Dispatches from the San Francisco Bay Area
"The evidence is overwhelming," said Alameda County Community Food Bank executive director Suzan Bateson. "We’ve crossed the threshold that separates hard times from a hunger epidemic."
"To search for solutions to hunger means to act within the principle that the status of a citizen surpasses that of a mere consumer."
CITY OF BELO HORIZONTE, BRAZIL
Synchronicity! Our fourth Feeding America blogathon not only coincides with National Hunger Awareness Month, it also just so happens to begin on the biggest one-day food drive in the nation.
Today marks the 17th annual National Association of Letter Carriers’ (NALC) Food Drive. Here in the Bay Area, 7,500 letter carriers in seven counties hope to gather 775,000 pounds of food, enough for 600,000 meals.
Swallow and digest these stats ...
A 54% increase in calls to the food hotline at Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties since the beginning of 2009...A doubling of business at the Alameda County Food Bank in two years...At eastern Contra Costa County USDA distribution sites an 81 percent more food distributed the same month a year earlier. ...A 22% surge in demand in Sonoma County’s Redwood Empire Food Bank since January ...A 75% drop in manufacturer's donations of cereal at the San Francisco Food Bank. one of its staple food items
"We’re in urgent need of the incredible support we receive from the NALC drive this year more than ever," said Larry Sly, executive editor of the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano. "We’ve never seen demand on this level."
Summer in the City: Feeding Bay Area Kids
Alameda Food Bank's Executive Director Bateson says one of the issues affecting childhood hunger in the Bay Area is that many families which traditionally supported their children on two working salaries are now struggling to get by on one or none.
"The statistics are off the charts," she says. "In March, the first or second lowest month for demand, normally, the record for the worst previous year were shattered by 21 percent. Thirty-five percent of the calls were from people who never used a food bank before—the freshly-minted hungry. Some had personal situations that had gone from great to zero."
Snap To It: Get Involved
Feeding America's Magic Lunchbox Drive
Donate Magic Summer Lunchbox.
Across the Bay in San Francisco, over 100 sites around the city will be providing free and healthy lunches and snacks snacks to kids 18 years and younger, regardless of income. The program, which begins June 22 and extends through August 14, is sponsored by San Francisco Department of Children, Youth & Their Families. Check out the site for locations and guidelines for companies, organizations and individuals interesting in participating.
Also in San Franciso, Food Runners, which currently delivers over 10 tons of food each week to agencies in San Francisco, is looking for volunteers to contribute just one hour a week. Using trucks donated by UPS and volunteer's cars, Food Runners picks up excess perishable and prepared food from restaurants, caterers, bakeries, hospitals, event planners, corporate cafeterias, and hotels and delivers it directly to shelters and neighborhood programs. Check out their monthly newsletter for tips on making a difference in your neighborhood.
NPR showcased Food Runners in December - For the Hungry, A New Kind of Takeout
"There is enough food produced in this country to feed everybody. It's a matter of redistributing it," says Foodruners founder Mary Risley. Risley started the organization 20 years ago as a way to distribute wedding cakes created by students at her Tante Marie Cooking School.
"We had a wedding cake workshop, and I had seven wedding cakes inside my little Alfa Romeo," says Risley, "and I drove down to Glide Memorial Church to donate them, and I had butter cream all over my car."
Now more than ever, Glide Memorial Church needs individuals to help with serving meals and handing out food to city residents.
Glide served 804,355 meals in 2008, a 19% increase over a one year period and the most meals served since 2001. From their Spring 09 newsletter:
"Even as the lines for meals snake around the block and even as more and more of the working poor become homeless, we feel that sense of
hope and possibility and realize we must take responsibility for change
and renewal.
Whenever we come together, we can feed the hungry no matter how
many hundreds or thousands more individuals and families come to us
because of an ailing economy.
Highlighting Glide's fundraising efforts is an ebay auction of a power lunch with Warren Buffet.
Bravo, Bay Area!
San Francisco's annual Share Our Strength/Taste of the Nation haute cuisine benefit for children last month brought together la creme de la creme of the city's chefs and bartenders: organizers say the event was a stellar success. SOS/TOTN, a national campaign to end childhood hunger in America, conducts culinary benefits in cities throughout the country. Check out the dates and locations of events this summer and read about their traveling culinary shows, nutritional classes and ideas for community bake sales.
The Supermarket Street Sweep, an annual bike race benefiting the San Francisco Food Bank, this past December collected 5,266 lbs of food from supermarkets around the city. Over 150 bikers participated in the event, purchasing and loading their bikes with food and vying for first place, awarded to the biker who hauled in the most food from five grocery stores.
Food for Thought
How do you turn your lawn into lunch, glean, boost food security, swap preserves and still live the good life? Check out "8 Ways to Join the Local Food Movement" in YES Magazine's Spring 2009: Food For Everyone issue.
The same issue features Frances Moore Lappé's article on Belo Horizonte, Brazil The City that Ended Hunger where the local government recruited local farmers to "help do something U.S. cities have yet to do: end hunger."
With a population of 2.5 million, over 11 percent of Belo's population (and 20 percent of its children) lived in dire poverty until 1993 when a new admistration declared food "a right of citizenship."
The new mayor, Patrus Ananias—now leader of the federal anti-hunger effort—began by creating a city agency, which included assembling a 20-member council of citizen, labor, business, and church representatives to advise in the design and implementation of a new food system. The city already involved regular citizens directly in allocating municipal resources—the "participatory budgeting" that started in the 1970s and has since spread across Brazil. During the first six years of Belo’s food-as-a-right policy, perhaps in response to the new emphasis on food security, the number of citizens engaging in the city’s participatory budgeting process doubled to more than 31,000.
Other food security initiatives include a focus on numerous school and community gardens, restaurants where nutritious locally grown meals cost around 50 cents, and nutrition classes. Additionally, the federal government now buys food from local growers as opposed to processed, corporate food.
"We’re fighting the concept that the state is a terrible, incompetent administrator," Adriana explained.
Magic Lunchboxes
In conclusion, please join us in contributing to the Magic Lunch Box Program at Feeding America. As a result of economies of scale and the generosity of their corporate sponsors, Feeding America will provide $15 worth of food to Food Banks and to the Magic Lunchbox program for every dollar donated.
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 . . . .
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.
Donate Magic Summer Lunchbox.
Or, if you would like to mail a check, send it to:
Feeding America
Philanthropic Programs
35 East Wacker Drive, Suite 2000
Chicago, IL 60601
Other ways to donate
Check out the previous three installments of the Feeding America series.
Update: The 4th diary in our series is up. Please add comments and contributions there and rec up.
Participating Diarists this weekend (all times Eastern):
Saturday (10 am EST): noweasels
Saturday (1 pm EST): TheFatLadySings
Saturday (4 pm EST): boatsie
Saturday (7 pm EST): Patriot Daily News Digest
Saturday (10 pm EST): Hardhat Democrat
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