Sock-it-to-em

Many people assume that the main thing homeless people need is food. While this is often true, some things they need that are often forgotten. One these forgotten items is socks. Last year a club I joined ran a sock drive for the homeless. We asked for new socks, preferably warm but we took any. Our goal was 1,500 pairs of socks. We exceeded that goal, reaching almost 2,000 pairs of socks. We then donated the socks to Friends of Boston Community Center, who was very thankful for the large donation. We are doing the drive again this year, and hope to get even more socks.

A sock drive is a great and easy way to help the homeless. I encourage you to start one at you school. Its easy to find places near you that want sock donations just by searing it on the internet. If you have any ideas on other drives schools can run to help the community please comment your suggestions below.

Povery and Hunger in Africa

Facts: According to a survey done by the UN in 2014, 233 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were hungry or malnourished. That's 1 in 4 people in this area, the largest prevalence of any region in the world. IN a survey done in 2012 it was found that almost half of the regions population lived on less that $1.90 a day, one reason for such large amounts of hunger. People just do not have enough income to purchase food.

What you can do: One easy way to help is to donate to organizations such as Save the Children and The Hunger Project. You could also volunteer with these organizations, but that requires a lot more commitment and dedication.

Sources: http://www.worldhunger.org/africa-hunger-and-poverty-facts/

Washington DC

As someone who has taken multiple service trips to help feed the homeless in Washington DC, I find these statistics very interesting.

 

 

 

Its nice to know that the majority of the homeless have some type of shelter, but its sad how large this number is. It's also sad to see how many unaccompanied youth and veterans are homeless. It also makes me angry that more people aren't doing anything to help change this. 

Inspiration

Food Stamps in America

15% of the population is on food stamps. The majority of these people are not homeless or living in shelters. But people who can afford to pay for their living accommodations and other bills like heat and electricity, but that takes up all of their income so they can not afford food. Eligibility for food stamps depends on an individuals or a family's gross income. "To be eligible, a household has to earn a gross income amount that’s less than 130% of the poverty level, or a net income amount (gross income minus deductions) that’s less than 100% of the poverty level for their family size." This means that a person who's gross income is less than $1265 or a family who's gross income is less than $2584 per month are both eligible for food stamps.

 

Food Stamps in America are beneficial to many people , but they often have a bad reputation. Taxpayers often accuse people who use food stamps of being lazy and living off of the government. Well this may be true in some cases, so many people use food stamps because it is their only option. The amount of people on and cost of food stamps differs in individual states, and this difference can be observed in the chart above.  





My Schools Food Drive

As parliamentarian of my schools National Honor Society I work with the other E-Board members to coordinate the years NHS run events. The past two weeks, we have been running a food drive. All the food collected goes to families in the school district, so its nice to know we are helping the community. Even though my school is in a nice area with mostly middle-class families, there are still people who struggle. To protect the confidentiality of students, only administration knows where the food is going.

Once we have collected all the food, we will sort the food into groups such as vegetables, fruit, soup, etc.. then make boxes with equal amounts of food from each category, for each of the families. A food drive of this size requires a lot of help from the entire NHS, but everyone is willing to help.

I encourage you to start a food drive in your school or community. You'd be surprised how many people around you actually struggle to get food everyday. It's a great feeling knowing I'm helping families in my community.

Inspiration

Is Hunger Really Connected to Homelessness?

A common misconception is that the majority of food insecure people are also homeless. This, is false. Yes, the majority of homeless people are also suffer from food-insecurity, but not vice versa. A lot of times, a family can afford to pay rent, but that takes up all of their income so they cant afford food. Or for some reason someone might not have access to food or a way to access food. There is many different situations and reasons that this happens. One of the easiest ways to understand this is through the diagram at https://moveforhunger.org/hunger-and-homelessness/. The diagram has the number of homeless people, and the number of food insecure people living in all 50 states. The results are shocking, seeing that the number of hungry people is much higher than the number of homeless people.

This misconception also leads to stereotypes that people who go to food banks or get food stamps are lazy, and don't really need the help. I ask you to help end this stereotype, and understand that everyone has their own story, and you cant judge them because you are not in their shoes.

Could Climate Change Impact World Hunger?

A recent article was published by the Washington Post titled "Wheat, one of the world’s most important crops, is being threatened by climate change". Wheat is one of the most significant crops in feeding the world, and if it becomes threatened, a large number of people could be impacted. The article explains how a recent study done by Nature Climate Change, shows that all the researchers agree that rising temperatures is going to be really bad for wheat production. The scientific facts can be read in the actual article at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/09/12/climate-change-is-really-bad-for-wheat-which-is-really-bad-for-us/?utm_term=.4cd3aa2f9d0b, but for the purposes of this blog I'm going to focus more on the effects this problem could bring.

The prediction for the 2016/2017 year is 741 million tons of wheat produced, 500 million of which will be directly consumed by humans. Some statics from the study showed "China will see yield reductions of about 3.0 percent per 1 degree Celsius increase in global temperature. And India was projected to experience much greater declines of about 8.0 percent.". The statistics are different for every area of the world, but they all show one common thing; the amount of wheat production will decreases as the global temperature increases. This decrease in production will cause countries to find new ways to produce food to feed their citizens, some of which might be more expensive or need more land or equipment to produce. This will cause many new problems in ending world hunger, and create major setbacks. Personally, I already think global warming is an alarming issue that needs to be addressed, but this article has just furthered my concern.

I encourage you to read the article and respond with your thoughts in the comments :)

Inspriation

Food Desesrts

In my last article I told a story of an eight or nine year old boy who didn't know what a tomato was. This is an example of how so many people are not getting the healthy food they need. A food desert is an urban area where it's difficult to find fresh, affordable, healthy and nutritious food. One reason for this is because many of these areas lack places to get this type of food such as grocery stores, or farmers markets. Instead, these areas have lots of convenient stores or fast food restaurants, where food is cheaper and easier to get.

