NEWS

The National Hunger Hotline (NHH), a service of WhyHunger's National Hunger Clearinghouse, provides real-time referrals for people in need across the U.S. to emergency food and assistance programs. Receiving an average of 700 calls per month, the NHH is a portal to information, assistance, and resources, ultimately empowering families and individuals to meet their vital needs including fresh, healthy food. In Stories from the Hotline, we share some of the experiences of callers and our efforts to support them.

Sara called after finding the number for the National Hunger Hotline in the phonebook. She had just filed charges against her abusive husband, who broke four of her ribs in a recent assault. Before he left, he had drained their bank account, leaving Sara with twenty dollars in cash and no source of income to support herself and her teenage daughter.

Sara had already applied for SNAP and TANF and had found a new job that started in two weeks, but was looking for help with food and other expenses until she started receiving a paycheck and benefits. The Hotline advocate directed Sara to several of the food pantries located in her northwest Texas town, and also provided her with phone numbers for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps people pay their utility bills.

The Hotline advocate also told Sara that her 16-year-old daughter would be eligible to receive free meals through the Summer Food Service Program, and that the elementary school in Sara's neighborhood was listed as a feeding site, providing both breakfast and lunch. Sara was particularly grateful to hear this, telling the hotline advocate that "this will be really good, because my daughter's already lost a lot of weight."

The National Hunger Hotline 1-866-3 HUNGRY and 1-877-8 HAMBRE (1-866-348-6479 and 1-877-842-6273) refers people in need of emergency food assistance to food pantries, government programs, and model grassroots organizations that work to improve access to healthy, nutritious food, and build self-reliance. Help is available on Monday through Friday from 9am-6pm EST. Hablamos español. The Hotline is funded in part by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service.    

Reflections on the Closing of the Community Food Security Coalition  

The announcement that the Community Food Security Coalition will cease its operations came as a surprise to many of us - especially those who have been instrumental in its founding and steadfast in supporting its development and maintenance. I share what many have described as a feeling of loss and as an anxiety about the future without CFSC. The road ahead for a food justice movement in the United States will be challenging without a membership-based organization that builds important bridges across sectors and between the grassroots and non-governmental organizations; and without an organization that annually convenes those members in a vibrant learning environment to build solidarity, give support, share challenges, strategize together and celebrate solutions - especially those emerging from low-income communities confronting structural barriers in defining their own systems and food ways. However, while I urge the CFSC board and staff to be as transparent as possible about what led to the decision to cease operations, I also want to call on my colleagues to capitalize on and perhaps redirect the energy that this state of affairs has produced.

To read the rest of this article, see the Connect blog at: http://blog.whyhunger.org/2012/08/reflections-on-the-closing-of-the-community-food-security-coalition/.

Cooking Up Community: Nutrition Education in Emergency Food Programs 

"I have a VISTA starting in a month and part of her project will be to develop a nutrition education class. This looks to be a great resource."

"A playbook of inspiration."  

Last month WhyHunger released a comprehensive, 88 page capacity building guide, Cooking Up Community: Nutrition Education in Emergency Food Programs. While geared towards emergency food providers-- broadly defined as any organization that works on access to nutritious food for low-income people-- the guide is equally useful for any organizations conducting nutrition education.

 
Organized by chapters that delve into specific components of nutrition education programming, such as cultural competence, evaluation, curriculum, and more, users can focus on the sections that pertain to their goals or read the guide in its entirety. Some organizations featured include Share Our Strength, the Sustainable Food Center's La Cocina Alegre/The Happy Kitchen, and Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County.

Cooking Up Community: Nutrition Education in Emergency Food Programs is a living document. Therefore, your thoughts and input are greatly valued. Please share this guide widely and tell us what you think by completing this brief survey about the publication.

Summer brings the highest rates of childhood hunger in the U.S. With children out of school, those who receive free school breakfast and lunch are going without, and many of them are skipping meals and eating less than during the school year. The Summer Food Service Program provides funding to serve meals and snacks to children and teens to fill that nutrition gap. Schools, local governments, National Youth Sports Programs and nonprofit organizations can operate summer feeding sites, combining an activity with a safe place to get food.

