“The
Hunger Zone”
Waterloo
Exchange Club
July
11, 2017
Good
morning. My name is Andy Graves, and I was invited by Leah Morrison to come
speak to you all today about a project that I led at my church, which was the
installation of a Little Free Pantry. However, before we get into that, I would
like to take a moment to share with you a little bit about myself. That way
we’re not completely strangers, and what I have to say will make a little more
sense—given a little context. For starters I am new to Waterloo. My wife and I
moved here just under a year ago, driven by her acquisition of the lead pastor
position at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, which is located in the Edison
Neighborhood (Harwood and Magnolia). Before moving here, I have lived, worked
and experienced life in Des Moines, Dubuque, and Marshalltown, Iowa, as well as
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The entire time I was working on figuring out my place in
the world of youth and families, from after school programming with the Boys
& Girls Clubs to becoming an elementary school teacher (subbing as often as
I could—no full time job yet), to leading youth and family programming for an
urban church. The entire time I was made painfully aware that there are a lot
of injustices in this world, but the one that pained me the most was seeing
families go hungry. Food justice has been at the forefront of my community
service since seeing the impact that going hungry has on a child’s ability to
function in a classroom, socially and even spiritually. However, there is an
ever present question that often times doesn’t get asked, which is, “Who are
the hungry?” We often see commercials for starving kids in foreign countries
and the like, but we don’t really get a good picture of what the hunger
landscape looks like in our country, in our cities and even in our
neighborhood.
I
do not want to bombard you with a lot of statistics, however I do feel as if it
is important to get a sense of just how big an issue food security, or
insecurity, really is.
According to Feeding America:
·
1 in 6 children may not know where they
will get their next meal. For the 13 million kids in the U.S. facing hunger,
getting the energy they need to learn and grow can be a day-in, day-out
challenge.
·
More than 5 million senior citizens age 60
and older struggle with hunger. 63% of those have to choose between buying
groceries or medical supplies/care.
·
2.8 million rural households face hunger
·
42 million people struggle with hunger in
the United States, including 13 million children. 5.4 million Seniors don’t
have enough to eat.
·
59% of food-insecure households
participated in at least one of the major federal food assistance programs
According to the Northeast Iowa Food
Bank
·
57%
of households have at least one employed member
·
85%
of clients have a high school degree or GED and 44% have some sort of post high
school education
·
34%
are children under age 18
·
10%
are seniors age 60 and older
·
48%
have incomes that fall at or below the federal poverty line
I realize that this was a
lot of numbers and I went through that really quickly, however the point is
it’s not an isolated issue. Hunger effects everybody, regardless of age,
regardless of location, regardless of employment status. People are hungry, and
even though we are one of the largest food producing countries, a lot of those
people are our neighbors and loved ones. Our city is no different, if anything
Waterloo keeps pace with the national statistics for hunger issues, at least
from the information provided by our regional food bank. However, this begs the
question, why? Why are so many people hungry in our city, our state, our
country? There is plenty of food to go around, and yet so many of our neighbors
are going hungry so that they can pay their utility bills and medical care? In
thinking about this situation I have come up with a catchy quip, and it’s this:
“The Three A’s of Hunger: Access, Availability, and Attitude.” In my personal
experience, a lot of the issues that our friends and loved ones face in terms
of food security can be boiled down to these three areas. So, I would like to
take a few moments and explore these with you, so that some light can be shed
on what might be going on, as to why so many people are going hungry in our
world.
The first A is access. Now, I realize that all three of
these are interconnected, which makes talking about food insecurity such a
difficult thing. So, please, bear with me and I will do my best to pull them
apart—if only just enough—to highlight some of the issues people are facing.
When I say access, I am referring to the ability to gain access to the
assistance to overcome hunger. The knowledge required to ask for help. In our
society we have established a beautiful system of gatekeepers and road blocks.
