Childhood Hunger

Latest News on August 2009

August 31
Cooking course offers ingredients for cheap & healthy food

Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline helps area residents.

Star-Telegram
Alex Branch
August 27, 2009

FORT WORTH, TEXAS — It sounded like a busy restaurant, with the clacking of knives on cutting boards, sizzling skillets and clanging cooking sheets.

The aromas wafting from the kitchen suggested a fancy meal.

But these cooks used nothing but common and cheap ingredients to create tasty concoctions.

“We’re doing a nice vegetable medley with cilantro over brown rice,” said Shirley Gardner, a resident at the Amelia Parc Senior Apartments in Fort Worth. “Nothing too complicated, but it should taste good.”

Gardner and about a dozen other apartment residents were cooking Tuesday as part of the Tarrant Area Food Bank’s Operation Frontline, a program for people with hardships and fixed or low incomes. The program teaches adults, teenagers and children how to prepare healthy meals with affordable ingredients.

And at a time when family budgets have tightened, the classes are soaring in popularity. The demand has led the food bank to expand the program with extra classes next month.

Relying on volunteer nutritionists, dietitians and professional chefs, the six-class course teaches everything from baking to kitchen knife skills to food budgeting.

“When money is tight, fast food can feel like the most convenient way to eat,” said Annamarie Saavedra, Operation Frontline coordinator. “We’re showing people that it is possible to eat healthy without spending a lot of money.”

[continued at star-telegram.com]

HOW YOU CAN HELP

August 21
Good Food Gardens on MSNBC

NBC Nightly News showcased Good Food Gardens bringing fresh produce to a Miami food desert.

This segment on Share Our Strength’s Good Food Garden in Miami aired on Thursday, August 20, 2009, on NBC Nightly News.

Posted by Eric Herboso.

August 18
Small boy shows big heart with charity aimed at ending hunger

Joshua Williams may be small, but he hopes to make a big impact with his nonprofit organization aimed at ending hunger.

Miami Herald
5-Minute Herald
Andrea Robinson
August 17, 2009

MIAMI, FLORIDA — The day Joshua Williams saw a disheveled guy clutching a sign that read “Help Me,” he found his mission in life: ending hunger.

Curious, he asked his reluctant mom to stop the car so he could donate $20 to the man in the street, money intended for a church offering.

“It’s my money. I want to help him, mom,” said Joshua, then still in a booster car seat.

Three years later, at the ripe-old-age of 8, Joshua Christopher Williams is president of Joshua’s Heart, a foundation that tackles an issue daunting to most adults. At least once every two months you can find Josh and his staff — mom, grandma, aunts and other volunteers — feeding homeless and low-income families somewhere in Miami-Dade County.

“He just made up his mind that this is what he wanted to do,” said his mom, Claudia McLean. “And there is no stopping him.”

In the two years since he created his nonprofit organization, the Miami Beach boy has collected thousands of dollars in donations and led a growing band of adults to feed thousands of people throughout North and Central Miami-Dade: Liberty City, North Miami, Miami Gardens, Little Haiti and Hialeah. He has used money from the organization to help renovate a teen center in Hallandale Beach, lobbied local governments for financial help, set up shop at community festivals and won several awards — including Miami-Dade County’s Do the Right Thing award and a $1,000 scholarship prize as one of the regional winners of Kohl’s Kids Who Care annual competition.

“He is a blessing from God,” said Earl Laird, who came to get food during a recent Joshua’s Heart distribution at the Church of God of Prophecy in Miami Gardens. Laird said he receives disability checks and depends on the food to help him get through tough times.

“It’s amazing that such a little boy can do something like this,” he said.

On a recent Friday, the curly-haired boy donned white latex gloves — big enough for another set of hands to fit inside — and took his place in front of a tower of canned pasta in the church’s meeting room.

He grabbed a can of spaghetti and meat sauce and waited for his first client.

VERY GRATEFUL

“Would you like a can?” he asked in his high-pitched, little-boy’s voice.

