These are rocky times. Money is short, resources are strained, and client numbers are increasing rapidly. These are problems the emergency food community has faced for decades, but they have accelerated in recent years. During this time, it has become increasingly clear why the Washington Food Coalition is so important. What organization in Washington State wholly and specifically represents the interests of emergency food sites and their clients? Only the Washington Food Coalition. Our Mission The Washington Food Coalition actively educates and networks with organizations that strive to alleviate hunger throughout Washington Our Vision The Washington Food Coalition is the unified voice for a strong emergency food system F ood for Thought WaFoodCoalition.org No one in Washington State should go hungry Be The Change : Conference 2012 This year’s conference was a huge success! E very year, it’s our goal to bring the best resources and new insights to the conference. We want every attendee to meet someone new, enjoy their time, and leave feeling equipped to improve their program and their world. This is one of the many ways we work to build a strong emergency food system in Washington. This year’s conference was set aside as a special time to celebrate 20 years of hunger relief and envision a future where our coalition is stronger than ever. Washington Food Coalition endeavored to give our hardworking attendees an opportunity to relax and refresh themselves, while also challenge them in ways to fight hunger like never before. It’s always enjoyable to see folks that give so much of themselves on a daily basis to help other, taking time to relax and enjoy the company of friends with similar passions and visions. The topic tracks for this year’s workshops included Fundraising, Best Practices, Nutrition, Safety and Community Engagement. Some included wonderful suggestions and ideas for programs like cooking classes and summer meals programs, and others were about fundraising and writing grants. There was a workshop (or two!) for every issue to ensure folks attending could pick up much needed tricks and tools. We again hosted topic- centered roundtable sessions to allow for discussion and engagement. The theme of the conference was “Be the Change”, and change was certainly at the forefront of both keynote speakers presentations. The focal points hovered around ending hunger, which was a big mouthful for a room of emergency food providers in the trenches tackling hunger to swallow. Our Thursday Keynote Jim Weill, Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), filled the room with a flurry of figures, information and a bold ambitious goal for our future. He also discussed the underlying issues of hunger. His ambitious goal and thrilling conclusion was that he hoped that as a group and a nation we could end hunger in the near future; and promised to attend the conference in 10 years if the issue of hunger is not solved by then. Our Friday Keynote Brian Reich of little me media challenged the audience to Shift & Reset and to take on the hard stuff. We have plenty of tools, cash and attention, but what we don’t have are real solutions to the challenges that our society is facing. He challenged the audience to create three things: 1. Timely, relevant, compelling information 2. Experiences people will remember and (fondly) share 3. Stuff that people will use...and value This year’s conference received the highest overall ratings we’ve ever had. “It was an informative, humbling, and inspiring couple of days of learning about hunger across the state and what communities are doing about it.” -Kim Hack, Clark County Food Bank & Americorps VISTA Many thanks to Jami Willard of Northwest Harvest for contributing to this conference review article Washington Food Coalition Newsletter / Winter 2012 Washington Food Coalition PO Box 95752 Seattle, WA 98145 Working together for a hunger-free Washington current resident or NON-PROFIT U.S. Postage PAID Olympia, WA Permit No. 238 Is This address correct? If not, please let us know! This newsletter prepared with funds made available by the WA Dept. of Agriculture, Food Assistance Programs No person shall on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, national origin, age, citizenship, political affiliations, belief, veteran status or sexual orientation, be denied employment or benefits or be discriminated against as a participant, administrator or staff member under this program. The State of Washington Washington State ranks as the 14th highest state with food insecurity. This is up from a ranking of 30th in 2007. 1 in 7 people in Washington struggle with hunger. Over one million Washingtonians rely on Basic Food/SNAP (food stamps) for sustenance. Childhood hunger in Washington 1 in 4 children in Washington struggle with hunger. Nearly half a million children (467,279) are eligible to receive free or reduced priced meals at school. Half of all babies in our state receive support from the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program for critical early nutrition, and working families make up 65% of WIC participants.4 Hunger Relief Agencies are Stretched Since the beginning of the Great Recession, food banks have seen an increase of 35% in demand on their services. From the beginning of the recession in 2008 to when data was collected in December 2011, the number of hungry families in Washington jumped 85 percent from 88,000 to 163,000. Only six other states besides Washington experienced more growth in the rate of hunger between 2010 and 2011. Donated pounds of food was down by 16 million pounds as of 2011, so food banks have been forced to purchase food in order to keep the shelves from going empty. The average amount of food provided to a customer at a food bank has gone down for two years in a row (16.25 lbs/person in ’10 to to 15.68 lbs/person in ’12). Hearing from our Hungry Neighbors “Our refrigerator is empty and sometimes we don’t have food. The money doesn’t reach far enough. We never suffered this much. I’ve always had food and a good job.” “Our seniors shouldn’t be forced to make a choice between food and medicine.” “I’d rather go hungry before my kids go hungry,” a mom admitted. “Only about a week ago we didn’t have enough food, so I went to bed without food. They asked me why, and I said they needed to eat, I could go without.” ADVOCACY ALERT: THE WASHINGTON FOOD COALITION ADVOCACY COMMITTEE IS REQUESTING AN INCREASE IN FUNDING FOR THE EMERGENCY FOOD ASSISTANCE PROGRAM IN 2013. THIS PROGRAM PROVIDES CRUCIAL FUNDING TO LOCAL FOOD BANKS AROUND THE STATE. CONTACT US TO LEARN MORE AND FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS REQUEST. Sources: Children’s Alliance Hungry in Washington 2012 Report Northwest Harvest’s Focus on Food Security 2012: Keep Our Safety Net Intact! Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s Child Nutrition Programs Report WSDA’s Food Assistance Programs Closeout Report Who’s Hungry in Washington? Stats and stories about the problem of hunger in our state
2012 Winter Newsletter
Mar 22, 2016
This newsletter provides a review of our 2012 Be The Change conference, information about the history of food banking and hunger in our state, as well as details on WFC Membership.
