Food@100% means all our families are fed and food insecurity is history. We have solutions to hunger; we don’t lack food, just the political will, business engagement and technology.
When we begin to “Google it” for solutions:
Ending hunger in America: 21,800,000
Causes of hunger: 29,100,000
Task forces on ending hunger: 49,300,000
Businesses ending hunger: 27,200,000
Impact of technology on food security: 377,000,000
Amid the clutter, solutions await
WHAT DOES FOOD have to do with adverse childhood experiences and trauma? Everything. Every county has children and parents experiencing food insecurity, and some have segments of the population reporting hunger at least once during the month. From a child welfare point-of-view, hunger can be viewed as neglect. We really need to end hunger in order to go upstream to prevent children from entering the expensive child welfare system.
In this chapter we provide an overview of a very complicated system and its numerous challenges, as well as food support programs. Get ready to be overwhelmed and also inspired. We will guide you through all the steps to put ideas into action.
With literally millions of people reading articles on food security and thousands of foundations, governmental and non-governmental organizations focusing for decades on ending food insecurity in the United States, why is hunger still so nationally prevalent? Why are students arriving to school hungry? Why do parents working full time not have enough money for a month’s worth of groceries? Why do food banks run out of food?
We don’t mean to question our good-hearted leaders in political, academic and philanthropic circles, but there appears to be a complete disconnect between those who claim to have answers and the actual implementation of solutions to ensure 100% of our residents are food secure. What are our morals, ethics and values that allow hunger to exist amid so much abundance?
What kind of society throws out enough edible food to more than prevent hunger in our most vulnerable families? If we ever needed a public and private sector solution to food insecurity, this is the moment.
Some of us grew up with TV commercials asking that we send money to poverty-stricken counties across the globe to address hunger. Plenty of websites and organizations still ask. You may notice that there is no mention of why the elected leaders of these democratic countries are not feeding their people. Truly, why are we all not asking, “What is the root cause of hunger in the US and around the world?”
Who’s hungry?
With millions of our fellow Americans on food stamps, and food pantries the fixtures of communities that they are, it seems inconceivable that kids in our country suffer from hunger. In fact, the reality on the ground has been, up to now, difficult to gauge when it comes to specifically measuring food insecurity in communities. Are lots of kids starving to death out there in the USA? This is an important question, but the real question is, “What does hunger look like?” Four children walking to school may not conjure up images of malnutrition to many of us. However, we don’t know how long it’s been since each had their last meal. What percentage of malnutrition is acceptable? Would you be okay not eating for 24 hours?
Trauma passed down (or prevented) generation after generation
ACEs, including all forms of neglect and abuse, are behaviors that can be passed from parent to child. The cycle of childhood trauma due to ACEs can be stopped with a local system of parent supports and health and safety services.Click above to learn their stories.*
*fictional stories
“Why can’t everyone buy their own food”?
Plenty of children live in households where money is so tight that parents have a hard time picking up where the equivalent of food stamps leave off. (Your state student surveys funded by the CDC on health risks will most likely tell you how many kids are experiencing hunger monthly, and this is a data point every ACEs prevention program needs to be on top of.) That can translate into skipping meals or eating poorly balanced meals. And even if there’s a food pantry that stands ready to help, it’s not guaranteed that mom or dad will have the logistical capacity to pick up the groceries.
Meanwhile, we (via grocery stores) throw away large percentages of our food due to spoilage or because it didn’t look quite appetizing though it was perfectly healthy. Luckily, there are solutions to this particular logistical problem you can implement in your county.
First things first
We ask: what is the root cause of hunger and food insecurity?
The list covers a range of causes and solutions.
- Life catastrophe: People lose their jobs and even houses for a variety of reasons all the time. Maybe the bills pile up and bankruptcy is the only way out. Maybe they pay their bills but then there’s no money at the end of the month for food. Maybe an illness knocks out their income stream. Maybe a mental health breakdown does the same thing.
- Relationship catastrophe: Breakups and divorce can throw people into an unstable situation, especially if one partner was dependent on the other’s income to buy food.