“Thank you,” said a woman carrying a large box filled with canned vegetables, crackers and soup.

“When they say thank you, I know they appreciate it,” said Joshua, a rising fourth-grader at Fisher Island Day School.

Soon after Joshua had his streetside epiphany at the age of 5, he and his mother began to brainstorm — and realized they needed help to get an organization off the ground.

McLean called Francine Hanna, a Miramar businesswoman, to help them incorporate Joshua’s fledgling foundation.

The day she arrived at the Miami Beach home, Hanna expected to meet a teenager.

“This 5-year-old comes in the room,” she said. “I was shocked. He was so articulate.”

Joshua is registered as the organization’s president. His mother is vice president and Lisia McLean, his aunt, is treasurer.

Joshua dreams of taking his charitable enterprise beyond Miami-Dade.

“I want to get a team together. I want my team to go out and give food to people who have a need for food. I want to stretch it all the way to countries in Africa.”

Joshua’s Heart has taken off, largely by the efforts of his mother. McLean, a single mother, works as the director of operations in her family’s home-healthcare business, First Care Home Services, Inc.

She finds minutes during lunch breaks and weekends to call potential donors. After he goes to bed, she sends out e-mails asking people to help.

Boxes of donated clothes, furniture and food are piled high in a North Miami Beach warehouse that they rent.

McLean chauffeurs Joshua to meetings — but he makes the sales pitch.

Late last year, Joshua lobbied city governments to get involved in his organization.

He spoke at North Miami and North Miami Beach council meetings, appealing to both cities to get involved.

OLD SOUL

With his legs barely long enough to reach the floor, he sat among adults clad in suits, swinging his flip-flops back-and-forth, waiting for his turn to speak at a North Miami meeting.

“I want to help all poor children and adults,” he said, taking the microphone.

McLean said despite her son’s adult-sized ambitions, she insists that he take time for “little kid things as well.”

She often has to pull him away from doing his charitable work to play some soccer or golf. Playing Game Boy, however, he does without is mother’s insistance.

“He has been called an ‘old soul,’ ” McLean said. “But to me he’s my little boy.”

HOW YOU CAN HELP

August 14
Whole Foods Ann Cooper Hope to Reform School Cafeterias

Whole Foods is partnering with Ann Cooper, who helped reform the school food program in Berkeley, to help other schools improve what they serve to the 30 million children who eat school lunches in the U.S.

LA Times
Mary MacVean
August 13, 2009

By launching the project just before millions of children return to school, Whole Foods hopes to capture the attention of families — as well as of Congress, which is slated to consider school food and other nutrition programs when it works on reauthorizing the Child Nutrition Act.

“The time is right to say, ‘Hey, there is something you can do … right here and right now,” Walter Robb, co-president of Whole Foods Market, said in a telephone interview. Robb says that food should be part of the health reform conversation, not just obesity and its related diseases, such as diabetes.

“This is the social justice issue of our time, and schools have no money to help solve the problem,” Cooper says in a statement. But while school district officials often say they are hampered by funding restrictions and regulations about the foods they offer, Robb says, “It’s true and it’s also not good enough in some ways.”

A website, thelunchbox.org, will include recipes for schools, reference information about food safety and how to get healthy food, information for parents, and community activism information. It should be available at the end of the week, a Whole Foods spokeswoman says. In a recent Wall Street Journal story, Whole Foods’ chief executive, John Mackey, talked about a renewed focus on healthy food in the stores — moving it away from its image as a destination for high-end treats. Robb called the school lunch project “the next step in part of a renewed focus in supporting healthy eating in the world.” He and Cooper are going to Washington to try to persuade lawmakers to improve the federal school breakfast and lunch programs in the Child Nutrition Act.

