NEWS

The National Hunger Hotline (NHH), a service of WhyHunger's National Hunger Clearinghouse, provides real-time referrals for people in need across the US to emergency food and assistance programs. 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. 

To learn more about how restaurant workers often struggle to make ends meet and a national campaign to raise the tipped minimum wage from $2.13 an hour, see Restaurant Opportunities Center, and the new book by Saru Jayaraman, Behind the Kitchen Door.

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.

We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2013 Harry Chapin Self-Reliance Awards! Since 1985, the Awards have recognized and championed innovative community-based organizations working to fight hunger and poverty around the country. This year's strong pool of over 110 applicants made it a tough decision-and is an inspiring sign of all the action and change that's happening in communities across the US.

This year's winners are:

• Adelante Mujeres, Forest Grove, OR
• La Mujer Obrera, El Paso, TX
• Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, Chicago, IL
• Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, Bloomington, IN
• SEEDS, Durham, NC

To learn more, check out the Connect blog.

At the January Food Bank for New York City annual agency conference, we learned about an interesting collaboration with the Toyota Production System Support Center (TSSC). The mission of TSSC is to contribute to society by sharing Toyota Production System (TPS) knowledge with public institutions and improving the general level of the manufacturing industry in North America.

So what can a car manufacturer teach food pantries and soup kitchens? Using principles such as kaizen, or continuous improvement, the TSSC team timed wait times and created maps to visually represent the layouts at different agencies. They then tested different approaches to deal with slow points in the flow of traffic. The results were impressive: at one soup kitchen, the wait time was reduced from an hour and a half to 18 minutes. Simple changes such as filling open seats as they were available, having a volunteer point out available seats and eliminating a final checkout, created a big difference all together. The best and most effective ideas were then implemented.

Sometimes, we can't see the forest for the trees, as the saying goes. Tapping into interesting partnerships can remind us to try new things and can create real improvements for guests.

On December 13, The Stop's Learning Network hosted a conversation between Nick Saul and WhyHunger board member Jan Poppendieck on charity versus solidarity and issues facing the food movement. Now available on SoundCloud and the Learning Network website, the hour-long chat was an informative and inspiring look at the history of food charity, the way issues of hunger and poverty have been framed and reframed over the decades and the way those framings have impacted our responses to a crisis that continues to grow. Some of Jan's papers, including the introduction to Sweet Charity, are available under the 'Downloads' tab on the right-hand side of the page, along with a document with links to articles and ideas discussed during the webinar. The Learning Network site is entirely free but you'll have to create a user profile to access the content if you're not already a member.

You can also watch a video excerpt featuring Jan on the three sources of hope she sees in the food movement on Vimeo.

 Best Practices in Gardening and Mental Health

If you look at the research in environmental psychology, it shows that gardening helps people recover from stress and it can help people focus less on their problems. Evidence has shown that gardening makes people feel more optimistic, gives them a regular routine, a sense of purpose and achievement. - Aimee Taylor, Vancouver-based horticulture therapist

In December, Community Food Centres Canada filmed the Best Practices Session at the Gardening and Mental Health Knowledge Swap hosted by the Central Toronto Community Health Centre. The session consisted of five presenters from a variety of organizations offering different flavors of gardening and mental health programs. Each speaker gave an overview of their program and shared challenges they're facing and some lessons learned. The videos of the five speakers, along with other resources on mental health and gardening are available on the Learning Network website. Again, you will need to create a user profile to access the content, but it is entirely free.

USDA Farm to School Grants

The Clearinghouse newsletter is meant, among other things, to encourage conversation and dialogue about transforming communities, community food security and the emergency food system. We see critical thinking, lively debate and reflective practice as a necessary part of systems change. We want to hear from you! Email us at nhc@whyhunger.org.

Connect Blog Mailing List

One of WhyHunger's resolutions for 2013 is to share more stories, interviews, photos and videos by, for and about grassroots leaders in the food security movement through our Connect blog. We regularly feature posts from Connect in the Clearinghouse Connection, and you often tell us that those are your favorite features - so we're pleased to announce that it's now easier than ever to keep up with all the news and stories from the field!

Join our new Connect blog mailing list today and you'll receive a weekly email with a recap of all the exciting posts you may have missed. Click here to sign up!

Each week, you'll get stories like this delivered to your inbox in one inspiring e-mail...

Across the country, grantees of the USDA Community Food Project Competitive Grant Program (CFP) are doing some of the most innovative and collaborative projects to change local and regional food systems. WhyHunger's  Food Security Learning Center - also funded by a CFP grant - has recently begun to profile these organizations through dynamic stories and pictures, to give a real flavor of what the projects look like and how they're accomplishing their goals. We'll be sharing these profiles on the blog in the coming months - and you can check out more anytime on the Community Food Projects database.

We'll start with Adelante Mujeres, just announced as a 2013 Harry Chapin Self-Reliance Award winner! Adelante Mujeres received a CFP grant in 2010 for an initiative called "Increasing Market Access." The project is based on assessing the needs of low-income Latino farmers in Washington County, OR, and the intersection of larger local and regional food security issues. As new markets for locally-produced food continue to grow, evident in the expansion of online marketplaces, farm to school programs, and the growing popularity of farmers markets and U- pick farms, there are a wide array of opportunities for small-scale producers to contribute to the local food system. To keep reading, visit the Connect blog.

Click here to sign up! We hope you will join the conversation! The link will lead you through a simple two-step process to change your preferences for WhyHunger mailings. Once you've entered your email and clicked on the link that appears in your inbox, check "Connect blog" to sign up.

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