Unappealing the layers of our hunger problem

Published May 29, 2016

by Clyde Fitzgerald, Second Harvest Food Bank of NW N.C., published in Greensboro News-Record, May 29, 2016.

Last year, Greensboro-High Point was ranked first in the nation for food insecurity.

This ominous ranking was reported by the Food Research Action Center, or FRAC, and served, unfortunately, to confirm similar findings from a number of respected studies.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated 24 census tracts in Guilford County as “food deserts” — 17 in Greensboro and seven in High Point. The very latest data from Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization of which Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC is a part, confirms that food insecurity exists in every county in America.

Map the Meal Gap 2016 documents that, while food insecurity rates have decreased since 2011, the prevalence of the problem remains historically high and has not yet returned to pre-Great Recession levels. Empirical evidence suggests that the recovery has not yet reached those in need; anecdotal evidence suggests that a parent struggling to put food on the table has much greater priorities than the Dow Jones average.

Results of Feeding America’s annual Map the Meal Gap study document that over the last several years about 19 percent of Guilford County residents were food insecure, and more than one in every four children had limited or uncertain access to enough food to support a healthy life. In short, whether the area is first or 100th in food insecurity, it is unacceptable.

Hunger in our area might not look like what you would expect. Unlike the vivid images of famine in Third World countries, where one’s body wears the tell-tale signs of starvation, hunger in America plays out more subtly and privately. It plays out quietly in classrooms, as undernourished children try to keep up with their lessons; it plays out unobtrusively on city buses, as mothers travel across town to reach a grocery store with adequate, affordable produce; it plays out in hushed conversations between parents, as they stretch stagnant paychecks to cover the rent, the light bill, fixing the car and — finally, and all too frequently last — food.

Quality vs. quantity

Importantly, while food insecurity in America has to do with quantity, it has even more to do with quality. Food is expensive; healthy food is even more so. Families on tight budgets or who are piecing together dwindling federal nutrition program assistance to purchase groceries are filling their carts with calories, not nutrients. This may partially have to do with a lack of knowledge or choice, or it may have everything to do with a parent trying to make his or her children’s bellies feel full in the immediate, regardless of future effects. Eighty-four percent of adults served by Second Harvest say they purchase the cheapest food they can to get quantity, even when they know this is not the healthiest option for their families. As a result, obesity and food insecurity have a direct correlation in America, meaning that if you are looking for signs of famine as evidence of an epidemic, you will not find it here.

Hunger in America may not always be a bare refrigerator, but instead a gnawing worry about where one’s next meal will come from. During a tenuous economic recovery, too many Americans continue to live one half-step away from economic disaster. Susan Cox, program director at our partner agency One Step Further near downtown Greensboro, recounts the story of a family who are newcomers to their pantry. The parents, she explains, were both employed. “They lived nicely, and within their means. They could care for their children. One awful day, (the mother) was rushed to the ER. As she lay in the hospital, her husband was involved in a horrible traffic accident on the way to her side. They are now both disabled … yet they still have four children to care for. Are they food insecure? Absolutely. Would they go hungry without the grocery assistance they receive from our program? Absolutely! Are there resources available to them? Yes, and they utilize those resources to provide enough food for their family.”

The truth is, people from all walks of life rely on the 93 Guilford County grocery and meal programs working with Second Harvest Food Bank. Second Harvest has been serving Guilford and 17 other counties for more than three decades. In the four-quarter period ending in March 2016, we distributed 5.4 million pounds of food to Guilford County (the equivalent of 4.5 million meals). These meals went to seniors, children, families, single parents, refugees, veterans, people experiencing homelessness, people who had been laid off and to people who were struggling with other issues including mental health or substance abuse. There are as many stories as there are people who need the security of a meal. Peter Martinek-Jenne, a third-grade teacher in Guilford County Schools, tells us, “I have one student, in particular, that has come to me privately and asked if he can take some of the extra food home for his brothers and sisters.” Studies and statistics aside, from classrooms to hospitals to homes, hunger in Guilford County is real.

Food and hope

The mission of Second Harvest is to provide food and hope to the many who, unfortunately, have too little of both. Second Harvest’s network of partner agencies is a cornerstone for many communities, but we can’t be content with solely “feeding the line.” Hunger is not an isolated problem but is a symptom of the much larger issue of poverty. Because housing costs are consuming disproportionate amounts of Guilford County residents’ incomes, we know that their food budgets are compromised. Food security is inextricably entwined with other critical issues facing our communities, including adequate housing, health care and income. Stability across all of these areas is needed to ensure vibrant, resilient and thriving communities. As a caring community, we need to help individuals improve their lives so that they don’t need help with basic needs and they can have the dignity of self-sufficiency. To “shorten the line” we must initiate and strengthen innovative collaborations that address poverty.

Significantly, to generate meaningful progress our community must put people with lived experience at the center of our collaborations. We must do the humble work of listening: What difficult choices are families in Guilford County having to make? What in our programs is working for them and what can we change? What must we know about their communities, their cultures, their schools and their families to not only feed them, but help to create real, sustainable change? We know that these issues are deep, interwoven, difficult and complex. We welcome that challenge.

The concept of tackling poverty — the root cause of hunger — is not only daunting, it can easily become overwhelming. We need locally appropriate approaches that are effective and understandable. There are no quick fixes.

In my work, I’ve seen many struggling with the effects of poverty. None relish the fact that they can’t feed their children. None like having their home foreclosed or losing their apartment because they couldn’t pay the rent. None want to have to choose between putting gas in their car and obtaining the medicine that they or a child so desperately needs. Second Harvest Food Bank and many fine organizations are committed to addressing the multi-faceted problem of poverty in the communities we collectively serve.

Greensboro and High Point have responded with astute compassion to the area’s troublesome ranking as America’s “hungriest” cities. The reality of this label has been acknowledged and, importantly, it has provided the motivation for the community to unite in a commitment to significantly enhance the innovative, thoughtful and compassionate work that is already being done.

Valuable partners

Our partners at Backpack Beginnings have figured out innovative ways to send home nutritious food that the smallest of children can prepare themselves, knowing that many parents work long or irregular hours. Our partners at Greensboro Urban Ministry provide an enormous array of interrelated services, so that someone eating at Potter’s House can also receive case management or other supportive services. Out of the Garden maps food deserts and operates Fresh Mobile Markets to get healthy food to areas that need it most. One Step Further offers finance, job-readiness and budgeting classes in addition to its food distribution.

We at Second Harvest are called to action by the human need that is clearly evident in the communities we serve. The sobering data from FRAC, Map the Meal Gap, the USDA and others validates and quantifies the need for food assistance that we see every day. Those we serve are far more than statistics — they are neighbors in need. Our food bank, working with our network of partner programs, is committed to helping people today so they won’t need help tomorrow. We have learned from our collaborative efforts in Forsyth County (made possible through a Feeding America grant aptly named Collaborating for Clients) that those who are best situated to tell us what they need are the people who need help themselves. Collaborating for Clients is not just another program of Second Harvest, it has become the way that we serve our communities.

We cannot achieve what we do not aspire to attain. We believe it is not enough to simply feed a community without also addressing the root causes of poverty. We also believe that while hunger is at such endemic levels, there must be food on the table for communities to be able to do their best work.

We invite you to become a part of this essential community dialogue. We invite you to become part of the solution to the very serious problem of food insecurity that plagues our community. Please join us as we, together, seek to assist our neighbors in need as they work to escape the bonds of poverty and become self-sustaining, as they have told us — over and over again — they want to be.