Greetings from Portland, Oregon. In this beautiful lush and green fertile valley where anything that can grow does, sitting just on the other side of the Cascade Range from some of the best grazing and grain-growing land in North America, in a city where food literally grows wild along sidewalks, alleyways, in parks and trails, where every other house has a huge garden and keeps backyard chickens; thousands upon thousands of my fellow Portlanders go to bed hungry each night, as do scores more across the rest of our state and country.
This isn't the way our America should be. For right now, we can start by lending a hand here. But systemic change is ultimately what is needed.
Just so we can put a face to things here -
Let's talk about hunger in America...
In this food mecca where this morning I had eggs for breakfast that were laid just a few days ago by a hen who lives in a friend's backyard less than 1000 feet from my kitchen, and where dinner tonight will be cobbled together from the haul of fresh, local healthy whole foods I gathered up at the farmers' market just this morning; right now, right here in my neighborhood, probably even right here in my apartment building - there are families for whom a can of soup or a bag of chips may be all that's on the table or in the pantry.
Maybe they'll send their child to a friend's place for dinner tonight, the only option my grandmother once had back in Passaic, New Jersey to feed my mother and my aunts and uncles many years ago.
I've been fortunate enough to never know hunger myself, but I know we hosted dinner for some of my friends who did when I was growing up.
I love the fact that Newark now has projects like this these days, but needless to say we can't rely solely upon a nationwide patchwork of such small-scale projects.
Right now, 75,000 children, just here in Oregon, need emergency food aid every month. In the Portland area alone, we have over 300 emergency food pantries and meal programs. Across our state, we have at least 915 such recognized programs. And yet we're still falling behind in making sure nobody goes hungry. We can't let this stand.
This is diary number five in this weekend's blogathon fundraiser for Feeding America, organized by noweasels. The first four diaries by noweasels, TheFatLadySings, boatsie and Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse can be found at the links. We'll be going on until tomorrow night, with upcoming entries from JellyBearDemMom, rb137, Norbrook, srkp23, blue jersey mom and Timroff.
Let's fill some empty lunchboxes and pantries, so that nobody goes hungry this summer.
Each year, the Feeding America network provides food assistance to more than 25 million low-income people facing hunger in the United States, including more than 9 million children and nearly 3 million seniors.
Our network of more than 200 food banks serves all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.The Feeding America network secures and distributes more than 2 billion pounds of donated food and grocery products annually.
The Feeding America network supports approximately 63,000 local charitable agencies that distribute food directly to Americans in need. Those agencies operate more than 70,000 programs including food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters, after-school programs, Kids Cafes, Community Kitchens and BackPack Programs.
Can you help?
What Can We Learn From Belo Horizonte, Brazil?
The not-so-well-hidden shame of our "advanced, wealthy" society is the number of people who go to bed hungry each night here in the United States. Children and adults. While food drives and private charity certainly help, the ultimate solution lies with government.
For a great history of how we got to where we are now, read Mark Winne's fantastic book Closing the Food Gap, and then (as always) "thank" Ronald Reagan. And those who followed...
Everybody has to eat. One city in Brazil has made food a right of citizenship, and in the process virtually wiped out hunger at home -
Belo, a city of 2.5 million people, once had 11 percent of its population living in absolute poverty, and almost 20 percent of its children going hungry. Then in 1993, a newly elected administration declared food a right of citizenship. The officials said, in effect: If you are too poor to buy food in the market—you are no less a citizen. I am still accountable to you.
Frances Moore Lappe writes -
In writing "Diet for a Small Planet", I learned one simple truth: Hunger is not caused by a scarcity of food but a scarcity of democracy. But that realization was only the beginning, for then I had to ask: What does a democracy look like that enables citizens to have a real voice in securing life’s essentials? Does it exist anywhere? Is it possible or a pipe dream? With hunger on the rise here in the United States—one in 10 of us is now turning to food stamps—these questions take on new urgency.
What Does Food Democracy Look Like?
Food democracy looks like this -
[The city] offered local family farmers dozens of choice spots of public space on which to sell to urban consumers, essentially redistributing retailer mark-ups on produce—which often reached 100 percent—to consumers and the farmers. Farmers’ profits grew, since there was no wholesaler taking a cut. And poor people got access to fresh, healthy food.
