The hunger fast, led by Tony Hall, former congressman and current director of the The Alliance to End Hunger, comes in response to major government spending cuts  to programs serving the poor proposed in Congress.

As explained on the Hunger Fast website : “Suggesting that the budget can be balanced on the backs of poor people not only ignores the two largest slices of America’s budget — entitlements and military spending — it betrays a fundamental lack of conscience.”

The budget cuts include: 30 percent of development assistance, 14 percent of child survival programs, 8 percent of HIV/AIDS prevention and 80 percent of the Global Fund.

To create a “Circle of Protection” around the vulnerable populations who will feel the personal effects of these budget cuts, Hall and other leaders (Ruth Messinger of the American Jewish World Service and Pierre Ferrari of Heifer International) are asking others to participate in a portion of their fast and prayer, which goes until April 24.

They invite others to create a less extreme pledge by praying once a week for the hunger fast, skipping one meal a week, forgoing solid food one day a week, or living on $2 to $4  a day.

This invitation comes nearly twenty years after Hall fasted 22 days to protest the elimination in Congress of the only committee to deal with the hungry and the poor. His fast earned enough recognition to create the Congressional Hunger Center and prompt the World Bank to donate $100 million in micro-credit to poor people.

This time, Hall writes in his blog, he doesn’t want to do it alone. Join his Circle or consider doing some Campus Kitchen programming about the fast. Take the fight against hunger in your community one step further.

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As Campus Kitchens and other thought-leaders in the poverty community gear up for Hungry for Justice: Social, Economic, Environmental – a collaboration between Baylor University’s Poverty Summit and The Campus Kitchens Project – one café quietly continues to feed the Waco, Texas residents and build community, one plate of food at a time.

Gospel Café builds on the idea of pay-what-you-can restaurants as a means for feeding everyone, regardless of his or her financial status. Those who can afford more can give more money for their meal to make up for those who can afford less.

Café’s like Gospel – which sprung out of CrossTies Church and is housed in a blue and white Victorian on 10^th and Cleveland in Waco – are heating up ovens across the nation to ease the growing hunger need. Just take the Panera store in St. Louis made into a non-profit café or a pioneer of the movement: SAME (So All May Eat) in Denver.

At Café Gospel, they’re working to feed a population with a 28 percent poverty rate. But it doesn’t seem to deter staff and students from neighboring Baylor University from joining in on the family-style lunch. An article published in The Lariat Online in 1999 highlighted several staff who made weekly visits to the café.

One faculty member explained: “It is very good home-cooked food, usually with three or four entrees to choose from.”

A post on the Bread for the World blog highlighted some of the community interaction that goes on inside Gospel café, which is open from 11:30 to 1:30 p.m. daily for lunch.

Sherry Castello, one of the café founders, wrote: “We marvel about the people God has called to minister with us in unexpected capacities: a nurse practitioner who felt drawn to begin the free medical clinic, a psychologist who wanted to begin working at the café one afternoon a week, a woman eager to help us begin Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous groups…”

The welcoming eatery has clearly impacted many since it opened in 1995, and is helping to start the ebb to the flow of poverty in Waco with a simple plate of nutritious food. Hopefully, the minds (young and old) behind Hungry for Justice will continue that ebb, in Waco and across the nation.

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Sometimes graphics speak louder than words.

Ever looked around your adopted community and wondered how much families spend on dining out vs. grocery shopping? Campus Kitchens look at factors like these weekly as they decide who to serve, what’s on the menu, and how to infuse a meal drop off with nutrition.

Recently, Flowingdata.com, a web site that translates social questions into easy to digest answers, released a statistical visualization poster titled “What America spends on Food and Drink.” The graphic breaks down spending for large cities for dining out (restaurants and carryout) and groceries, while making the text bubbles larger or smaller based on population size.

The numbers give Campus Kitchens some healthy insight into how their communities are eating, whether they enjoy their food in raw or prepared form, and where some of the greatest fresh food access issues are.

While numbers indicate Austin as spending the most per year on food, Atlanta spends the highest percentage while dining out, and Detroit – in connection with recent economic hardships – is spending the least.

The University of Detroit Mercy also happens to be a possible site for a Campus Kitchen opening, which would help alleviate some of that need. Other Campus Kitchen cities profiled by this graphic include (in declining order from how much they spend): Washington, D.C., Boston, New Orleans (future site), St. Louis, New York, Chicago, and Baltimore.

Based on recent U.S. Department of Agriculture statistics (April 2010), however, this graphic presents another concerning issue for hunger relief advocates like Campus Kitchens. The April assessment shows that for a 12-month period, food for an average family of four on a thrifty spending plan could cost upwards of 7,000 dollars. The graphic shows only about half of the major cities actually spend this amount, and many, like New York, Chicago, Baltimore, and Detroit, fall below that mark. Is this a good indicator of how much hunger relief is needed in each of these cities? Is there a way to level things out?

Just some food for thought.

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An article recently posted on the blog, Salon.com, begs to differ. The article entitled “Hipsters on Food Stamps” highlights a group of 20 to 30 somethings who are popularizing a ‘new’ way to use food stamps. This group, containing many self-proclaimed ‘foodies’, have broken the long standing stereotypes that food stamps can only be used for government commodities and are instead using them to buy things like organic veggies and fresh baked bread at places like farmers markets and food co-ops.

