Tag Archives: Feeding America

April 19, 2012 · 4:01 am

Teaming Up to Defeat Hunger in America

Announcing the opening of the Fight Hunger Together initiative at Walmart are Feeding America president Vickie Escarra (left) and Kimberly Williams Paisley, an actress and award winning director of the film Shade. Photo credit: Feeding America

Some of the largest companies are teaming together to fight hunger in America, at a time of the year when it’s needed most.

Walmart last week announced its Fighting Hunger Together Campaign to make sure foodbanks have enough supplies to last during the spring and summer months. The foodbanks come to the aid of the 49 million Americans who suffer from food insecurity and struggle to get food on the table. General Mills, ConAgra Foods, Kraft Foods and Kellogg Company are joining the hunger relief effort which was announced last week in Nashville, Tennessee.

Walmart says customers can help the hungry when they shop. A press release said signs in the Walmart locations will point customers to products which will have “on-package labels that will “advise customers how to generate meals by entering product codes online, sharing a hashtag on Twitter or scanning a QR code.” Walmart says the campaign is expected to produce 42 million meals.

You can also take part in the campaign by visiting the Walmart facebook page and voting for a community to win a million dollars.

The most important impact of the campaign though will be the awareness it raises about hunger in America. For at this time of the year donations to foodbanks are often reduced and this is especially a cause for alarm with unemployment rates high and potential budget cuts to food assistance programs in Congress.

Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of Feeding America, says, “No one in America should go hungry and we are proud to partner with Walmart in this effort. Through this program, Walmart and its partners are making a powerful impact that will not only address hunger this spring, but will have a lasting effect on the issue of hunger in America.”

The foodbanks across America are facing pressing needs. Lisa Hamler-Fugitt of the Ohio Second Harvest Foodbanks says,”families are stretched to the breaking point and the agencies that serve them are praying for a miracle.”

Donations though are not as robust as during the holidays months. Jennifer Small of the Maryland Food Bank says, “Typically donations are slower the January to September time period.”

Anna Hogan of the Cincinnati Freestore Foodbank says, “right now is typically the time period when donations are a bit less likely…. most donations come in during the holidays, and there is typically a drop off during the Spring and Summer.

The Freestore is holding a Hunger Walk next month to help build up food supplies.

Aside from immediate supply shortages, the biggest problem facing the fight against hunger is awareness. There is enough food in the country but funding cuts or not enough involvement from government, the public or companies leaves those fighting hunger without enough resources to do the job.

There is strength in numbers. The more people become aware and get involved the more likely hunger can be ended in America.

Article first published as Teaming up to Defeat Hunger in America on Blogcritics.

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April 1, 2012 · 3:30 am

Hunger Games Movie Inspiring Food Drives Across Country

A Hunger Games Design of a MockingJay set up for a food drive
Credits: Manna Food Bank

The Hunger Games movie is rallying support for the fight against hunger in the U.S. and abroad. The movie, which is set in the future after North America has suffered famine, is partnering with Feeding America and the World Food Programme .

The Manna Food Bank of North Carolina is holding a Hunger Games food drive. A sculpture based on the film was even set up at the nearby theater.

The West End Library in Washington, DC is conducting a food drive with the film’s release. The library’s web site states it hopes to draw attention to child hunger in the District. Feeding America states, “The District of Columbia (32.3%) and Oregon (29.2%) had the highest rates of children in households without consistent access to food.”

KHAS TV in Nebraska says that Hastings High School held a Hunger Games Food Drive. The students came up with the idea and set up a canned good collection at the Hastings Imperial Theater.

WSLS TV in Virginia reports that two high school classes carried out a food drive to benefit a local pantry in connection with their own “Hunger Games” trivia competition. WCYB TV reports that movie goers have been asked to bring in canned goods to the theater which will be donated to the Second Harvest Foodbank of Northeast Tennessee.

