19,769 of us have promised to do
something about it. How will you help?
We thank everyone who has helped make the virtual brainstorm a success! Almost 60 new ideas were submitted for how we can end hunger in America.
Thanks goes to everyone submitting your original ideas and helping improve others. Our panel of judges will be reviewing all the submittals and we plan to announce the winners in the coming week. Let us know if you have any questions before then.
With each Tyson Foods truck delivery, we have asked our local partners to tell the story of hunger in their state and showcase the good work of volunteers and donors. On Thursday, May 20, we will deliver a truckload to the only food bank serving the Green Mountain State – Vermont Foodbank in South Barre. Here is their story:
It’s hard to imagine in a country as wealthy as ours and in a state as small as Vermont that thousands of our neighbors could be wondering where their next meal will come from. However, in a recent study of Vermont households conducted by the USDA, more than 80,000 Vermonters were found to be food insecure. Twenty-three thousand of them are children under the age of 18. And more and more people are finding it harder to make ends meet. In fact, in the last year, food shelves and meal sites around the state have reported a 35-40% increase in the requests for emergency food.
Rewind 24 years—Then-Governor, Madeline Kunin, convened a task force on hunger and poverty to assess Vermont’s need for policies to address the issues. Many of the findings of the task force still resonate today. There are still children going to bed hungry and families struggling to make ends meet. Seniors are still choosing between medicine or medical care and food. But because of the task force, the Vermont Foodbank was created. All those years ago we started distributing food to people in need from a tiny building in central Vermont. And as people heard about what was happening, they joined the fight against hunger.
Last year, the Vermont Foodbank distributed nearly 7.5 million pounds of food to as many as 86,000 Vermonters in need of food assistance. Food from grocery stores, Vermont farms and producers, manufacturers, restaurants, bakeries, colleges, food drives, gardens and individuals is collected, sorted, and distributed to a network of 280 food shelves, meal sites, shelters, senior centers, and after-school programs each day. The Vermont Foodbank is reaching more people with quality food than ever before.
And we are not just distributing food. The Vermont Foodbank is providing job training and nutrition education. We are working with our partners across the state to advocate for policies that will address the root causes of hunger in Vermont and nationwide. We are developing programs that target the needs of children, seniors, and families, providing them with the food they need, when and where they need it. We are nurturing partnerships with businesses, donors, services providers, clients, concerned individuals, and elected officials in an effort to share our message and learn new ways to go about this age-old problem.
Check out this video to learn more about the Foodbank:
But we can’t do the work of fighting hunger alone. We need YOU! There are hundreds of ways to get involved in the fight against hunger—find what works for you and do your part to create a hunger-free Vermont. Consider volunteering with your church, civic or school group. Hold a fund drive or an event to benefit the Foodbank. Make a donation in honor of a friend or loved one. Write a letter to your elected official and tell her that hunger is an important issue to you. Sign up to receive our newsletter at www.vtfoodbank.org. Participate in the Harpoon Point to Point bike ride on August 14 (learn more at http://www.harpoonbrewery.com/index.cfm?pid=28554). Join our cause or become a fan of the Foodbank on Facebook, and stay informed about hunger in Vermont.
Hunger is not a natural part of our society. There was a time when this country and when Vermont had far less hunger that it does today. Please join us in the fight against hunger. Together we create a Vermont where everyone has enough to eat!
With each Tyson Foods truck delivery, we have asked our local partners to tell the story of hunger in their state and showcase the good work of volunteers and donors. On Wednesday, May 19, we will deliver a truckload to both food banks serving the Nutmeg State – Connecticut Food Bank in East Haven and Foodshare in Bloomfield. Here are their stories:
Connecticut Food Bank
Hunger in Connecticut is Sara, a mother of four, making a difficult choice every day: Should I give my children breakfast in the morning and let them go to bed hungry? Or should I let them start their day hungry so I can feed them dinner at night?
Sara, a middle class homeowner living in a suburban shoreline town, lost her purchasing job last year when her company downsized. She has been unable to find a job since then. She has had no choice but to cut back on the meals for her four children, between the ages of 7 and 15, because she simply doesn’t have enough money for food.
She’s not alone.
In Connecticut, about 1 in 7 households had difficulty putting food on their tables in 2009, according to a Gallup survey conducted for the national Food Research and Action Center.
Sara, whose name was changed for this article to protect her privacy, goes to Community Dining Room for meals so she can have more food at home for her family. Community Dining Room is a soup kitchen in Branford and one of 650 food-assistance programs served by Connecticut Food Bank in its service area, consisting of six of the state’s eight counties.
Food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters served by Connecticut Food Bank reported seeing an average of 30 percent more people come through their doors in 2009. Many were people seeking food assistance for the first time.
In an effort to meet the growing demand, Connecticut Food Bank, the largest source of emergency food in the state, increased its distribution by 16.6 percent from 2008. In 2009, Connecticut Food Bank distributed 18.7 million pounds of food, an average of about 37 tons of food every business day.
Since its incorporation in 1982 as the state’s first regional food bank, Connecticut Food Bank has distributed more than 200 million pounds of food to people in need. Throughout our history, we have seen such inspirational moments in the fight against hunger.
Recently, we were heartened to learn that a family served by TEEG, a food pantry in North Grosvenordale and a Connecticut Food Bank member program, came not to seek food assistance, but rather to help another struggling family.
Paul, whose name was changed for this article, had supported TEEG in the past when he helped his church pack holiday baskets for the food pantry. But in October 2008, after being out of a job for more than four months, Paul went to TEEG requesting help and food assistance for his family, including three children between 8 and 17 years old.