Cooper, nicknamed the “Renegade Lunch Lady,” has worked to reform the school meals program in Berkeley, and now is working in schools in Boulder, Colo. She is the author of “Lunch Lessons: Changing the Way We Feed Our Children.” Robb says Whole Foods, which is based in Austin, Texas, “is dropping out of the arms race” of supermarkets and returning to its roots. The company also is developing a slate of healthy cooking classes for its stores and focusing on affordable items.

F3: Food Family Farming Foundation, founded by Cooper, is developing the website, including recipe development and testing, with donations from Whole Foods ($50,000 in 2009) and from shoppers at checkouts.

August 13
Josh Wachs on National Anti-Hunger Organizations

Josh Wachs explains NAHO’s A Roadmap to Ending Childhood Hunger in America at the USDA.

This past July, Share Our Strength’s Chief Strategy Officer Josh Wachs presented the National Anti-Hunger Organizations’ Roadmap to Ending Childhood Hunger in America at the SNAP meeting for the USDA.

Share Our Strength plays a central role in NAHO’s structure, but the ideas presented here are agreed upon by all members of NAHO. This is the best method of accomplishing our goal of ending childhood hunger by 2015.

Please note that the below video presentation is policy-oriented, and so is not “jazzed up” for public consumption like some of our other videos.


Posted by Eric Herboso.

August 10
Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?

Sitting, sleeping, lying down, and loitering are all crimes in many cities.

Yesterday, Barbara Ehrenreich published “Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?”, an article about the growing trend of cities to pass ordinances designed to criminalize the poor.

This kind of thing first really gained traction in the ’80s and ’90s when gentrification first took hold. But a new study from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty found that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006 — things like sleeping, lying down, or even just sitting.

Food Not BombsThis is all bad enough, but it gets even worse. Food Not Bombs, a group that hands out free vegan food to hungry people in public parks around the nation, is regularly harassed by law enforcement. It is (apparently) against the law to share food with the indigent in public places in many cities in the United States. And no, I’m not kidding.

I cannot believe that this kind of thing happens, yet it does. It’s just absolutely appalling.

Please take a look at Barbara Ehrenreich’s New York Times article and decide for yourself.

Posted by Eric Herboso.

August 10
Chef in the Garden

Join us on the DC National Mall each Friday through October for the USDA’s series of cooking demonstrations “Chef in the Garden,” each Friday afternoon from 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM.

ofl usda chef in the gardenShare Our Strength’s very own Operation Frontline volunteer chefs and other chefs who support Share Our Strength, will guest teach these fun and informative classes. Learn creative ways to use the season’s garden bounty, plus helpful hints on adding nutritious fruits and veggies to your daily diet. Friday, August 7 - Rachel Smith, Operation Frontline Chef and nutritionist made a delicious ratatouille with garden produce last Friday.

Coming up:

  • Friday, September 4 - Chef Carlton Crockett and students from the International Culinary School at the At Institute of Washington, DC.
  • Friday, September 11 - Chef Dan Traster, Culinary Director for the Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show and Author of “Welcome to Cooking School: A Culinary Student Survival Guide.”
  • Friday, September 18 - Chefs Monica Thomas, Mitch Greene and Carole Warren, Operation Frontline volunteer chef instructors and members of the U.S. Personal Chef Association’s Capital Area chapter.
  • Friday, October 2 - Volunteer chef team from the Capital Area Food Bank’s Operation Frontline program (stay tuned for exact chefs)
  • Friday, October 9 - Chef Susan Ciriello and culinary students from the International Culinary School at the Art Institute of Washington, DC.

Other Photos From the Event

ofl usda chef in the garden ofl usda chef in the garden
ofl usda chef in the garden

August 7
More Youth Enjoy Free School Lunches

The stumbling economy and a continuing strain on wallets has increased the need for the program in Crawford County the past two years.

Bucyrus Telegraph Forum
Terricha Bradley
August 5, 2009

Every summer, children benefit from a local Summer Food Service Program that provides free lunches courtesy of the Ohio Department of Education and the United States Department of Agriculture.

The stumbling economy and a continuing strain on wallets has increased the need for the program in Crawford County the past two years.