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Transcript
These are rocky times. Money is short, resources are strained, and client numbers are increasing rapidly.
These are problems the emergency food community has faced for decades, but they have accelerated in recent years.
During this time, it has become increasingly clear why the Washington Food Coalition is so important.
What organization in Washington State wholly and specifically represents the interests of emergency food sites and their clients?
Only the Washington Food Coalition.
Our Mission
The Washington Food Coalition actively educates and networks with organizations that strive to alleviate hunger throughout Washington
Our Vision
The Washington Food Coalition is the unified voice for a strong emergency food system
Food for ThoughtWaFoodCoalition.org
No one in Washington State should go hungry
Be The Change : Conference 2012This year’s conference was a huge success!
Every year, it’s our goal to bring the best resources and new insights to the conference.
We want every attendee to meet someone new, enjoy their time, and leave feeling equipped to improve their program and their world. This is one of the many ways we work to build a strong emergency food system in Washington.
This year’s conference was set aside as a special time to celebrate 20 years of hunger relief and envision a future where our coalition is stronger than ever.
Washington Food Coalition endeavored to give our hardworking attendees an opportunity to relax and refresh themselves, while also challenge them in ways to fight hunger like never before. It’s always enjoyable to see folks that give so much of themselves on a daily basis to help other, taking time to relax and enjoy the company of friends with similar passions and visions.
The topic tracks for this year’s workshops included Fundraising, Best Practices, Nutrition, Safety and Community Engagement.
Some included wonderful suggestions and ideas for programs like cooking classes and summer meals programs, and others were about fundraising and writing grants. There was a workshop (or two!) for every issue to ensure folks attending could pick up much needed tricks and tools. We again hosted topic-centered roundtable sessions to allow for discussion and engagement.
The theme of the conference was “Be the Change”, and change was certainly at the forefront of both keynote speakers presentations. The focal points hovered around ending hunger, which was a big mouthful for a room of emergency food providers in the trenches tackling hunger to swallow.
Our Thursday Keynote Jim Weill, Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), filled the room with a flurry of figures, information and a bold ambitious goal for our future. He also discussed the underlying issues of hunger. His ambitious goal and thrilling conclusion was that he hoped that as a group and a nation we could end hunger in the near future; and promised to
attend the conference in 10 years if the issue of hunger is not solved by then.
Our Friday Keynote Brian Reich of little me media challenged the audience to Shift & Reset and to take on the hard stu!. We have plenty of tools, cash and attention, but what we don’t have are real solutions to the challenges that our society is facing. He challenged the audience to create three things: 1. Timely, relevant, compelling information 2. Experiences people will remember and (fondly) share 3. Stu! that people will use...and value
This year’s conference received the highest overall ratings we’ve ever had.
“It was an informative, humbling, and inspiring couple of days of learning about hunger across the state and what communities are doing about it.”-Kim Hack, Clark County Food Bank & Americorps VISTA
Many thanks to Jami Willard of Northwest Harvest for contributing to this conference review article
Washington Food Coalition Newsletter / Winter 2012
Washington Food CoalitionPO Box 95752Seattle, WA 98145
Working together for a hunger-free Washington
current resident or
NON-PROFITU.S. Postage
PAIDOlympia, WA
Permit No. 238
Is This address correct? If not,
please let us know!
