Lending a Helping Hand

Along stretches of blazing Arizona highway, refrigeration trucks carried water and ice for the hot, dehydrated troops. Evacuation helicopters and traveling medical centers stood at the ready. Hundreds of portable johns lined the byroads of the nation. "It's like planning the invasion of Normandy and Hannibal's crossing of the Alps on the same day," said Fred Droz, national director of Hands Across America, last Sunday's transcontinental charity event to raise money for America's hungry and homeless. "But at least Hannibal had elephants."

It was the latest, though certainly not the last, of the recent charity "megathons." Holding hands in a human...