In June, Bucyrus served more than 2,000 free lunches to children, said Lorie Pennington, food services director for Bucyrus City Schools.

She said it was an increase over last summer.

“Our goal is to feed hungry children. We all have the same goals,” Pennington said. “We had a high turnout at two new sites — Assembly of God and Bucyrus Public Library.”

The Summer Food Service Program runs June through August at several sites in Bucyrus and Galion.

Children 18 and younger eat free in communities where 50 percent of children are eligible for free and reduced lunches.

Because of the way the program benefits are determined, volunteers don’t have to check each child’s household income before they eat.

The government reimburses meals at National School Lunch Program rates — $3.18 for self-preparation and $3.13 for vended food service companies.

Mary Kershaw, assistant director of the summer food service program for the Ohio Department of Education, said July is the biggest month for the program.

“Attendance is a little higher this year, based on economics and food costs,” Kershaw said. “But we’ve seen a dramatic increase of sponsors and the length of time operating programs.”

Common program sponsors are school districts and private non-profit organizations.

Bucyrus City Schools and the Galion Community Center YMCA facilitate seven sites including sites at Aumiller and Lions Parks, and East Park and the Center-Y in Galion.

Bucyrus children, like 7-year-old Latasha Bays, enjoy the free lunches because it gives them energy to play and be productive.

At Bucyrus Public Library, Latasha and 20 other children ate ham and cheese sandwiches, vegetables, fruit and drank chocolate milk.

“It’s good because I just like to eat lunch,” the girl said. “I had the carrots, too.”

The Galion program averaged 60 children a day for lunches and served more than 1,000.

A $500 grant from Children’s Hunger Alliance went to materials, transportation and staffing.

Children’s Hunger Alliance is a statewide non-profit agency that is working to eradicate childhood hunger. The group collaborates with ODE to increase sponsors and sites.

Surrounding counties — like Richland, Marion and Ashland — had summer food programs this year and higher attendance rates.

The counties have an unemployment rate above 10 percent.

Marion City Schools started serving free lunches at this year’s county fair, an unprecedented move.

“Marion City is in great need. What hinders us is that we are such a rural area,” Teresa Vermillion, food services director for Elgin Local Schools, said. “Marion City served 3,000 lunches, quite a bit for such a rural area.”

Vermillion has run the program for for eight years and has established free-meal sites in Prospect and New Bloomington.

Elgin Local Schools saw a 3- to 5-percent increase in program attendance this year.

Wyandot County is the only nearby county without a summer food program.

August 6
Increase in WIC Food Options Plans to Increase Healthy Families

Monday, August 3, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) announced they will have a greater number of healthy food choices and make them more accessible for low-income families.

49 News KTKA.com (Topeka, KS)
Bethany Smith
August 4, 2009

Participants in a statewide nutrition are going to have an easier time finding healthy food choices.

Monday, August 3, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) announced they will have a greater number of healthy food choices and make them more accessible for low-income families.

The new foods are lower in fat, higher in fiber and helps families meet the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Dietary Guidelines. They include whole grain cereals, breads, buns, baby foods and fresh foot and vegetables. Eggs, milk and juice will also be accessible in quantities that meet dietary recommendations.

“These changes represent a continuing investment in our children’s health,” said Dr. Jason Eberhart-Phillips, State Health Officer and Director of Health at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), which oversees the WIC program.

The Kansas WIC program supports over 77,000 participants. It is federally-funded to help battle childhood hunger, low birth weight, under-nutrition and anemia.

This is part of a nationwide implementation and the changes will occur October 1.

August 5
Senate boosts food stamps as unemployment rises

The Senate on Tuesday passed a $124.3 billion agriculture spending bill that pays to add millions of people to the food stamp rolls as rising numbers of the jobless are forced into the program.

Money for the federal school lunch program is going up 12 percent as well, while a popular program that gives additional food aid for poor children and pregnant women received a 9 percent increase in funding.