The owner of a movie theater in Temecula, California has also set up a Hunger Games food drive. Also in California, the Monterey Free County Libraries are hosting a food drive in conjunction with the opening of the film.

Lisa Hamler-Fugitt of Ohio Association of Second Harvest Foodbanks says she believes more such events are underway in her state. She says that the Cleveland Food Bank is also helping spread the word about a Sundance independent film about hunger called Finding North .

The Hunger Games has an opportunity to inspire action against the famine currently threatening the Sahel region of Africa as well as Sudan. East Africa was struck by famine last year and is still recovering. Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and other countries are also facing severe hunger.

At the same time the President and the U.S. Congress are committing a low amount of funding for the Food for Peace program, the country’s main tool in fighting global hunger since the Eisenhower administration. The World Food Program USA is asking citizens to call on Congress to increase funding for Food for Peace from $1.4 billion to $2 billion to meet the growing crisis.

The Hunger Games, although fiction, has a chance to do some real world good if it inspires action and interest into hunger issues. Sometimes film is what it takes. An academy award winning film, The Seeds of Destiny, once inspired people to act against hunger in the wake of World War II. President Truman’s Cabinet Committee on World Food Programs even set up a viewing of the film.

With the fact that hunger is growing worldwide this kind of activism could not come at a more important time.

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March 20, 2012 · 2:50 am

Feeding America to Hold Twitter Chat on Nutrition

North Texas Food Bank, located in Dallas, TX, runs a BackPack Program for children at risk of hunger. Feeding America’s BackPack Program, administered through network food banks, provides food to kids for weekends and school vacations.Credits: Feeding America

The charity Feeding America is hosting a twitter chat about nutrition and is inviting everyone to participate in this important discussion. This event is part of National Nutrition Month. Feeding America hopes to engage the country to advocate for nutrition and an end to hunger.

A group of nutrition experts will take part including celebrity chef Ellie Krieger, Lizbeth Silvermann and Dr. Robert Post of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and David Weaver, Director of South Plains Food Bank in Texas.
The twitter chat will take place on Tuesday from 12-1 eastern time. You can follow the chat by using the hashtag #BetterFood.
Feeding America (twitter account @FeedingAmerica) is the nation’s largest charity fighting the hunger and food insecurity afflicting about 49 million people. Their network includes 200 emergency food banks and thousands of partner agencies that feed the nation’s hungry.

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March 8, 2012 · 4:12 pm

Will the Hunger Games Match the Rose Bowl Films?

Fans of the novel The Hunger Games are setting up canned good collections to fight global hunger when the film version premieres this month. The Hunger Games is an adventure tale set in the future when North America has gone through drought, famine and war.

The film’s producers at Lionsgate are partnering with the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Feeding America.

Hopefully this activism will spread across the country. We know from history that film gatherings can make a difference in fighting hunger.

At the University of Michigan in 1947 an event was set up where students could view films of the Rose Bowl football games. Their admission price was a canned good which would be placed upon the Friendship Train.

The Friendship Train traveled across the United States collecting food for the hungry in Europe after World War II. It was one of the magical happenings that took place in the spirit of the Marshall Plan which saw the rebuilding of a continent from the ruins of war.

 The Michigan Daily reported that 10,000 students descended upon area stores buying up canned food. The grocers were practically cleaned out of stock.

So area businesses also benefited from this food drive to help the hungry overseas. One grocer noted that the students made nutritious choices, such as corn.

The Hunger Games has a real opportunity to match this kind of activism, and more so considering that social media provides more ways to organize such an event.

So we will see. Perhaps some of the theaters might even have a showing or two where the admission is a canned good or a one or two dollar donation.

A website has been set up where you can view a video with the stars of the film talking about how you can take action. You can take a quiz and learn more about global hunger. Donations are accepted on the site that will benefit WFP, the largest food aid organization in the world, and Feeding America, which is the leading agency fighting hunger in the United States.