[...]
In addition to the farmer-run stands, the city makes good food available by offering entrepreneurs the opportunity to bid on the right to use well-trafficked plots of city land for "ABC" markets, from the Portuguese acronym for "food at low prices." Today there are 34 such markets where the city determines a set price—about two-thirds of the market price—of about twenty healthy items, mostly from in-state farmers and chosen by store-owners. Everything else they can sell at the market price.
"For ABC sellers with the best spots, there’s another obligation attached to being able to use the city land," a former manager within this city agency, Adriana Aranha, explained. "Every weekend they have to drive produce-laden trucks to the poor neighborhoods outside of the city center, so everyone can get good produce."
Everybody wins there. The people of the city gain access to fresh, healthy produce from local growers who benefit from being able to sell direct to the public with nobody taking a cut of their profits. In addition to these programs, the City of Belo Horizonte also operates multiple "People's Restaurants", which serve very affordable meals built around healthy, high quality local foods in which anybody can eat regardless of income; as well as maintaining a strong focus on nutrition classes and community / school gardens.
Charity Is Great, But The Solution Is Government
As I was wandering around the gigantic farmers' market downtown this morning, I got to thinking about what I really would have liked to have been able to leave by my mailbox for the Stamp Out Hunger food drive before I headed out this morning. I don't have much myself these days, but I gave all I had that was acceptable - a couple cans of Eden Organics kidney beans. I would have loved to have been able to come back from the market with a few extra bunches of kale, some carrots and some strawberries, and been able to give them as well. A major problem with many private emergency food programs around the nation is the lack of ability to handle, store or process healthy fresh produce. As well as the fact that many people just don't have even the necessary cooking equipment.
Emergency meal programs like Blanchet House here in Portland do wonders with what they can, but there is simply too much demand (especially these days) for organizations like this to be able to keep up. The only entity in the United States that can truly handle that is government, when it does things right. For starters, an adequate one-time investment in providing vouchers (or some other system, whatever works...) to enable Americans who lack decent cooking equipment to acquire same would be one of the biggest overall public health improvements we can make as a society. Wanna talk about a stimulus?
From there, here's just one of many ways we can move towards increasing access to healthy food for all...
The Siskiyou Sustainable Cooperative, a group of farmers who deliver fresh vegetables and other products to customers weekly on a subscription basis, has won state approval to accept Oregon Trail Cards (food stamps) starting in July.
The approval allows low-income people to receive weekly boxes of organic vegetables and fruits, with add-ons of eggs, meat, dairy products and other items extra, said Maud Powell, coordinator of the cooperative.
[...]
Powell said the Oregon Trail Card is helping low-income people eat well in hard economic times. "It's an excellent way for children, the elderly and at-risk families to access food that can nourish them and prevent illness and obesity."
...another would be towards assisting farmers' markets in acquiring the costly machines necessary to accept EBT cards (food stamps). Anything helps in feeding the hungry, of course - but we also need to work towards making access to real, healthy whole foods a reality for everybody. If Brazil can do it, we can do it.
Feeding America has a Hunger Action Center which makes it easy for you to follow legislative issues, and become an advocate in your area.
If you're here in Oregon, and you or anybody you know needs help - please contact Oregon SafeNet. And if you can, please consider supporting our local little fruit tree gleaning project.
We're all in this together.
Once again, thank you for anything and everything you can do.
If you'd rather donate by mail, you can do so here...
If you’d like to send your check or money order through the mail, please make checks payable to Feeding America and mail to:
Feeding America
Donor Services Department
35 East Wacker Drive
Suite 2000
Chicago, IL 60601
...or in other ways here.
Thanks for stopping by and supporting us...
This weekend's diary list is as follows:
Saturday (10 am EST): noweasels
Saturday (1 pm EST): TheFatLadySings
Saturday (4 pm EST): boatsie
Saturday (7 pm EST): Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse
Saturday (10 pm EST): Hardhat Democrat - You Are Here
Saturday (midnight overnight): JellyBearDemMom
Sunday (10 am EST): rb137
Sunday (1 pm EST): Norbrook
Sunday (4 pm EST): srkp23
Sunday (7 pm EST): blue jersey mom
Sunday (10 pm EST): Timroff