The bill passed by a 80-17 vote.

As the nation’s unemployment rate nears 10 percent, a record 34.4 million people — or one in nine Americans — were participating in the food stamp program as of May. That’s an increase of 650,000 people from the previous month and up 6 million from the same time last year.

More than two-thirds of the measure, $86 billion, goes for domestic food programs, including $61 billion for food stamps. The legislation provides the money for the program, though the cost is set by how many eligible families participate.

The average monthly food stamp benefit for a family was $295 in April.

The bill is the fourth of the 12 annual spending bills for agencies whose budgets are set by Congress each year. There’s little hope Congress will meet the Oct. 1 deadline to complete the bills by the start of the 2010 budget year, although Senate leaders are hoping to avoid yet another “omnibus” appropriations bill that wraps all the remaining spending measures into one giant piece of legislation.

The House passed companion agriculture spending legislation last month. Tuesday’s action by the Senate sends the measure into talks between the two chambers to resolve differences.

In a surprising development, the Senate voted to add $350 million to the measure to lift milk price supports — the amount the government pays for surplus milk products — by an estimated $1.50 per hundredweight, which should inch milk prices higher.

The amendment, by Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., barely prevailed on a 60-37 vote. Sixty votes were required because the amendment broke budget rules.

Sanders said dairy farmers, especially smaller ones, are struggling badly as milk prices have plummeted by more than 40 percent below last year, well below most farmers’ production costs.

“Family-based dairy agriculture is on the verge of collapse,” Sanders said. “This is not a regional issue. This is a national issue.”

The bill also would repeal a controversial ban on poultry products from China, as long as the Agriculture Department agrees to step up inspections of those imports.

China and the United States banned imports of each others’ poultry in 2004 following an outbreak of bird flu, though China lifted its ban after a few months. The Chinese now complain that the U.S. has failed to follow through on a pledge to reopen its market.

Last month, the World Trade Organization began a formal investigation of the U.S. ban after China alleged that the U.S. was fundamentally breaking global commerce rules. The United States countered that it still was examining whether Chinese poultry was safe for human consumption.

China has called attention to the poultry ban as part of other trade disputes with the United States, and many U.S. agricultural producers have called for an end to it, saying it could affect their trade with the country.

The House version of the bill would maintain the ban on Chinese poultry as Democrats questioned its safety.

The measure also funds a variety of programs such as agricultural research, efforts to combat destructive pests, crop insurance, food inspection and land conservation programs.

And it provides for a $3 billion Food and Drug Administration budget, a 14 percent increase designed to boost staffing for food and drug safety inspections.

Most farm subsidies are funded through a separate multiyear farm bill passed by Congress last year.

The bill also provides a big, almost 40 percent increase to the Food for Peace program, which gives food aid to developing countries, increasing its budget to $1.7 billion.

Earlier Tuesday, the Senate rejected, by a 70-27 vote, another attempt by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., to support President Barack Obama’s attempts to kill wasteful or less efficient programs. McCain sought to eliminate a $24 million program that addresses flooding problems in smaller watersheds. Two-thirds of the money for the program in the bill would go to so-called earmarks requested by members of the pork-dispensing Senate Appropriations Committee.

The White House says earmarks for the program are considerably less cost-effective than other flood control programs.

The bill also finances 296 earmarks — euphemistically called congressionally directed spending — worth $221 million.

August 4
A lot of Ground to Make up

Despite the richness of its culture and the state’s natural bounty, Louisiana is not always an easy place to grow up.

EDITORIAL: A lot of Ground to Make up
The Times Picayune

There has been modest improvement in recent years, but children here are worse off than in any other state except Mississippi, according to the 2009 KIDS Count data book. The survey, which is done annually by the nonprofit Annie E. Casey Foundation, found that Louisiana has one of the nation’s highest percentages of low-birthweight babies, infant mortality and teen death.

Louisiana’s child poverty rate remained steady, but it is 27 percent, which is disturbingly high.