Article first published as Will The Hunger Games Match the Rose Bowl Films? on Blogcritics.

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March 2, 2012 · 10:13 pm

Ozarks Food Harvest Ready To Aid Storm Relief Effort

Ozarks Food Harvest collects and distributes more than 1 million pounds of food monthly to a Network of 300 agencies across 28 southwest Missouri counties. (Ozarks Food Harvest)

Storms tore through the Ozarks region of Missouri this week.  In Branson, Missouri a tornado struck causing heavy damage. The Ozarks Food Harvest, a member of the Feeding America network, is on standby to provide supplies to storm victims.

The Food Harvest is the leading agency in the area helping feed needy families, the homeless, or those struck by disaster.

Denise Gibson, communications director of the Foodbank says, “we will work through our network of agency partners that reside in each community affected and provide whatever additional assistance they need. We have been in contact with all of them to make sure that they are up and running and to determine how we can be of immediate help.”

You can learn more about the Ozarks Food Harvest at their web site.

 

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March 2, 2012 · 5:07 am

Fighting Hunger in America and the Penny Lunch Tradition

Hunger is on the rise in America. The Conference of Mayors recently reported that 86 percent of surveyed cities have seen increases in the need for emergency food aid. These findings coincide with a United States Department of Agriculture report that 20 percent of children in the United States are hungry.

To turn the tide, we need to rekindle the passion and innovation of those who started the fight to end hunger in America more than a century ago.

In 1908 a Cincinnati school teacher, Ella Walsh, saw that her students were struggling. They looked pale. The students were not getting enough to eat. This obviously had serious health as well as educational repercussions. They could not learn on an empty stomach.

Walsh could see malnutrition before her eyes. But she did not just “file it and forget it.” She took action. She got some cooking materials together, found a room, arranged a table, and started serving what came to be known as the “penny lunch.”

This was one of the first attempts to provide school feeding for children. When the school superintendent stopped by to see Walsh’s program in action, he called it a major breakthrough in solving the “problem of the underfed child.”

And it caught on. A doctor quoted in the Cincinnati Post said the penny lunch programs were “like the measles: started, you cannot stop them.” Educators around the United States and even other countries started penny lunch programs. During the Great Depression, these meals were an ever-so-vital safety net.

Over the years, these early efforts at school feeding were strengthened, and in 1946 Harry Truman signed into law the National School Lunch program. Upon signing the legislation, Truman said, “No nation is any healthier than its children.”

Today millions of school children receive free or low price meals because of this initiative that had its earliest roots in the penny lunch. But just enacting this legislation was not enough. Congress had to make improvements when needed.

In 1968, for instance, Senators Bob Dole and George McGovern, who had witnessed the effect of child hunger in war-torn Europe, started a committee to bolster the existing national school lunch program so more needy children could take part. Their work added millions of children to a new national breakfast program and expanded summer feeding initiatives.

But despite these efforts the journey to end child hunger is far from complete. There are still huge gaps in participation in the national school breakfast and summer feeding; and when summer comes and schools close the drop in participation is dramatic.

In 2010, according to Feeding America, 20.6 million low-income children received free or reduced-price meals through the National School Lunch Program, but just 2.3 million participated in summer feeding. When schools close for the summer distribution of food becomes a huge problem.

Fixing this problem requires a combination of innovation, like Ella Walsh showed, and government support, as demonstrated by McGovern and Dole.

For instance, communities can help set up sites for summer feeding. If enough people volunteer and help spread the word about summer feeding, the problem of food distribution can largelybe solved at the local level. Mobile food pantries for summer are another option, but need support.

In Cincinnati, the tradition of school feeding started by Walsh continues with the universal free breakfast program for public schools. It’s called “Grab and Go,” and it gives every student a free meal in the morning. The program is supported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, school boards, and donations by businesses and organizations. If more school systems adopted this program across the country, it would mean significant health and educational benefits for students.

