Welcome to the Memorial Day weekend blog-a-thon for Feeding America! This weekend's series is the latest in an on-going community fund-raising project for our nation’s food banks that began in 2008. Since then, thanks to all of you, Daily Kos has provided a quarter-of-a-million meals to hungry Americans.
But let's say you're unemployed, or buried in debt, or just unable to open your wallet to help fix the problem. What to do? Join me over the jump for some strategies that you can employ in fighting hunger in your area.
Give Your Time
Food Pantries and Hunger Programs across the country are critically understaffed. As need rises for families looking for food, the need also rises for people to help distribute the food to those needy families. Consider doing one (or more) of the following (links take you to a directory to help you find a program in your area):
• Become a driver for your local Meals On Wheels program.
• Help fill share bags for a local CSA or Food Pantry.
• Offer to help cook or serve meals at a homeless shelter.
• Organize food collection programs at your place of work or worship.
Give Your Talent
Volunteering doesn't just mean performing menial skills or heavy labor Food providers need essential help in high-skill areas too:
• Are you an accountant or bookkeeper? Volunteer your time to help manage the books or other office work.
• Do you write code? Work as a graphic designer? Work in PR or Marketing? Volunteer your skills helping advertise for your local food charity. Build a website, design flyers or write press releases.
• Work in HR? Offer to review resumes for clients at the local shelter and do seminars on interviewing and cold-calling techniques.
The trick here is rather than just giving a handout, give these people a hand up. Teach a man to fish and he'll never go hungry is the phrase to keep in mind. Use your skills to help lift up others.
Give Your Treasure
Aside from the obvious -- and of course, your generosity towards Feeding America is encouraged and appreciated -- the Treasure I speak of here is the bounty you bring from the ground itself.
There are thousands of community gardens and greenhouses that are growing food that is bound for the tables of the poor. Here in Cleveland, Ohio, a new garden was dedicated last week that will produce food for the Greater Cleveland AIDS TAsk Force, According to Task Force Executive Director Earl Pike, "the Slavic Village Community Garden has been organized to benefit the clients of the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland. As far as we know, this is one of the few (if not the only) example of such a venture anywhere in the U.S.: friends and neighbors, allies and supporters, coming together to plant a large garden, with all the produce harvested for the benefit of a local AIDS agency -- in our case, all the poor and low-income people living with HIV/AIDS who utilize the pantry at the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland." Another is the Trinity Cathedral/Charlie Comelia Community Garden, where garden volunteers plant vegetables, fruits, and herbs that help feed hungry neighbors every Sunday who come to "A Place at the Table." Trinity's Sunday lunch program. This group plans to expand it's harvest this year to provide vegetables for a lunch program at a local urban school.
This Link tells you where to find community gardens in your area. Please, go and visit these gardens and lend yourself to the task of growing fresh vegetables for local families.
__________________________________
I'd be remiss if I left out a word about the Cleveeland Greenhouse Project. As those who have followed these diaries over the last 18 months may recall, I am the Executive Director of a group that plans to build a large Greenhouse, Aquaponics System and Composting facility in an inner-city neighborhood in Cleveland, Ohio. The Project, which is loosely based on Will Allen's Growing Power (described so will in Patriot Daily's diary yesterday) will grow tons of vegetables, fruit and fish for distribution to local households, the medically shut-in and area restaurants.
We are pleased to announce two developments. First, we have just created a new non-profit organization called Community Greenhouse Partners, Inc. which will serve as the educational arm of the Project. Partners will work with three distinct groups, teaching earth science and sustainability to area middle and high schoolers, nutrition and community gardening to our neighbors, and a job training program for local residents interested in agriculture as a new career. The non-profit Partners will also begin looking at other cities for a chance to spread the idea into other needy neighborhoods, helping train and inspire other towns to build their own greenhouse projects.
Secondly, the CGP is in negotiation with a large private concern that owns several vacant properties in the Cleveland area that has indicated they would be willing to donate a 2.83 acre site, located on a main street in Cleveland. We also received our first large donation, a $5,000 gift from a friend of the project that wishes to remain anonymous. As soon as our 501(c)3 application is approved, we plan to launch a major capital drive, which we will be sure to announce here on Daily Kos.
_________________________________________
This year, Feeding America conducted the largest ever survey of hunger in America: 2010 Hunger Report Key Findings. Download the Executive Summary and the entire report here.
49 million Americans: 1 in 6 American adults are hungry, and 1 in 4 American children are hungry.
Donate here, and ConAgra will match your donation dollar for dollar (up to a total collection of $250,000 in May.)
If you need to find a local food pantry, or if you want to volunteer your time you can find a nearby foodbank here.
Thanks so much for all you do.
All times Eastern!
Saturday, May 29:
Noon – Faces of Hunger (Introduction) by noweasels.
3 pm – Urban Farms & Fisheries by Patriot Daily News Clearinghouse
6 pm – Hunger in Vancouver by Chacounne
9 pm – Hunger in AMerica by teacherken
11 pm - Food Forward: Fallen Fruit and Food Banks by Ellinorianne
Sunday, May 30:
10 am - Voice of the Homeless in Tent City 4 by rb137
1 pm – Hunger Politics and Poetics by srkp23
4 pm – Timroff (You Are Here)
7 pm - blue jersey mom
10 pm - boatsie