There are many smaller problems created by food deserts that are often overlooked by the government or USDA. For instance, many people in these areas don't speak good English, so they have trouble understanding what food they should and shouldn't be eating. Another problem is that people in these areas also might have trouble finding food that suits their needs such as lactose-intolerance, gluten free, or other food allergies. Healthier foods are also generally more expensive, and even if someone lives near a grocery store they might not be able to afford the healthier options.

Living in a food desert can create many problems for someone's physical and/or mental health. Children of low-income families living in these areas have much higher rates of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other diet-related conditions. These problems can lead to much more serious health problems, that often become fatal.

In the First Lady's "Lets Move!" program, plans to allow people in these food deserts to gain access to healthy food, by developing grocery stores, small retailers, corner stores, and farmers markets with fresh and healthy food.

"The USDA defines what's considered a food desert and which areas will be helped by this initiative:  To qualify as a “low-access community,” at least 500 people and/or at least 33 percent of the census tract's population must reside more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store (for rural census tracts, the distance is more than 10 miles)."

 

Sources: http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/usda-defines-food-deserts

 

http://www.foodispower.org/food-deserts/

Real Stories

Over the past few years I've done a lot of volunteer work, including two mission trips to Washington D.C.. During these trips I worked at various community kitchens, but had little experience with children until this summer. We signed up to work at Martha's Market, put on by Martha's Table.  These traveling markets go to low income areas throughout the D.C. area offering free healthy food to anyone who comes to them. Many of these markets were at schools or community centers, so there was lots of kids. I was at the vegetable table which included corn, peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant. As the kids walked through we asked them which vegetables they wanted. Most only took corn, peppers, and tomatoes, and weren't interested in the eggplant. We would ask them their favorite vegetables and dance with them to the music that was being played. Everyone was very grateful, and this was one of the most fun service projects I've ever done. But I remember one little boy in particular, he was about 8 or 9. When he got to our table his pointed to the tomatoes and asked "what is that?". I was really surprised to see that some children don't even know what tomatoes are. This shows how even though some children aren't necessarily hungry, they aren't eating the right food. This is just a big of a problem as food insecurity, and should be taken just as seriously. So many children of low income families aren't getting the right nutrition they need to succeed in the future. Programs like Martha's Table are actually trying to do something about this, and I would strongly encourage you to volunteer at a project similar to this near you.

How Hunger Affects Children

Food-insecurity can have the most consequences on children because it could effect their mental and/or physical health, their academics, their success- or lack of success- in the future. According to the most recent statistic from the USDA 15.9 million people under 18 who live in the U.S. suffer from food insecurity.

The most common thing people concern with food insecurity of children is heath problems. Infants who grow up with this are more at risk for delayed development. Children who are food insecure are more likely to requiring hospitalization in the early stages of life, and are more likely to develop chronic diseases in the future. They are also more at risk for oral health problems. Of course these issues should be a huge concern, but they can lead to other concerns that are often overlooked.

Social and mental problems are common side effects of food insecurity in children, but are often overlooked. These children are much more likely to have behavioral issues and act out in class, which effects their learning experience. Once a child is labeled as a "troublemaker" the teacher is much less likely to continue to help them learn, which could cause the student to drop out in the later years of school. This could then hinder the young adult from getting a job because they never revived their G.E.D.. It's basically a never ending circle of bad side effects, all because a child was getting the food they needed when they were younger.

Source: http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hunger/child-hunger/child-development.html

The Largest Community Kitchen in America

D.C. Central Kitchen, located in Washington, D.C., is the largest provider of recycled meals in the country. In total, the community Kitchen has provided over 27 million meals- and counting- to homeless and low-income families. But providing meals to those in need isn't all they do. They also provide culinary training programs to teach adults how to cook and work in a kitchen. All the meals the culinary students create are given out, so its basically its a circle of good things happening. They also provide and encourage healthy affordable lunches to schools in the D.C. area.

Numbers
As I stated before, in total DCCK has provided over 27 million meals, and that number is still rising. All these meals, about 5,000 a day, are given to 82 different non-profit organizations that give them out. They have had 772 graduates from their culinary program, with an 89% job placement rate, and job retention rate of 87%. 63 of their graduates in 2011 were ex-offenders, and once these men and women complete the program they are 94% less likely to end up back in prison.

Volunteer
To truly make a difference in your community, one of the best things to do is volunteer. It helps out those in need, while giving you a feeling of pride and accomplishment. In my two service trips to Washington D.C., I have volunteered at DCCK about 5 or 6 times. Two of the times I cut up potatoes into cubes for three hours. This may seem tedious and like its not doing anything, but at the end you see the huge buckets of chopped potatoes and realize what you have done will feed numerous people. Potatoes are also my favorite food, so I was happy to share their deliciousness with others.

My friends and I at DCCK this summer, sporting the stylish hair nets that you're required to wear

 

Why Hunger?

You may be asking, out of all the problems in our world today, why did I choose hunger to blog about? Personally, I chose this subject because I believe it is the most basic human right. No person should ever wonder when they will eat next. Someone who is completely focused on feeding themselves and/or their family can't accomplish anything until they find food. Someone who could cure a disease, write an amazing book, or do something else that could benefit the lives of others wont be able to do that if they don't have food. So many children grow up without an education because they need to drop out and get a job to feed themselves. The main reason I chose this topic is because I truly believe its a problem that we can solve. In this blog I hope to encourage you to join the fight against world hunger, because if we all join together to make the change, the change will happen.