MARCH 31, 2008

FOOD
Hunger persists; what to do?

More food is being given out to hungry people. Still, one in every 10 U.S. households does not have regular and reliable access to nutritious food, and more people are requesting help than ever before. Advocates argue that America can – and should – end hunger now. Religious groups and people are at the forefront of increasing aid and pushing for policy reforms aimed at ending hunger in America.

The impact is devastating: One study estimated that the nation pays $90 billion a year – that’s $800 per household – to shoulder the effects of hunger. Hungry people have more health problems, are more likely to be undereducated and are less productive at work. One in six children is undernourished, which affects health, behavior, school performance and brain development. Hungry children are more likely to be poor as adults than those who are not.

Recent reports detail the growing problem:
• The number of people receiving food stamps is expected to hit record levels in 2008, according to new projections from the Congressional Budget Office, according to a March 31, 2008, New York Times story.
• Eighty percent of surveyed cities had increases in requests for emergency food assistance in 2007, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ annual survey of hunger and homelessness, released in December 2007.
• Demand for food has increased as much as 20 percent in some areas, according to a call to action issued in fall 2007 by America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s largest food bank, which supplies food pantries nationwide.
• Food assistance requests rose 12 percent in 2006. Between 2002 and 2006, food assistance rose nearly 60 percent, according to a Catholic Charities USA report released in November 2007.
• The U.S. government’s annual report on hunger, released in November 2007, showed that a little more than 1 out of 10 American households experienced “food insecurity.” (The term “food insecurity” means a family does not have regular and reliable access to adequate nutritious food. Some families skip meals and are considered hungry if meal skipping is a regular practice; others may compromise on meal quality or size but are not necessarily missing meals.) In the 11 years since this has been measured, the percentage of food-insecure households has stayed around 10 percent. Advocates who work on food issues say that despite a large and visible network of food pantries that has grown in the past two decades, a substantial number of Americans don’t have a reliable source of adequate nutritious food.

The strategy for reducing hunger shows signs of shifting. Hunger is linked to poverty, the lack of affordable housing and race. Former food bank director Mark Winne argues provocatively in his 2008 book Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty that food banks are futile charitable efforts and that resources would be better directed toward public policy changes to reduce poverty. Some hunger advocates are promoting a new way of thinking about food supply: eating more nutritious and local food, to decrease dependence on remote sources and increase responsibility for providing one’s own food. And religious groups are putting more emphasis on advocacy, as they have with the Farm Bill, which funds a number of federal assistance programs.

For more sources and background see ReligionLink’s issues on:
• The Farm Bill
• Affordable housing
• Homelessness

Click the map for interview sources in your state and region

Jump to:
Angles for reporters
Organizations
    Secular
    Religious
National sources
Background
    Statistics & research
    Articles

Why it matters

All faiths teach care for the poor and hungry, and religious groups operate the majority of soup kitchens and food banks across the country.

Angles for reporters

This is pre-eminently a local story. Every state has a network of agencies and organizations that deal with hunger. What is the unique picture in your state? How is the economy? How adequate is the support for those who fall on hard times? What about low-wage workers? What do officials say? What do those on the front lines – standing in food lines or handing out groceries or meals – say?

Some food pantries in various parts of the country reported shortages toward the end of 2007. What is the picture like after the holidays? What are the underlying trends beyond seasonal fluctuations?

Many Buddhist centers prepare or distribute food to homeless people as a compassionate service. If you have local Buddhist groups, ask them about their community service and how they understand the practice.

Some anti-hunger organizations are working on the larger issue of food for communities. They are promoting community gardens, sustainable agriculture, relationships between farmers and communities, and economic justice for food producers. They say sustainability of food production and consumption is the key to community food security. What kind of links, if any, are there between your local groups concerned about the Earth and creation care and those working on poverty and hunger?

