Nourishing Change - November 2016

November 2016

NEWS

31st Annual Hungerthon Campaign Kicks Off

For over 30 years, WhyHunger's Hungerthon tradition has tapped into the power of radio personalities, listeners, celebrities and fans to raise $16 million for the fight to end hunger in America and the right to nutritious food for all. Each November, WhyHunger, its radio partners and celebrity ambassadors team up to raise awareness about hunger and poverty and to engage the public through radio broadcasts, merchandise, social media activation and an extensive celebrity-driven online auction. Funds raised are invested in long-term, community-based solutions to hunger that help communities across America.

With 42 million Americans struggling with hunger, WhyHunger asks everyone to join the campaign. Learn how you can take action and contribute to WhyHunger's work here .

Stand with Standing Rock

WhyHunger stands in solidarity with the water protectors at Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. The fight for clean water and environmental justice is inextricably linked to the struggles to end hunger and poverty worldwide.

After the town of Bismark, ND rejected the Dakota Access Pipeline in their region due to concerns over water contamination and environmental impact in 2014, regulators decided without consent or approval from tribal members that the course of the new pipeline would cross Sioux treaty lands , bringing with it those same concerns for the water and land. The new route of the pipeline would pass half a mile North of Standing Rock reservation and cross the Missouri River. For months, thousands of people have been occupying the proposed construction site at Standing Rock, where they are not only physically resisting the pipeline with their bodies but also building a movement based on a 500 year tradition of indigenous resistance, ushering in solidarity across the struggles for climate justice and indigenous rights.

Read about some ways we can all support the fight for clean water and climate justice at Standing Rock here .

School Breakfast At Half Century

"In my view, the fifty-year effort to make school breakfast more available, accessible, acceptable and nutritious is an outstanding example of effective advocacy and possibly the best example of productive cooperation between national anti-hunger organizations and state and local groups." - Janet Poppendieck

What has the USDA's School Breakfast Program (SBP) done for American children in its 50 years of existence? Find out in this new report by Janet Poppendieck, activist, author, professor emerita at Hunter College and WhyHunger Board Member as she examines the history, challenges, policy gains and role of advocacy in shaping the program on its 50th anniversary.

What we know for sure is that this program has provided nutritious food to millions of kids in the US. Since SBP was established, the Average Daily Participation has grown from about 80,000 in the first year of operation to 14,900,000 last year. But how did we get here and how do we keep this critical program in place as an effective tool in the fight against hunger and poverty?

Read the report here.

Connecting Hunger and Health in Brooklyn & Beyond

Hunger and food insecurity affect 1 in 7 Americans today. Those affected by hunger are three times more likely to have diet related health problems like diabetes or hypertension. At WhyHunger, we support grassroots organizations working at the intersections of health and hunger. That's why we're excited to share this video highlighting the innovative programs at Bed-Stuy Campaign Against Hunger (BSCAH) .

BSCAH hosts an array of projects that tackle the root causes of hunger including a "VeggieRx" program. Through a partnership with the Addabbo Family Health Center, patients with diet related illnesses are given a "prescription" - a free voucher for produce from the farm stand. We visited their Healing Garden in Far Rockaway, NY to learn more about this model and how it can serve as an example to communities around the country. During our time there, we met and spoke with Sam Josephs, a youth leader in the Green Teens Program, which allows her to serve as a mentor to her peers. Sam emphasized the importance of growing fresh, organic produce for her community and the positive impact it has on her neighbors' health: "Here in Rockaway, you don't have access to the things that you need... When you have a farm, you're producing your own food, you're watching out for your own health." Her testimony speaks to the value of programs like this, and the importance of local, community-controlled food systems in fighting diet related illnesses.

Watch this inspiring video to learn more about Sam and Bedstuy Campaign Against Hunger's VeggieRx and Green Teens Program.

What We're Reading Now

Food Workers Scramble to Put Food on Their Tables

One in seven American workers is employed in some segment of the food chain, from apple pickers to packing-house workers, truck drivers to supermarket clerks to fast food counter staff. And many of them increasingly struggle to put food on their own tables, according to the report No Piece of the Pie: U.S. Food Workers from the Food Chain Workers Alliance and the Solidarity Research Cooperative. What's more, the problem is worse among women and people of color. Thirteen percent of the 21.5 million workers in America's food system received benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in 2016, the program formerly known as food stamps. That's compared to an average of 6 percent of workers claiming these benefits in all other U.S. industries combined.

Read the article here .

Read the report here .

Resources

Report: Hunger on Campus

The report Hunger on Campus released by a coalition of student groups including the University Food Bank Alliance and the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness found that 48 percent of respondents reported food insecurity in the previous 30 days, including 22 percent with very low levels of food security that qualify them as hungry.

The report surveyed 3,765 students in 12 states, including 26 four-year universities and eight community colleges.
Food insecurity was more prevalent among students of color. 57 percent of Black or African American students reported food insecurity, compared to 40 percent of non-Hispanic white students.
More than half of all first-generation students (56 percent) were food insecure, compared to 45 percent of students who had at least one parent who attended college.

Read the report here .

Help Update the Find Food Database

WhyHunger continues to expand the comprehensive Find Food database of emergency food providers (food banks, food pantries, food access sites) to include information about program types. Program types will help users prioritize their needs between organizations; for example, if they need a soup kitchen, meal delivery or medically tailored food. This will also help organizations indicate the work they are doing.

We need your help! Please verify that your organization's profile is accurate in the database. These are the new categories:

TEFAP are commodity foods are made available to states by the USDA, distributed by food banks and pantries.
CSFP is a federal food program made available USDA to pregnant, breast-feeding, and postpartum women, children, and the elderly.
Food Banks distribute food to soup kitchens, food pantries, after-school programs, shelters, and other feeding programs.
Food Pantry (also known Food Shelf, Food Closet) directly provide food/commodities (canned goods, produce, and sometimes toiletries) to people who need it.
Soup Kitchen is a place where hot meals are offered for free or at a reasonably low price to people who need it.
Mobile Pantry travel to areas of high need to distribute food in pre-packed boxes or through a farmer's market-style.
Medically-Tailored Food are home-delivered meals that are nutritionally appropriate for specific medical conditions
Meal Delivery- individually-tailored meals to people who have low mobility to cook or shop for themselves.
Advocacy- connect/assist people directly to food nutrition programs, activism, and or education on policy work.

These new categories will better capture the work that organizations are doing to better serve their communities, including addressing hunger and health. We will continue to update our database to offer the most comprehensive, dynamic tool for people in need.

If you need to update your record, please email database@whyhunger.org . If your organization is not in the database, please join us here .

In This Issue

31st Annual Hungerthon Campaign Kicks Off

Stand with Standing Rock

School Breakfast At Half Century.

Connecting Hunger and Health in Brooklyn & Beyond

Food Workers Scramble to Put Food on Their Tables

Report: Hunger on Campus

Help Update the Find Food Database

Please verify that your organization's profile is accurate in the database . To update your record, email
database@whyhunger.org . If your organization is not in the database, please join us here.

The WhyHunger Hotline number is 1-800-5-HUNGRY. Please update your records and find outreach materials here.

Nourishing Change is a space to share critical thoughts around the systemic change that needs to happen to end hunger and transform the emergency food system. We want to hear from you! Email us at nourish@whyhunger.org

Nourish Network for the Right to Food

WhyHunger

505 Eighth Avenue, Suite 2100

New York, New York 10018

nourish@whyhunger.org

212-629-8850

Contributors: Betty Fermin, Becca Haydu, Calondra McArthur