About a year later, Paul got a job, and he and his family were able to start rebuilding their finances. In December 2009, he and his family called TEEG and asked to “adopt” a struggling family for the holidays so they could reciprocate the help they received and assist another family through a difficult time.
Connecticut Food Bank believes that it is through this collective effort that we as a community can alleviate hunger one person at a time, one neighborhood at a time and one community at a time.
Foodshare
Hunger has become a hot topic of discussion over the past couple of years in our nation. With a downward spiraling economy, hunger grew exponentially in many places, including the suburbs, where most of us may have imagined being immune to such problems. In a time when much of the public is forced to face this issue head on, organizations like Foodshare are looking to change the conversation about hunger in America.
As a powerful partner in this global economy, there is really no excuse for our shortcomings here at home. Americans should never have to stand in a food line to make ends meet. Unfortunately, many of them do, including more than 128,000 living right here in greater Hartford. So, Foodshare works hard to ensure that our neighbors in need get the food they need each day. But it will never be enough to simply meet the demand. We need to find ways to lower the demand and bring an end to hunger for good.
In 2010, Foodshare will reach out further than ever before, in hopes of collaborating towards change in our communities. Partnering with local government, faith & civic groups and social service organizations we will strive to create a Hunger Action Team in each town throughout Hartford and Tolland Counties. While this is a long-term project that we expect to take many years, our eventual hope is to facilitate public and private groups coming together to build each community’s capacity to efficiently and effectively meet local needs. Efforts have already begun in 9 towns throughout our service area and we are seeing exciting results!
Distributing food via our network of partner agencies and our own Mobile Foodshare initiative is an important first step for families in our community that find themselves struggling to make ends meet. But as a community, we must get those families past the next meal, and to a better place where they no longer need help to put food on the table. To learn more about our Hunger Action Team Initiative, please call us at 860.286.9999 or visit www.Foodshare.org.
May brings the first deliveries of Tyson Foods trucks to those who earned a Top 10 State in the Digital Can Drive. You can help celebrate their arrival by joining us in person or showing your support thru the online hunger rally for each state.
Connecticut
Wednesday, May 19
9 AM Connecticut Food Bank (East Haven)
2 PM Foodshare (Bloomfield)
Or join us for the online Hunger Rally: Connecticut
Vermont
Thursday, May 20
10 AM Vermont Foodbank (South Barre)
Or join us for the online Hunger Rally: Vermont
Hunger in Indiana
With each Tyson Foods truck delivery, we have asked our local partners to tell the story of hunger in their state and showcase the good work of volunteers and donors. On Tuesday, June 22, we will deliver a truckload to benefit all the food banks serving the Hoosier State. Our friends at the Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana in Muncie are serving as the lead local partner. Here is their story:
A man at a food distribution site in Indiana said he was there because, “My wife has cancer and our medical bills are so high we don’t have much left for food.” A young mother living in a household of ten said she was there to get food for her children; she had not eaten herself for two days. “Thank you so much” she said, “we really need this.”
Indiana’s regional food banks along with the charities they support provide hands-on opportunities for thousands of Hoosiers to make a difference for neighbors in need. Volunteers pack boxes, fill shelves, labor at pantries, raise money, provide information, push brooms, enter data, consol clients, and advocate for hunger relief measures throughout Indiana. Donors support events, write checks, give food and provide a tremendous energy stream in the work of alleviating and ending hunger. The food industry from the farm to the distributor stands behind this statewide mobilization of resources as this critical network pulls together to feed neighbors in need.
It is not an easy job but as Indiana continues to feel the stress of a battered economy our residents are digging deeper and giving more to see that neighbors are fed. Hunger in America found that eleven percent of Hoosier households are food insecure – they just don’t have enough nutritionally adequate and safe foods or they do not have the ability or certainty to acquire foods in socially acceptable ways. Four percent of Hoosier households have very low food security, they are reducing food intake and disrupting eating patterns due to insufficient resources for food—they are hungry.
Statewide, more than 36 percent of client households are experiencing “very low food security” – referred to as hunger in federal statistical reports. This means that one or more household members don’t have enough food to eat.
An estimated 117,900 Hoosiers receive emergency food assistance each week from a food pantry, soup kitchen, or other agency served by the member food banks of Feeding Indiana’s Hungry, Inc. the state food bank association and Feeding America, the nation’s food bank network.
Among key findings of the Hunger in America 2010 Indiana State Report on emergency food distribution are the following:
• 16% of client households with seniors 65 or older have very low food security.
• 25% of adults in client households are working either full-time or part-time, and 33% of clients reported a job as the household’s main source of income.
• 2% of all households surveyed received government welfare assistance such as Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) in the month prior to the survey.
• 4% were homeless at the time of the survey.
• 24% of clients reported that they or someone in their household do not have access to health insurance.
• 57% of clients had unpaid medical or hospital bills.
• 37% of client households report receiving SNAP benefits.
• 64% of clients were non-Hispanic white clients; 30% were non-Hispanic black clients; 8% were Latino or Hispanic.
What is most distressing is that clients regularly must choose between food and other necessities, or may not eat at all from time to time. While we celebrate the tremendous work done by Indiana residents to end hunger, we recognize that there is much yet to do. Indiana’s food bank network provides critical services while mobilizing resources from throughout the state and the nation to end hunger is this land of plenty.
Food banks statewide include:
Food Bank of Northwest Indiana, Gary
Food Bank of Northern Indiana, South Bend
Food Finders Food Bank, Inc., Lafayette
Community Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Indiana, Ft. Wayne
Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana, Inc., Muncie
Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, Indianapolis
Terre Haute Catholic Charities, Terre Haute
Hoosier Hills Food Bank, Bloomington
Tri-State Food Bank, Inc., Evansville