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January 12, 1983

In the midst of continued bad jobless figures, there is an especially encouraging note in the latest big effort to feed the hungry. It is an example of those who still have jobs sharing their hard-earned bounty. And of an employer joining in. In a new project with the United Auto Workers, General Motors has designated $2 million to match contributions by workers. The venture comes as a ''hunger emergency'' has been declared in Michigan, with the National Guard assigned to distributing food.

It's a reminder of the anomaly of soup kitchens in a superpower, in the United States, the world's richest country. But there is no anomaly in the kind of community service that provides the soup kitchens, nor in a person with a job helping a person without one. That is in the American grain.