way meant to replace participation in local food drives and donating food locally. As my mother-in-law used to say, "It can’t hurt." And it just might help.