Lisa Hamler-Fugitt of Second Harvest Foodbanks of Ohio says governments at all levels should do their part in “implementing universal free breakfast programs as the cornerstone of true education reform.”

When Ella Walsh kicked off the penny lunch to combat hunger, she said, “It is wonderful to watch the improvement in the children who have heretofore been underfed. Their little faces are rounded out and they are healthy, active human beings, interested in their work, progressing rapidly, a contrast to the pale, listless child of a few months before.”

The effect of this meal is just as important today. We know what a difference school feeding can make. Now there must be action to ensure that no child goes hungry and we that we continue America’s quest to end hunger.

Originally distributed by the History News Service.

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February 24, 2012 · 6:54 am

The Hunger Games Teams Up with WFP and Feeding America

The upcoming movie The Hunger Games, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and Feeding America are teaming up to aid the world’s hungry.

The cast of The Hunger Games has filmed a public service announcement encouraging people to help fight global hunger. A new web site has been set up where you can take a hunger quiz and make a donation.

Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America, says, “Unlike the characters in The Hunger Games, we do not live in a country in which food is scarce. There is enough food to feed everyone living in the US, but it’s not getting to millions of low-income people who need it. Thanks to our partnership with Lionsgate, The Hunger Games will help us expand much needed public awareness of the issue and encourage people to join Feeding America in our commitment to helping ensure that everyone has enough to eat.”

Nancy Roman of WFP says, “If all of us did just one small thing to fight hunger we could end hunger around the world. We are deeply grateful for the support of Suzanne Collins, who writes as though she understands hunger in the world, as well as Lionsgate and The Hunger Games cast – who have the power to change lives as they feed people worldwide.”

The partnership emphasizes fighting hunger in the United States and globally where massive hunger emergencies are currently taking place in the Horn of Africa, Sudan, Afghanistan, the Sahel region of Africa and other crisis zones.

The fighting hunger at home and abroad them carries on a U.S. tradition. In 1946, for instance, the U.S. started a national school lunch program while also organizing a massive relief effort to prevent post World War II famine.

In 1954 President Dwight Eisenhower started the Food for Peace program (Public Law 480) to fight global hunger and a special school milk program to improve child nutrition in the U.S.

The Hunger Games, produced by Lionsgate, debuts March 23rd. You can learn more about the film and the fight against hunger at wfp.org/hungergames.

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November 21, 2011 · 3:37 am

This Thanksgiving Feed A Silent Guest and Help End World Hunger

Here is a  list of charities where you can make a “silent guest” donation this Thanksgiving to Help Feed the Hungry. Imagine you have a guest at your table on Thanksgiving, one of the world’s hungry people. You can send the donation to pay for the Thanksgiving meal of your “silent guest.” Please see my article This Thanksgiving Feed A Silent Guest and Help Build World Peace. Also you can read more below about the “silent guest” program.

United Nations World Food Programme

Play Free Rice

Save the Children

Catholic Relief Services

CARE

World Vision

Edesia

Feeding America

Aschiana Foundation

Action Against Hunger

Church World Service

Norwegian Refugee Council

UNICEF

Food for the Poor

article about the Silent Guest program in a 1947 Plymouth newspaper. (courtesy Plymouth Public Library)

The Friendship Train and the "Silent Guest" Program were two ways Americans sought to build peace after World War II (Cincinnati Post reprint courtesy of the Cincinnati Public Library)

In Thanksgiving 1947 Americans were asked to take a “silent guest” into their homes, one of the hungry in Europe. The World War II devastated countries had been hit hard by drought and harsh winters causing food shortages. The silent guest plan was one way Americans came to the aid of the hungry and suffering.

On Thanksgiving Day Americans would figure what it would cost to feed a “silent guest” at their meal and then mail the donation to a committee in Plymouth, MA – the home of Thanksgiving.  Donations poured in and led to the purchase of many thousands of CARE packages of food going to the hungry in Europe.

