When hunger comes knocking

Some of those smiling young goblins at your door this weekend will not be demanding goodies for themselves. For the 30th consecutive year since the United Nations Children's Fund began its "Trick or Treat for UNICEF" program, some will be asking instead that other youngsters and their families not on your doorstep -- those in underdeveloped countries experiencing hunger, malnutrition, and poverty -- be remembered.

Inflation in the industrialized West may make today's nickels and dimes seem more a trick than a treat, but UNICEF's trick-or- treaters will be a reminder that even a few pennies still go a long way toward easing suffering in Africa, Asia, and other parts of the third world.

With one out of eight people in the world facing malnutrition, according to the 1980 report of the Presidential Commission on World Hunger, UNICEF's tiny doorbell-ringers have their work cut out. So do the rest of us.