This newsletter prepared with funds made available by the WA Dept. of Agriculture, Food Assistance Programs No person shall on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, national origin, age, citizenship, political a!liations, belief, veteran status or sexual orientation, be denied employment or benefits or be discriminated against as a participant, administrator or sta" member under this program.
The State of Washington
Washington State ranks as the 14th highest state with food insecurity. This is up from a ranking of 30th in 2007.
1 in 7 people in Washington struggle with hunger.
Over one million Washingtonians rely on Basic Food/SNAP (food stamps) for sustenance.
Childhood hunger in Washington
1 in 4 children in Washington struggle with hunger.
Nearly half a million children (467,279) are eligible to receive free or reduced priced meals at school.
Half of all babies in our state receive support from the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program for critical early nutrition, and working families make up 65% of WIC participants.4
Hunger Relief Agencies are Stretched
Since the beginning of the Great Recession, food banks have seen an increase of 35% in demand on their services.
From the beginning of the recession in 2008 to when data was collected in December 2011, the number of hungry families in Washington jumped 85 percent from 88,000 to 163,000. Only six other states besides Washington experienced more growth in the rate of hunger between 2010 and 2011.
Donated pounds of food was down by 16 million pounds as of 2011, so food banks have been forced to purchase food in order to keep the shelves from going empty.
The average amount of food provided to a customer at a food bank has gone down for two years in a row (16.25 lbs/person in ’10 to to 15.68 lbs/person in ’12).
Hearing from our Hungry Neighbors
“Our refrigerator is empty and sometimes we don’t have food. The money doesn’t reach far enough. We never su!ered this much. I’ve always had food and a good job.”
“Our seniors shouldn’t be forced to make a choice between food and medicine.”
“I’d rather go hungry before my kids go hungry,” a mom admitted. “Only about a week ago we didn’t have enough food, so I went to bed without food. They asked me why, and I said they needed to eat, I could go without.”
ADVOCACY ALERT: THE WASHINGTON FOOD COALITION ADVOCACY COMMITTEE IS REQUESTING AN INCREASE IN FUNDING FOR THE EMERGENCY FOOD ASSISTANCE PROGRAM IN 2013. THIS PROGRAM PROVIDES CRUCIAL FUNDING TO LOCAL FOOD BANKS AROUND THE STATE. CONTACT US TO LEARN MORE AND FIND OUT HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT THIS REQUEST.
Sources: Children’s Alliance Hungry in Washington 2012 Report Northwest Harvest’s Focus on Food Security 2012: Keep Our Safety Net Intact! O"ce of Superintendent of Public Instruction’s Child Nutrition Programs Report WSDA’s Food Assistance Programs Closeout Report
Who’s Hungry in Washington?Stats and stories about the problem of hunger in our state
WFC Newsletter Winter 2012.indd 1 11/27/12 12:44 PM
Save the Date! Conference 2013 is September 18-20 in Wenatchee!Interested in supporting this wonderful event by sponsoring? Please contact us to learn about sponsor benefits. We have sponsorship opportunities available at many di"erent levels.
We welcome Bill Ayres of WHY Hunger as our Thursday Keynote Speaker at Conference 2013. Stay tuned for many more conference details to come!
Board Members WFC Chair Kris Van Gasken Des Moines Area Food Bank
WFC Immediate Past Chair Robert Coit Thurston County Food Bank
WFC Vice Chair Helen McGovern Emergency Food Network
WFC Treasurer Yvonne Pitrof Vashon Maury Food Bank
WFC Secretary Nancy Wilson Inter-Faith Treasure House
Roger Trapp Rural Resources Comm. Action
Dan Speare Rural Resources Comm. Action
Bob Soule Chelan-Douglas Comm. Action
Peny Archer Comm Services of Moses Lake
Scott Kilpatrick Comm Services of Moses Lake
Connie Nelson Spokane Valley Partners
JoAnn Rushton Hope Source
Lisa Hall Northwest Harvest
John Neill Tri-Cities Food Bank
Chris Gerke Cascade Blue Mountain Food Share
Kathy Covey Blue Mountain Action Council
Leann Geiger Volunteers of America WW
Mike Cohen Bellingham Food Bank
Joe Gruber University District Food Bank
Kevin Glackin-Coley St. Leo’s Food Connection
Robin Rudy Tenino Community Service Center
Kellie McNelly ROOF Community Services
James Fitzgerald Sal. Army-Stop Hunger
Vicki Pettit Coastal Community Action Program
Anthony Airhar Coastal Harvest
Hoyt Burrows Central Kitsap Food Bank
Marilyn Gremse Bainbridge Island Help House
Bonnie Baker Northwest Harvest
Scott Hallett Council on Aging & Human Services
Shayne Kraemer Meals Partnership Coalition
Dorothy Palmer Colville Confederated Tribes
Brief History of Food Banking
There are two creation stories about the beginnings of food banking in the late 60s. In the
first story, John van Hengel gathered donations for a soup kitchen in Arizona where he volunteered and was also a guest. He was so adept at it that eventually he needed to create warehousing and began distributing food to other locations. His was a model of e"ciency rooted in genuine concern for the poor. The second story is about the Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz County, which has its roots in the Black Panther Breakfast for Kids Program. The Black Panther Party community service or “Survival Programs” created positive models within the community to help individuals meet their needs. This model was rooted in the community and values of social justice and self-determination. The dynamic tension between the two approaches arguably exists to the present day.
