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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.

Robert, a 60-year old man from rural Washington, called the National Hunger Hotline on a Friday afternoon. "This is really difficult; I've never asked for help before, but things have gotten really bad here. I have no idea where to turn," he told the Hotline advocate. Robert and his wife had been surviving on less than $1000 per month, most of which came from his disability check. To make ends meet, they resorted to eating dog food - and had just finished their last can. The Hotline advocate provided Robert with the phone number and address for his local food stamp office, in addition to numbers for several food pantries located in his area.

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.    

Cooking Up Community Webinar  

What people are saying about Cooking Up Community...

"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."

"I read it from cover to cover. It made me think more about having resources available in other languages and the importance of evaluation for our program."

In July, WhyHunger released a comprehensive 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.

In partnership with USDA FNS, WhyHunger will host a free webinar on Thursday, August 20, 2012 from 2:00-3:00pm EST to discuss the Cooking Up Community guide and answer questions from the audience. Joy Casnovsky, Sustainable Food Center/La Cocina Alegre and Lynn Fredericks of FamilyCook Productions will join us in the conversation.

To register, go to http://vovici.com/wsb.dll/s/17fb9g4de99 .

"When a community comes together to discuss how it can build a healthier, more sustainable food system, amazing things happen." That is the impetus behind Community FEAST (Food, Education, Agriculture Solutions Together), a community food organizing process created by the Oregon Food Bank (OFB). Through the FEAST process, participants engage in a facilitated and informed discussion around food, agriculture and education in their community and work towards solutions that build a healthier, more equitable and more resilient local food system.

Community FEAST offers an array of community organizing methods and approaches to guide community stakeholders to work on local food system planning and improvement. Facilitated by an OFB-trained FEAST facilitator, Community FEASTs are typically 4-6 hour events that provide an overview of the local food environment, an introduction to community food organizing, identification of local food system priorities and the creation of a community foods organizing plan. This fall, the Oregon Food Bank will also offer a train-the-facilitator curriculum for people interested in facilitating Community FEASTs in their local region.

Since its inception in 2009, Community FEAST has helped sprout the creation or expansion of partnerships and programs across the state. Some of these initiatives include new Farm to School partnerships, the creation or expansion of farmers markets, new and innovative partnerships between food donors and emergency food providers and the creation of a new non-profit in Northwest Oregon and the Washington Peninsula that supports the local food system.

To learn more or read the FEAST program evaluation or planning manual, go to: http://oregonfoodbank.org/Our-Work/Building-Food-Security/Community-Programs/FEAST.

Education is an essential component of local foods access. To help people better understand how to incorporate fresh fruits and vegetables into their diet, Salvation Farms, in partnership with Sterling College and the Vermont Food Bank, has created  Vermont Fresh: A Fruit and Vegetable Handbook. The Handbook provides readers with background, growing tips, storage tips, preparation information, nutritional benefits, and recipes for 40 different fruits and vegetables.

Though Vermont Fresh focuses on crops produced in the Northeast region, the majority of the featured crops are produced or available throughout the country. The authors address why eating fresh foods is important, how this document came to be, what crops are available when and what other resources are available for those with limited access to fresh regionally produced foods. To download a copy, click here.

Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization behind Sesame Street, was recently profiled in Cooking Up Community: Nutrition Education in Emergency Food Programs. As part of their mission to use the educational power of media to help children everywhere achieve their highest potential, Sesame Workshop has created a number of educational tool kits for child care providers and parents/adult caregivers. Cooking Up Community featured Food for Thought: Healthy Eating on a Budget and Healthy Habits for Life, but over a dozen tool kits on additional topics are available, such as Healthy Teeth, Healthy Me and Families Stand Together: Feeling Secure in Tough Times. These free, downloadable resources are available in both Spanish and English on the Sesame Workshop website.

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