Celebrating Global Youth Service Days

1 in 8 Connecticut residents are food insecure.

Our volunteers help provide over 11.5 million meals to these hungry neighbors, and connect these same individuals and families with long-term support building a stronger community for us all.

In collaboration with Youth Service America (YSA), and in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Foodshare is celebrating the impact made by young volunteers in our community.

Take action alongside millions of other youth around the world April 21-23, during YSA’s Global Youth Service Days. Foodshare offers many volunteer opportunities, including Mobile Foodshare, Retail Pick-Up, e-Advocacy, and SNAP Outreach.

Watch the video for more information on #GYSD. 

Meet Georges Annan Kingsley

Don Shaw, Community Leader and member of Foodshare's Asylum Hill Hunger Action Team, recently shared this wonderful story about his friend Georges--a political refugee from Côte d'Ivoire:

"Georges Annan Kingsley is my friend. As a long persecuted political refugee from Côte d'Ivoire, Georges suffered chronic, stress-induced hypertension causing his kidneys to fail. After a long, courageous bureaucratic struggle to escape western Africa via Ghana, aided by the French consulate, Georges received medical refugee status in the United States. He arrived in near fatal condition. He was saved by immediate access to medical attention.

Georges Annan Kingsley with one of his art works displayed at an Asylum Hill art show

His life is interrupted three times a week with grueling dialysis sessions necessary to keep him alive. With his disability he's barely able to muster the strength to help raise his family. Because his abilities are diminished he is limited in following career pursuits and engaging in community life. He's an accomplished artist (he has a painting on display at the White House), teacher, radio host, and Asylum Hill community leader championing the acculturation of arriving refugees and immigrants into this thriving Hartford, CT neighborhood. But for long-term survival Georges needs a kidney transplant. Despite his struggles, he keeps a positive, constantly smiling attitude. George has hope."

Read the full story on Don's blog, and learn how can you help by becoming a Living Donor Champion. 

World Food Day

October 17th @ 8:30 AM – Join us for WORLD FOOD DAY 

Featuring a free breakfast and discussion about reducing food insecurity in Hartford.

To be held at The Studio, Billings Forge Community Works (539 Broad Street, Hartford)

Please email Meg Horrigan, Hartford Food System, for more information. 

We could learn a thing or two...

France has become the first country in the world to ban supermarkets from throwing away or destroying unsold food, forcing them instead to donate it to charities and food banks. Under a law passed unanimously by the French senate, large shops will no longer toss good quality food approaching its best-before date. The law follows a grassroots campaign in France by shoppers, anti-poverty campaigners and those opposed to food waste. Campaigners now hope to persuade the EU to adopt similar legislation across member states.

Source: The Guardian, 2/4/16, Food Waste

Accepting help from other countries?

The Vermont Foodbank posted a very interesting blog entry about Share Our Strength's most recent ad campaign drawing attention to hunger in America:

"How does the U.S. compare to other countries when it comes to hunger? Not just Germany (or other “social democratic” countries), but China or Slovenia? Not so well, it turns out.

Share our Strength, a national anti-hunger organization has developed some provocative ads that turn the usual thinking on its head. In this, the wealthiest nation on earth, we are often asked to help other countries that suffer from extreme poverty and social ills. What if other countries looked at the troubles we have here and wanted to help? What would that look like?"  Read more...

Food Waste is a Serious Issue

A new report shows that about 60 million metric tons of food are wasted a year in the U.S., with an estimated value of $162 billion. About half of it ends up in municipal landfills, at a cost of about $1.5 billion a year to local governments. The problem is not limited to the U.S.—1/3 of all the food produced in the world is never consumed, and the total cost of that food waste could be as high as $400 billion a year. The UN says food discarded by retailers and consumers in the most developed countries would be more than enough to feed all of the world’s 870 million hungry people.

Source: New York Times, Food Waste Costs

 

HARROWING HUNGER NUMBERS

October 16 is World Food Day. There are more hungry people in the world than the combined populations of the U.S., Canada, and the European Union. Many of those who are hungry simply don’t have access to food because of poverty, civil unrest, crumbling infrastructures, lack of food-storage facilities, and outmoded farming techniques.  

·    Hunger and hunger-related diseases kill approximately 9 million people a year, more than twice the number who die from AIDS, malaria, and TB combined.

·    A child dies from hunger every 5 seconds. Almost half these deaths — 3.1 million in 2013 — are among children under age 5 who die from causes like diarrhea, malaria, and measles, which their undernourished bodies and compromised immune systems cannot fend off.

·    805 million people are undernourished each day; worldwide, 1 person in 9 goes to bed hungry every night.

·    It costs 25 cents a day to provide a child with all of the nourishment he or she needs to grow up strong and healthy. 