And found in this system are a lot of intricacies, back doors, and dark alleys
that make it really hard to know exactly where to turn for assistance. This is
especially true for those who have never needed it. Just recently my parents
came onto some more difficult times than they had ever faced before. My dad was
laid off, my mom had to step-down from her position, and the financial
situation was pretty bleak for the first time—in a very long time. The medical
bills needed to be paid, and there wasn’t a lot of money coming in. So, when I
talked to my mom about the situation, she made it clear that she had no idea
how to even apply for assistance. She knew that you could get Medicaid and
SNAP, however she had never had to apply before. I told her that she would
probably qualify and assisted her with applying for both. However, it is very
hard to imagine that this is a unique situation. Often times government
assistance is like a proverbial bigfoot—everybody has heard about it, but
nobody is sure it really exists. For those families that have “hit a rough
patch” might not know what is available, who to turn to, or where to look for
help. Another issue with access is the ability to acquire the assistance needed
to get a leg up on the hunger situation. This gets realized when one visits
food pantries and other assistance granting agencies. There are often times a
lot of paperwork and information garnished in order to gain assistance. Without
knowing the life situation of the people, this sort of information may be impossible
to provide, which disallows them to gain access to the assistance. However, I
realize that supplemental funds and goods are not infinite, when we create
these hurdles/hoops to jump we are, potentially, perpetuating the issue we are
trying to combat. Like I said, I understand the need for checks and balances,
but it is this sort of gatekeeping that disallows people to overcome the
hardships, temporary or otherwise, and keeps them in the cycle of hunger. Food
is there, they just can’t get to it—it’s just out of reach.
This ties nicely into the next A, which is availability.
Like just discussed, there are government programs, food banks, pantries and
other resources for people to gain access to food to feed their family.
Naturally, when we need something for dinner we can go to a grocery store and
get the items we require for the meal. However, what happens if you live in a
food desert? What happens if you live in an area where the only place to get
groceries is the Kwik Trip on the corner, or the corner liquor store that only
sells snack cakes and chips? Chances are that’s where you go to get your
groceries, what other choice is there? Now, I realize that I drove here, in my
wife’s CRV. I drive a car to work, to the grocery store, and everywhere that I
need to get. This is a non-issue for me and my wife. However, when I was in
Milwaukee I rode the city bus to and from work 95% of the time. So, in order to
make it to work on time I was subject to the will of the public transit
system—they have a schedule and if your schedule doesn’t match it doesn’t
matter. So, I decided to do a little experiment with the local MET system to
see how easily I could get groceries if I had to rely on the city bus…. From my
house, it would take approximately 30 minutes to get to one of the grocery
stores nearby, this would require me to walk between 3 and 12 blocks in order
to get on the bus. However, we have to keep in mind the schedule
·
Fixed route service hours: Monday - Friday: 5:45AM - 6:15PM Saturday: 7:15AM - 6:15PM
·
There is no bus service on New Year's Day,
Memorial Day, Independence Day (July 4th), Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, or
Christmas Day.
To further complicate the
situation, let’s say, like most people, I have a job too, which also requires
me to utilize public transportation. How am I supposed to get the grocery
store, from work, and home again during the time that the buses run? Granted,
this is a bit of a worst case scenario, but I know people whose lives match
this to the T. Plus, if you have never ridden on a city bus, it’s not as great
as it might seem, especially if you have to carry a lot of stuff with you—like
groceries. It was fine with just a back-pack, but anything more than that… not
great. However, putting aside this scenario, we can refocus our lens to a
different situation that also effects availability, which is the assistance
that the school system provides. During the school year, the community schools
here provide 2 meals: breakfast and lunch. What happens when summer arrives?
Now you have 1-X number of kids home for breakfast and lunch, when you before
those meals were available for them at school. This means that a family is now
responsible to feed even more mouths than before, and if the food was sparse
during the school year, chances are once summer comes the situation doesn’t get
brighter. A silver lining here, though, is that often during the summer there
are summer feeding sights, which provide some sort of lunch for youth under the
age of 18. This can be a respite for families who struggle, but we could circle
back to the first situation, where they would have to find a way to get
there—therefore making the assistance no longer available.
It is this cycle of access and availability where a lot of
the struggle is found. Either they cannot traverse the network of assistance or
it is not made available to them for a lot of different reasons. For the sake
of time, I have only provided a couple scenarios—we could go for hours talking
about how this plays out in the lives of people every day. There is, although,
something a bit more problematic in our society, which brings us to the last A,
which is attitude. In my experience there are 2 main attitudes that people can
have: either positive or negative. When it comes to hunger both of these
attitudes can actually become a detriment to overcoming the struggle for food.