While there were some positive signs in the KIDS Count report — dramatically fewer teens who are out of school and out of work, for instance — the overall picture of child well-being in Louisiana was grim.

Other recent findings have documented similarly troubling conditions.

A recent study by Feeding America found that Louisiana has the highest rate of hunger for children age 5 and younger. Eleven states had rates of 20 percent or higher, but Louisiana’s was the worst at almost 25 percent. The not-for-profit advocacy group based its findings on 2005-07 data from the U.S. Census and the Agriculture Department. The loss of $4.5 million in state funding for food pantries for the upcoming budget year complicates the issue. That is a 90 percent reduction, leaving only $500,000 to be shared by Second Harvest and other food banks statewide. More than a dozen New Orleans chefs donated their time Sunday to a fund-raiser by Share Our Strength at Redfish Grill. The proceeds will go to local hunger relief efforts by Second Harvest, marketumbrella.org and Bread for the World.

Still, it is going to be difficult to make up for the loss of $4.5 million — especially when the economic downturn and the strain of hurricane recovery are weighing on so many families in South Louisiana.

Hurricane Katrina also left more people in this region homeless or in subpar temporary housing. That’s reflected in a March report from the National Center for Family Homelessness that ranked Louisiana among the worst in the nation for child homelessness.

The study acknowledged that Katrina somewhat inflated our state figures and said that other states had a higher risk of child homelessness. Still, the high rate of poverty here adds to the risk.

All these indicators ought to be a call to action for public officials and individuals alike. At the state level lawmakers and the Jindal administration need to keep pressure on public schools to improve — and keep standards high. The state also needs to work with local agencies to get Road Home property back into commerce. And federal officials must ensure the redevelopment of New Orleans’ Big Four housing complexes is completed promptly and that housing vouchers are handed out in an efficient and timely manner. The ultimate goal is for fewer families to need crisis services. But that will require a more vibrant business climate, top-notch public schools, affordable health care and safer neighborhoods.

Louisiana has a long way to go on those fronts — but we must keep pushing.

August 3
Food Stamp Stimulus Felt Coast-to-Coast

Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill have begun talking about the idea of a second stimulus package to boost the economy. Meanwhile, the effects of the first one are being felt in places you might not expect.

CBS News
Terrell Brown
August 2, 2009

CBS News correspondent Terrell Brown reports on one ripple effect stretching from coast to coast.

John Sweredoski is seeing the green shoots of economic recovery on his own farm in southern California

“I’m hiring people. I’ve never sold so many vegetables in my life,” said Sweredoski, co-owner of Takahashi-Sweredoski Farms.

Sweredoski is reaping the early benefits of President Obama’s economic stimulus program which gives poor families additional food stamp money to spend each month.

One Los Angeles market has had an 88 percent increase in food stamp purchases and that has given Sweredoski more money to spend on expansion.

“I recently bought a new John Deere tractor,” he said, a purchase that hopefully added - or at least saved - American jobs in another part of the country.

Starting in April, a family of four on food stamps received an extra $80 a month - from $525 to $606.

The Department of Agriculture estimates that every $5 of food stamp spending results in $9.20 worth of economic activity.

That’s why the food stamp boost is also helping this in New York City, where one supermarket manager says his sales are up 10 percent since the stimulus program started.

“We’re actually thinking of hiring more people,” said Jose Almonte, the manager of an Associated Supermarket.

“Food stamps have the biggest bang for the buck of any kind of stimulus,” said Moodys.com economist Mark Zandi.

That’s because food stamps put money into the hands of people who will spend it quickly.

It’s estimated that a $1 increase in food stamps creates $1.73 in stimulus. Infrastructure, another high-impact stimulus creates $1.59 for every dollar spent. Compare that to tax cuts which generate only $1.03 for every dollar returned to taxpayers

The food stamp stimulus, while powerful, is temporary. But it’s a spark that can ignite business - and put more food on the table during difficult times.