Despite the fact that probably none of the clients you serve would fall into the ‘hipster’ category, this article brings up a great point for discussion about what you can and cannot buy with food stamps. The USDA Food and Nutrition Service website provides helpful information about the program, including what foods are eligible for purchase with Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards:

So the next time you are talking with your clients about food choices and healthful eating, remind them that they are not limited to packaged, processed, and frozen foods. Maybe even point out how they can stretch their food stamp dollars by buying fresh foods and cooking from scratch when they have time (and freezing meals for the week).

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For the full article: http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4422&Itemid=53

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A story in yesterday’s New York Times revealed how close to 300 people are going to lose their food stamp benefits in NYC for failing to disclose the fact that they were legally married.  The kicker is that food stamp benefits are based on people living inside the home, not marital status.  In some cases the victims would have been entitled to MORE benefits.

The city sent notices to the 300 people that said that they were over-issued food stamps for the amount of $0.  These people did not get anything extra from the state, and now the safety net has ripped.  These people are now losing their benefits for “failing to provide accurate information”.

What are these people, these parents, and these kids going to do now that their food stamp allotment has been unfairly taken from them?  There is no second state safety net in place for them.  This is where the role of the non-profit sector comes in to fill the void left by state run programs.

Our Campus Kitchens are a shining example of how communities can rise up and help those that are in need.  We currently have 20 kitchens across the nation from Spokane, WA to Gainesville, FL that work to end hunger on a daily basis for hundreds of people just like those affected in New York.   Interested in starting a Campus Kitchen?  Click the link above to get started. 

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My daily life is pretty easy.  Mostly everything is scripted and generally painless.  I check my bank statements online, I do my laundry at 9pm on weekdays and I pay higher rent to walk to the Giant blocks from my house.

In today’s economy everyone doesn’t have it so easy.  Check out this article.  Being poor means you don’t have access to a lot of the things we take for granted in our daily life.

How did we get to where we are now economically.  Greed, most certainly.  Compassion, most certainly not.  Businesses that prey on those who have access to the least; didn’t we learn our lesson the first time? 

Go ahead, google next day loans.  The first 30 pages are littered with sites just begging to loan you money.  Pictures of stacks of $100 bills.  All for 25% of your paycheck.  My checking is free.  But what if you aren’t educated on what to do?  Pictures designed to bait the uneducated.

Subprime mortgages, credit targeting and security derivatives were all in the pursuit of money.  Why don’t we pursue making our cities stronger communities?  Why not help those who are struggling so they contribute to the economy?  Shouldn’t we be working together to fix the problems of our future instead of exploiting them for a profit.

Will we ever learn?  CKP certainly hopes so.

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What if the newspaper in your county did a similar investigation? What does the face of hunger look like in Baltimore or Waco or Kearney? How do the causes differ? How do the solutions?

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Group sees large donations, but no room: It’s not only the fledgling Campus Kitchens that are looking for space, but food banks and food pantries too. Some have gotten help from unlikely sources, and others create partnerships that allow them to store the overload. But while need grows, are donations being wasted because of lack of space?

 More food donated, less waste: With these forces combined, Florida may be in the running for food recovery capital of the U.S: the Florida state legislature expanded the Emerson Good Samaritan Act last year, and Campus Kitchens are up and running at Jackson University and the University of Florida. This editorial joins the call for more food donations and more redistribution:

Now, with Lee County facing a staggering rise in demand at feeding agencies, it’s time for providers and restaurants to take full advantage of the state’s food-donation program.

Why the poor pay more: This piece considers the lived experience of poverty, and focuses on the little things that make up the cycle: check-cashing costs, laundromat waits, corner store prices, and gaps in the system where working moms tend to fall.

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Start with a question, like: Why can’t everyone have local food? And you’ll find more questions: Where does my food come from? How is it picked, processed, packaged and sold? Who does the picking, processing, packaging, and selling? Where is fresh food available? When? To whom?

She spent last week on a Food Justice Immersion Project trip with five students, including CKGC summer interns. To find answers, they kept asking questions: they spoke to a farmworker, a farmer, and the owner of a family-run fruit company; they visited Penn State Agriculture and Environment Center and the Central PA Food Bank; they ate dinner with low-income women involved Adams County’s Circles of Support and listened to them share stories during a poverty forum at the South Central Community Action Program.

The answers are many and complex, but part of the answer in Adams County, Christine said, is the Campus Kitchen: “We’re one of the community solutions that’s working.”

This summer, one of the CKGC interns will keep searching for answers by working on a community food assessment. She’ll consider current policies and identify priority areas for attention and hopefully share her work with the Adams County Food Policy Council. (More on CKGC’s work with the council next week!)

If your Campus Kitchen interested in some of the same questions, Christine recommends starting with general topics. Those topics can become conversations with people you already know in your community. See who they can you connect with and arrange times to meet and to talk.

For Christine, it wasn’t finding answers, but seeing others engage with the same questions, that was most rewarding. “To see the participants come to some of the same realizations I have was the best part,” she said.

Harvested spinach ends up in soup for CKGC clients!

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