Organizations

SECULAR
• The Alliance to End Hunger is a coalition of groups across cultures and faiths to end hunger in the world. It was begun by David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World. Max Finberg is director. Contact him, 202-639-9400 ext. 178.
• America’s Second Harvest, the country’s largest charitable hunger-relief organization, distributes food to food banks and works on policy. Its Almanac of Hunger and Poverty is a statistical treasure trove, ranking states on key indicators of hunger and poverty. The almanac also includes state-by-state statistics. Vicki B. Escarra is president and CEO of the Chicago-based organization. Contact through Ross Fraser, media relations manager, 312-641-6422, rfraser@secondharvest.org.
• Community Food Security Coalition does advocacy, education and training on issues of food production and distribution and includes grass-roots member groups from the U.S. and Canada. Andy Fisher is executive director of the Venice, Calif., group. Contact 310-822-5410, andy@foodsecurity.org.
• Food Research and Action Center is a Washington, D.C., advocacy group working on public policy and public-private partnerships on food and hunger issues. The organization maintains state-by-state profiles with statistics about poverty and food insecurity. James D. Weill is president and Jennifer Adach is communications coordinator. Contact 202-986-2200.
• Share Our Strength, an anti-hunger organization based in Washington, D.C., focuses on ending childhood hunger in America. It runs a number of programs. Bill Shore is founder and executive director. Contact him through communications director Elizabeth Kramer Wrege, 202-478-6551.
• The U.S. Conference of Mayors, the organization of American cities with populations of 30,000 or greater, reported in its 2007 Hunger and Homelessness Survey, released in December, that 80 percent of surveyed cities had increases in requests for emergency food assistance. Contact Elena Temple at the Washington, D.C.,-based conference, 202-861-6719, etemple@umayors.org.
• World Hunger Year is a New York-based organization that focuses on hunger and poverty nationally and internationally. Among its programs is the National Hunger Clearinghouse, which maintains a directory of organizations that work on hunger and poverty issues. The directory is searchable by state. Bill Ayres is executive director; contact 212-629-8850.

STATE BY STATE
America’s Second Harvest is a network of food banks in all 50 states. Search its database by ZIP code or state for a local food depository. It also lists local food bank media contacts.

Other anti-hunger organizations that post contact information for local affiliates:
• Catholic Charities
• Salvation Army
• Society of St. Andrew

RELIGIOUS
• Bread for the World is a Christian lobby group calling for both charity and justice in its advocacy efforts. Its president, David Beckmann, a clergyman and economist, is one of the leading spokesmen in the religious community on hunger issues. Bread for the World is based in Washington, D.C., and has regional offices. Contact Beckmann through acting communications director Jennifer Stapleton, 202-639-9400.
• Catholic Charities asked Congress to improve food and nutrition assistance contained in farm bill legislation. Hunger is a key issue for the agency. It reported a 12 percent increase in the number of clients using food services in 2006. Media contact is Shelley Borysiewicz, 703-236-6218, sborysiewicz@catholiccharitiesusa.org.
• The ELCA World Hunger program helps alleviate hunger through advocacy, education, relief and sustainable development.  Contact 773-380-2764, hunger@elca.org.
• Foods Resource Bank is made up of 15 Christian denominations that work at the grass roots with farmers and communities to develop local food security. Modeled after a Canadian program, it has both overseas and U.S. projects. Contact Marv Baldwin, president and CEO of the Kalamazoo, Mich.,-based group, 269-349-3467.
• MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger is a Los Angeles-based program which funds advocacy and food distribution. H. Eric Schockman is president. Contact 310-442-0020 ext. 101, eschockman@mazon.org.
• Presbyterian Hunger Program is a Presbyterian ministry responding to hunger and poverty domestically and abroad. Andrew Kang Bartlett is the program associate in charge of national hunger concerns. The church’s Food and Faith initiative includes a blog. Contact Kang Bartlett, 800-728-7228 ext. 5388, andrew.kangbartlett@pcusa.org.
• The Salvation Army provided 63.8 million meals through a variety of programs and services. It has a network of state and regional media contacts. National media contacts are public relations director Melissa Temme, 703-519-5890, and Matt Meenan of Xenophon Strategies, 202-289-4001, both in the Washington, D.C., area.
• The Society of St. Andrew in Big Island, Va., was founded in 1979 and began salvaging potatoes and other produce in 1983. It operates a “Gleaning Network” and “Potato & Produce Project” that salvages unpicked usable produce. It has regional offices in six Southern states and hunger relief advocates in 15 states, and it distributes salvaged excess produce to the 48 contiguous states . Ken Horne is executive director; Steven M. Waldmann is director of operations. Contact for both is 434-299-5956.
• The Souper Bowl of Caring mobilizes young people to do something about hunger and poverty. Born of church youth groups in Columbia, S.C., in 1990 and pegged to Super Bowl weekend, by 2007 the event generated more than $8 million for anti-hunger and poverty groups. The most recent event was Feb. 3, 2008. Media contact is Tracy Bender, 803-788-3746, tracy@souperbowl.org.