For instance, the positive attitude of pride can be a stumbling block for a lot
of people. By this I mean, when people have the “I don’t need help… I can take
care of my family… I can do it myself….” Sort of attitude it can blind them to
the avenues of assistance available. Now, this is not to say that they are not
fully capable of taking care of themselves, taking care of their family, but if
they are unable to see where they are headed and the hands that are reaching
out to help, they can get stuck. This is very much the mentality that I have
inherited from my parents—we don’t ask for help, but gladly give a helping hand
regardless of how dire our situation might be. I’ve seen this play out in the
lives of several people I have worked with over the years—single moms working
several jobs, both parents working all hours of the day to keep a roof and
food, but to what end? They are working themselves ragged in order to provide
for their families, but also running ragged the relationships they have that
can provide some respite. There is help available… most of the time. On the
flip side though, there are also those who have a negative attitude. This, from
my experience, has often originated from those who don’t need help. Those of us
who stand off to the side and look down our noses at those who utilize the
assistance programs, pantries, shelters, and other helps available. We have
created a negative stigma for those who cannot seem to lead a productive,
fulfilled life of their own accord. It has become a demeaning thing to have to
ask for help; and if the person is proud in the first place this makes it
nearly impossible for them to reach out. This is where my heart breaks a lot,
because I know how hard some people work for their families—their kids come
first and it shows in their lives, but they just can’t seem to get ahead. Then
to have people stand there and judge them for utilizing the SNAP program or WIC
or a pantry, just deflates them even more. Instead of being a helping hand, our
attitudes toward those who need assistance and take it has perpetuated the “us
vs. them” social structure that we should be working to dismantle.
All of that, which is to say that there is still hope for
our city, state, country and world. I believe that there are things that we can
all do in order to help put an end to the hunger injustices that our friends,
neighbors and loved ones face, which is really why I am here. I had to drag you
through the muck and the mire so that we can come out the other side and see
the light—together. Like I mentioned at the beginning our time here I was
invited here because of my work at setting up a Little Free Pantry at my
church. This is one of the many things that we can do as a city to help fight
hunger. For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Little Free Pantry movement is
kin to the Little Free Library movement. It was started by a pastor in
Arkansas, and has since spread nationwide. The idea is the same as the library,
it is a place of free exchange of food items—people place items in the pantry
and people take items out. There are no questions ask, no forms to fill out,
and no attitudes allowed.
Our pantry was officially installed on May 28, 2017, and
has been filled and emptied more times than I can count. I have no idea who has
taken from the pantry, and I have very few ideas about who has replenished it.
I have reached out via social media over and over again letting people know that
it’s there, it’s empty, and it’s been filled again. Over and over again. It
fills up, people take things, and people put things back. It is a sustainable
way for a community to assist itself, which is the message that I feel has been
lacking in our assistance of people. Instead of government programs, church
programs, and other social outreach programs, our pantry is neighbors helping
neighbors. People, helping people. Fortunately, ours is not the only pantry in
Waterloo. In fact there are 4-5 others placed around the city, doing the same
thing in their respective neighborhoods. People are hungry and we are stepping
up to fill gaps. Like alluded to before, there are lots of places for gaps to
form: issues with access, availability and attitude are the umbrellas. With a
Little Free Pantry, we don’t ask questions, and we don’t set limitations as to
who can borrow from our pantry. So, you can have a proud parent who works 2
jobs to provide for their family take a few boxes of mac and cheese for a
couple lunches. Or, somebody who is waiting for the disability to come through,
and just needs a little bit to make it through—which was made known to me
through a thank-you note that was left in our pantry. It allows for people who
may not be willing to step foot into an office or a government building to take
a little something to help. That’s the hope that I have for this city.
Neighbors helping neighbors—communities coming together to take care of their
own and, really, working to be an example for others.
Our Savior’s Lutheran Church has taken a stand against
hunger in our neighborhood. The Cedar Valley Pantries has done the same thing
for other areas of Waterloo (and they’re working on Cedar Falls too). Our hope
is that it continues to spread, with the ultimate goal of people not being
hungry any more. It is a lot bigger than just having enough food, as we have
kind of explored in our time together. There are no easy answers, no easy
fixes, but if we put our heads together and keep pushing forward I feel as if we
can eventually figure this out. I want to believe that, and will hold that
truth in my heart until it stops being a problem. Children are the next
generation, but they’re also our today, which means we need to be feeding them
mind, body and soul so that they are prepared for what’s coming, for what’s
here now. However, they cannot thrive if there is nothing to eat… Families
can’t prosper if there’s no food in the coffer.
One last thing… if you would like to spread the word about
our pantry, I have business cards and post cards you can hand-out/hang-up/have.
Also, if you have any questions, or want to talk I heard there is breakfast so
I’ll be sure to stick around for that, because nobody likes to be hungry.
Thank-you very much!
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