- Responsibility: Governments on the federal, state and local levels have not seen it as their role to ensure that all residents have access to food.
- Low wages: Employers don’t have to pay wages that allow a full time worker to afford food throughout the month.
- Job availability: When the economy dips, there are not enough jobs for everyone who wants one, hence no money for food. Or in boom economies, people may not have job readiness.
- Mental health challenges: Folks with mental health challenges can’t always hold down full time jobs.
- Troubles at home: Kids living in homes where parents are struggling for a wide variety of reasons including trauma, will report hunger every month on the national student surveys.
- Trapped teens: Teens having to leave unsafe home environments without the resources to be self-sufficient.
With data from the Resilient Community Experience Survey (See Appendices) and other surveying, you have a good idea about where in your county food insecurity exists and why. While global, national and state data on hunger is interesting (and deeply troubling), the real data that informs your work are generated by your 100% Community initiative, and dive deep into local communities within your county borders. You may find that hunger is seasonal, with more students reporting it during summer when not in school. Then again, you may be surprised by your survey results and learn that a challenge is far bigger or smaller or more localized than originally thought.
Where on earth are our challenges already fixed?
Food@100% is looking at tested food insecurity solutions, focused on innovations, projects, policies and programs implemented in large and small cities around the world.
It’s been said that hunger is not a problem with food, it’s a problem with our local governments’ commitment to addressing food insecurity. This means, ultimately, our solutions will go beyond volunteers and short term projects. Our elected leaders must vote for solutions that permanently end hunger, because it’s what caring folks in a democracy do for their neighbors.
If you have come this far, you know that ending hunger starts with knowing the magnitude of the problem; where precisely hunger is experienced in your county, and why youth and adults can’t access services to address the problem.
We present to you and your local businesspeople and government leaders a challenge: make hunger a thing of the past, so every child, student and family thrives.
As you will see below, we have offered only a sliver of the innovations out there that have been shown to reduce hunger and food insecurities. Some of the models have been with us for many decades—tried and true and evaluated strategies. Some are ideas working successfully a few states over, while others are being implemented on the other side of the planet. Some are quite new, thanks to technology, and merit experimentation and their own evaluation. We do not lack for solutions, just the political will.
The innovations you’re about to explore can be developed with three important frameworks.
As we say in all ten sector chapters, we want to reference the data-driven framework called Continuous Quality Improvement and its four phases: assessment, planning, action and evaluation (revisit Chapter 29). This four-step process will guide your development of innovations in the arena of food support. And as a gentle reminder, you will want to use Collective Impact (revisit Chapter 31) to organize your project and Adaptive Leadership (revisit Chapter 30) to determine if the particular challenge you seek to solve is a technical challenge with established protocols for moving forward, or an adaptive challenge, where you are entering new uncharted territory without a clear path.
Designing a Countywide Family-friendly Food Support System
The past: How did we get to this point of needing a family-friendly food support system? Who exactly needs it anyway? What problems is the system supposed to solve? Why don’t people just buy food for themselves without outside help?
The present (action agenda): Within this subject, we’ve identified ten strategies—called innovation areas—that can be used to tackle the food support access problem. Within those, we suggest about twenty 100% Community projects that you (yes, you) can take on, thus propelling your community towards family-friendly food support in its many forms.
The future (goals): With enough work on these innovations/projects, we’ll get to the point where Innovation #10—the creation of a City/County Department of Family-Friendly Food Support—becomes a reality. With a state-of-the-art system of support in place, 100% of our county’s families could report excellent support and service.
Since we are currently in the present creating the future, your commitment to innovation is most eagerly sought and needed.
A menu of innovations and projects
You are about to review approximately 20 projects that can, if done successfully, improve the quality and accessibility of current services. The long-term goal of these innovations and projects is to ensure that 100% of county residents have access to this vital service. Your task is to review all projects, individually and as part of an action team, to identify which one you wish to implement. In the time it takes to enjoy a grande latte, you can give our menu a quick read to see which project pops out at you.
Did this spark an idea?
We want your ideas to drive innovations. Tell us your idea no matter how crazy it sounds. We’re listening.