This Thanksgiving we can answer the cries of the hungry whether it’s in the famine zone of East Africa, or in drought-ravaged Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo  or Haiti. This holiday there may be those in your own city and state who are hungry.

You can take in a “silent guest” and make a donation to feed your guest at a number of charities.  Also included is a link to the online game Free Rice, where for every correct answer you get, 10 grains of rice are donated to the World Food Programme, paid for by advertisers, a modern way of taking in a “silent guest.”

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November 15, 2011 · 3:41 am

McGovern’s The Third Freedom Essential Reading as Congress Debates Food Aid

George McGovern, author of the Third Freedom, was named the United Nations World Food Programme's first global ambassador against hunger. (WFP photo)

Former Democratic senator George McGovern’s The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time highlights ways Congress can work to fight malnutrition at home and abroad, and why it’s so important we win this struggle against hunger.

His book takes on special meaning right now as Congress is proposing reductions in funding to food aid programs both here and abroad.

McGovern, who ran for President in 1972, was the Food for Peace director under President  Kennedy. This program sends U.S. food overseas to fight hunger and build stability.

McGovern also has a long track record helping feed the hungry in the United States. In a Friends of the World Food Program teleconference, the question was once posed to him: why fight hunger abroad when there are hungry people here? His reply was: Why not do both? Fight hunger whether it’s in the US or overseas.

In The Third Freedom he talks about the Food for Peace program which was supported by both President Dwight Eisenhower (a Republican) and then Democratic President John F. Kennedy. Since then, it has been the main weapon of the U.S. against world hunger.

Food for Peace though is currently at risk of significant budget cuts by Congress, despite the fact that there are tremendous hunger crisis points such as famine in East Africa, drought ravaging Afghanistan, and nations like Haiti who need food to bolster reconstruction.

The charity Save the Children says the House of Representatives is proposing $1.04 billion for Food Peace in the upcoming FY 2012 budget, a significant dropoff from this year’s funding level of nearly $1.5 billion.

One of the key bipartisan initiatives discussed by McGovern in the book is the McGovern-Dole global school meals program. Along with Republican Senator Robert Dole, McGovern developed this initiative.

McGovern-Dole funds school meal projects in developing countries. The UN World Food Programme, Catholic Relief Services, World Vision and other charities provide meals using McGovern-Dole funds. This program is among those at risk in current budget discussions in the Congress.

McGovern also writes about bipartisan congressional committees, which helped improve the U.S. domestic school lunch program. Today’s representatives need to keep up the fight to ensure needy children in the U.S. can access food. For instance, school lunch and summer feeding program enhancements made by McGovern and his colleagues in the Congress need to be followed through by the current representatives.

The bipartisan cooperation that McGovern writes about is especially critical as hunger rates in the U.S. are rising. Vicki Escarra, President of Feeding America says: “The need for food assistance has increased dramatically during the prolonged and severe recession. Hunger hits every state and county in America, with one in six people facing food insecurity… strong federal nutrition assistance programs will continue to be essential.”

Funding for domestic and overseas food aid is very much on the line currently in Congress. McGovern’s book offers hope in this difficult period by reviewing past achievements in the struggle to end hunger. At the same time, he is looking forward to what should be done next to defeat man’s ancient enemy

Originally published as McGovern’s The Third Freedom: Ending Hunger in Our Time is Essential Reading as Congress Debates Food Aid at Blogcritics Magazine

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October 13, 2011 · 3:36 pm

School meal programs are defense against child hunger

When he was campaigning for re-election in 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt took time in Boston to talk about the country’s school lunch program. FDR said, “Milk does those children more good than political soothing syrup.”

As we celebrate National School Lunch Week, it should be a call to action to our political leaders to put aside partisanship and support child nutrition. It could not be more urgent. The Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that 16 million children in the U.S. live in food-insecure households. Families are struggling to get food on the shelves.

Read the full article at the Cincinnati Enquirer

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