National sources
• Mark Winne is the former director of the Hartford Food System. In 2001 he won the U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary’s Plow Honor Award. He is the author of the 2008 book Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty. Contact through Gina Frey, his publicist at Beacon Press in Boston, 617-948-6583, win5m@aol.com.
• Roshi Bernie Glassman founded Greyston Bakery for spiritual, ethical and social reasons. He can talk about the relationships between Buddhist ideas about responsibility, ethical work (which Buddhists call “right livelihood”), food as sustenance and compassion. Glassman is now at Zen Peacemakers in Montague, Mass. Contact him, 413-367-2080 ext. 1#.
• June Kim is executive secretary of World Hunger/Poverty and Sustainable Agriculture and Development for the United Methodist Committee on Relief. She is involved in interfaith hunger relief efforts. Contact her through Michelle Scott in the UMCOR communications office, 212-870-3815, mscott@gbgm-umc.org.
• L. Shannon Jung is professor of town and country ministries at St. Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Mo. His new book is World Hunger and the Complicity of the Affluent (forthcoming in 2008). He has written extensively about food, farming and justice. Contact 816-245-4862, Shannon.jung@spst.edu.
• Imam Mohamed Magid is executive director of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) in the Washington, D.C., area. He spoke at the second Interfaith Convocation on Hunger at Washington National Cathedral in June 2007. Mosque members do regular community service with the homeless. Contact 571-437-9566.

Background

STATISTICS & RESEARCH
• See the report Hunger in America 2006. America’s Second Harvest surveyed 30,000 agencies and 52,000 food pantry or kitchen clients to develop a statistically valid picture of hunger and relief. Food banks throughout the country participated.
• The Sodexho Foundation released a report in June 2007 that found that the U.S. pays $90 billion a year – or $800 per household – directly or indirectly for the effects of hunger (hunger-related charities, illness and psychosocial dysfunction and the impact of less education/lower productivity). Read a news release.
• Read a Nov. 15, 2007, report from Catholic Charities USA that showed food assistance rose 12 percent in 2006.
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service does an annual survey of “food insecurity” in the U.S. to track trends and economic and geographic characteristics of households experiencing hunger. Mark Nord and Margaret Andrews are food security and hunger experts at the research service. Contact Nord, 202-694-5433, marknord@ers.usda.gov; contact Andrews, 202-694-5441, mandrews@ers.usda.gov. Contact the ERS press office, 202-694-5139.
• Food Research and Action Center is a Washington, D.C., advocacy group. The organization maintains state-by-state profiles with statistics about poverty and food insecurity. Jennifer Adach is communications coordinator. Contact 202-986-2200.
• America’s Second Harvest, the country’s largest charitable hunger-relief organization, distributes food to food banks. Its Almanac of Hunger and Poverty ranks states on key indicators of hunger and poverty. The almanac also includes state-by-state statistics. Contact through Ross Fraser, media relations manager, 312-641-6422, rfraser@secondharvest.org.
• The Hormel Hunger Survey 2007 showed that almost two-thirds of Americans believe hunger in the U.S. has gotten worse in the past year. Hormel Foods did the survey, the second annual, in conjunction with America’s Second Harvest. Contact Hormel corporate communications, 507-437-5345.

ARTICLES
• Read a Nov. 30, 2007, New York Times report about shortages at food banks around the country.
• View a Nov. 23, 2007, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly interview with the Rev. David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, on hunger in America.
• Read “When Handouts Keep Coming, the Food Line Never Ends,” food expert Mark Winne’s op-ed in the Nov. 18, 2007, Washington Post. Winne answered questions in a Nov. 19 Washington Post online discussion.
• Read an Oct. 16, 2007, Catholic News Service story (posted by Catholic Online) about World Food Day; Pope Benedict XVI said that feeding the hungry was “a moral obligation.”