WhyHunger partners with the USDA to promote the Summer Food Service Program to ensure that more children and their families have access to free, nutritious food during the summer months. Families in need can call our National Hunger Hotline at 1-866-3 HUNGRY or text 'food' to 877-877 to be connected with a summer feeding site in their community.

Help spread the word! You can find posters and web banners here for the Hotline-- spread the word to your local schools, print out and hang the posters in libraries and other community centers. People can also call WhyHunger's National Hunger Hotline, 1-866-3 HUNGRY, or go online to www.whyhunger.org/findfood to be connected with food pantries, government nutrition programs, and other emergency food assistance this summer and throughout the year.

"Pittsburgh is the biggest small city you'll ever visit," they told me. "If it works in Pittsburgh, it'll work anywhere." And I believed them. Between the 446 bridges traversing Pittsburgh's three rivers and the numerous roadways snaking up and around the steep hills and valleys of the Allegheny Plateau, I had already made plenty of wrong turns and witnessed firsthand the topographical complexity of this Rust Belt city. Pittsburgh contains 90 distinct neighborhoods with strong identities, several of which qualify as food deserts. The Hill District, for example, has been without a proper grocery store for three decades, despite significant demand for fresh food. To purchase groceries, many Hill residents hire jitneys (unlicensed taxis) to drive them to and from the nearest Giant Eagle supermarket. Food security and food access also pose a problem in many of the outlying rural counties of Southwestern Pennsylvania, where the mountainous and heavily-forested landscape adds challenge to transportation and logistics. In 2005, the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank (GPCFB) began a mobile food pantry to address hunger and the need for fresh food in the region. Aptly named "Produce to People," the program distributes produce and other groceries on a monthly basis to at-need families at 16 sites in 7 counties.

Through a grant, the GPCFB received a refrigerated truck, which is loaded with fresh produce that is both donated to and purchased by the Food Bank. Some of the fruits and vegetables are even gleaned from local farms by volunteers. On the day of the distribution, several hundred people self-certify their eligibility and line up with crates and rolling carts to hold all of the produce-- sometimes up to 45 pounds per family-- that they will receive. The manager of Produce to People, Josh Murphy, and I met earlier this month during a WhyHunger site visit to Pittsburgh. He told me that "when you have 500 people waiting in line for food, it's also a prime opportunity for them to connect with a variety of other social services." This year, 27 different agencies and organizations have tabled at Produce to People distributions.

• promoting self-reliance by empowering people to grow their own food,
• raising awareness and appreciation for where food comes from,
• promoting interest in healthy eating and
• reviving the tradition of neighbors planting gardens and sharing the bounty as a way to support local food security. 

Several federal agencies have recently released two notable guides to inform the public about resources and funds available to community or faith-based organizations. A Guide to Resources and Funding for Community and Faith-based Organizations from the Administration for Children and Families provides basic information about finding and applying for federal funds, information about grant opportunities, and links to numerous resources and toolkits. The introduction is a particularly good starting point for organizations with little experience applying for grants or federal funds.

In collaboration with the USDA, the Partnership for Sustainable Communities-- an interagency partnership comprised of HUD, DOT, and EPA-- has published Federal Resources for Sustainable Rural Communities. This guide highlights funding and technical assistance opportunities, as well as examples of how rural communities across the country have put these programs into action. The appendix features a helpful summary matrix of programs.

Organizations can apply for the grants featured in these guides through Grants.gov, a federal website that centralizes and streamlines the process of applying for grant programs through the 26 Federal grant-making agencies. The website features a search function, support information, and an email subscription for alerts regarding grant opportunities.

As health insurance reforms mandated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) continue to go into effect, you or your clients may have questions about what changes are taking place and when. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has created Healthcare.gov, a hub for information on health care that includes:

• An explanation of key features  of the law
• An interactive timeline showing when key features of the law go into effect
• Answers to frequently asked questions 
• A tool to find insurance options that fit your needs
• Basic information to help people understand how to manage their health coverage, including those who need free or low-cost care and those who use Medicare or need long-term care, and
• Contact information for Consumer Assistance Programs, which provide residents with direct help with problems or questions about health coverage.

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