Source: Huffington Post, 10/16/14, World Food Day

AMERICAN HUNGER HIGH AMONG DEVELOPED NATIONS

Researchers at Pew and Gallup have polled citizens across the developed world about whether they can afford enough food for their families. According to Gallup’s findings, Americans are far more likely to say they were unable to pay for food than citizens of other rich countries. In 2011 and 2012, 21% of U.S. citizens reported food issues, versus 8% of British survey takers, 6% of Swedes, and 5% of Germans. Estonia and Hungary had bigger problems with food affordability than the U.S., but both are relatively poor among developed nations. The U.S. fared somewhat better by comparison in Pew's polling. In its 2013 results, 24% of Americans said they had difficulty affording food during the past year, only slightly worse than France (20%), on par with Greece (24%), and a little better than South Korea (26%). 

Source: Slate, 9/4/14, U.S. Hunger

GLOBAL FOOD INSECURITY DECLINES

The world’s malnourished population has declined in the last few years, according to a recent report, compiled by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), but much work remains to be done to strengthen food security globally. According to the FAO, (1) the proportion of malnourished people fell by nearly two percentage points in the last four years and (2) living conditions have also improved in some parts of Asia and Africa — home to seven of the 10 fastest-growing economies in the world. While the new figures bring the FAO a bit closer to meeting its 2015 goal of cutting global hunger in half, the agency acknowledged that poor infrastructures and abnormally high rates of poverty in parts of world may stunt efforts to increase access to food to those who need it most. 

Source: Think Progress, 9/16/14, Food Insecurity

A Conversation for Contextualization

Community Network Builders Jim and Bea
lead the ensemble on a tour of the facility.

 The Indian Ensemble Theatre of Bengaluru (Bangalore) along with Hartbeat Ensemble Co-Artistic Director Steve Ginsburg visited our Bloomfield facility today for a tour and a conversation with our President and staff. In honor of Hunger Action Month, the ensemble's visit to Foodshare is a part of a larger residency in the U.S., for the national premiere of the play "Thook (Spit)." "Thook" is a theatrical exploration of food insecurity, international trade, and hunger.

One of the ensemble members
speaks to the room.

The visit was a unique and educational experience for all - our guests learned about food insecurity on local and national levels, and walked around what was most likely the first food bank they've seen. In our conversation we also explained the significance of some of our programs, such as the Hunger Action Teams and the Summer Food Service program.

The Foodshare staff learned about food supply and insecurity in India, where the situation is different in a number of ways. These include their governmental system for distributing food and how the socioeconomic levels are much more clearly defined than ours are. One of the more striking points made was this: since the price of housing is higher than food, there is absolutely no way that an individual could have a place to live without also having food to eat.

However, that is precisely the type of situation we deal with every day with the people we serve. An individual may have a place to live, but they are splitting hairs to find money to feed themselves and their families after all other expenses are paid. There are many ways you can help ensure that no family or individual has to make a choice between eating and paying their bills, including joining the Movement, or donating directly to Foodshare to fund programs like SNAP Outreach and Mobile Foodshare.

"Thook" will be produced at the Carriage House Theater in Hartford tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30pm, and the performance will move to the Iseman Theater in New Haven next week. For more information on "Thook" and the FEEDCT Festival going on for Hunger Action Month, please visit the Hartbeat Ensemble site page.

Foodshare staff with our visitors.

CLIMATE CHANGE THREATENS WORLD FOOD SUPPLY

Climate change threatens to delay the fight against world hunger for decades, according to a new report from Oxfam. From production to prices, the threats climate change poses to food supply are significant. Net global agricultural yields are predicted to decrease by up to 2% per decade while a rapidly rising global population is expected to increase demand for food by 14% per decade.

Oxfam estimates that global food prices could double by 2030, with a shifting climate responsible for half of that rise. And in the next 35 years, there could be 25 million more malnourished children under the age of five than there would be without climate change affecting food availability.

 

Source: Oxfam, 3/25/14, Food Supply

UConn Hunger Banquet coming up

UConn Hunger Banquet

Last night, the UCONN Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources held a Hunger Banquet to benefit Foodshare. 

"High income" folks received a full chicken
parmesan dinner.

A Hunger Banquet is an event that focuses on worldwide hunger and poverty.  It is an interactive dinner where the place you sit and the meal you eat are all determined by the luck of the draw – just as in real life some of us are born into relative prosperity and others into poverty. 

"Middle income" participants ate rice and beans.

When the UCONN students, teachers and staff members arrived, and made their donation, they picked a card that said one of three things - “Low”, “Middle” or “High”.  The low income group dined on tea and bread while sitting on the floor.  The middle income group ate rice and beans and was allowed to sit in chairs.  The high income group were seated at fancy tables and indulged in bread, salad and chicken parmesan with pasta.

"Low income" participants had tea and bread.

Event coordinator, Jillian Trottier commented:  “The Foodshare ambassador, Laura, gave a great speech that had a big impact – people were really impressed with how much Foodshare could do with these donations. Some people even came up and donated more after the event.”

The Banquet raised $291 for Foodshare.