In the decades since, with rising fuel prices, the erosion of the social safety net, stagnant wages relative to inflation, rising medical costs, and corporate tax breaks for donations, the number of emergency food providers has risen dramatically. What started as an emergency response became institutionalized. While one billion dollars were added to federal food programs, five billion dollars in housing subsidies vanished. After spending money on rent, utilities and medicine, the food budget is the most elastic. In the richest country in the history of the world, some parents skip meals so their kids can eat and some seniors don’t know where their next meal is coming from. The nonprofit industry stepped in to try to fill the gap in the form of many more soup kitchens, food pantries and food banks, largely dependent on volunteer labor and private donations. As Jan Poppendieck so eloquently explains
in her seminal book Sweet Charity, these e!orts, while well-intentioned, function as a distraction from the broader problems creating hunger in the first place.
But what we see is not a true emergency. What we see with food insecurity or hunger in the US is a chronic, systemic problem, one that cannot be solved by meal distribution or by admonishments to pull oneself up by the bootstraps.
Vision for the Future
At WhyHunger, we believe that many of the innovative solutions to hunger and poverty
occur at the grassroots level, and that those ideas ought to be shared and replicated. Given these realities, we need to transform the emergency feeding system so that it addresses rather than reinforces the circumstances and structures that are keeping people in poverty. Some are already doing this, and we are working to champion and multiply those e!orts. One interesting trend is looking at food banks as health care intervention sites. In that sense, the wider environment and structural factors become part of the dialogue. We also acknowledge the role of government in protecting its citizens and promoting justice. But we must also ask questions and challenge assumptions to the status quo. With so many people a!ected by hunger, we can no longer ignore the fact that the current solutions are not working.Resources: 1. Applied Research Center, The Color of Food: www.arc.org/downloads/food_justice_021611_F.pdf 2. Mari Gallagher: www.marigallagher.com/projects/ 3. Solid Ground: www.solid-ground.org/ PROGRAMS/NUTRITION/Pages/default.aspx 4. WhyHunger, Food Security Learning Center, Race and the Food System: www.whyhunger.org/portfolio?topicId=24
The demand for emergency food is growing, while supplies and resources are shrinking. Record numbers of Washington residents are relying on WFC members and allies to help make ends meet and feed their families. According to the Department of Agriculture, the number of households in Washington state impacted by hunger doubled from 2008 to 2010; an estimated one in four children in our state now goes hungry.
More than ever, cooperation and dialogue between providers is the key to addressing this crisis, by sharing knowledge and advocating for hunger relief programs. WFC is the place that allows members to share what works, and is uniquely positioned to provide what local and national coalitions cannot: a broad, united voice, combined with the individual attention, resources and training desperately needed to better serve our hungry neighbors. WFC is the outlet for statewide action and there is no other organization that will work harder for a strong emergency food system.
While members fight hunger on the front lines, WFC works hard to support them. Annual dues helps ensure a library of resources at your fingertips, supports our advocacy work across the state, keeps members informed of relevant legislation, and o!ers access to invaluable networking opportunities.
WFC will work hard to save you time and resources. It will serve as your voice in Olympia, and connect you with similar organizations and people across the state.
Your participation makes the entire coalition stronger: Together, we can ensure that no one in Washington goes hungry.
Here are two ways you can support this strong coalition:
# Renew or begin your WFC membership for as little as $25. Membership is open to food providers, allied organizations, and individuals
# Give a tax-deductible donation to strengthen our cause
Enclosed with this newsletter is an envelope with further information on the options above. Please join us as a member today and consider a generous gift to support our work.
With Gratitude,
Julie Washburn Executive Director
Food Banking: History & VisionBy Jessica Powers, Director of the National Hunger Clearinghouse at WHY Hunger
Support a Strong Emergency Food System Renew Your WFC Membership & Donate To Our Cause!
Food for Thought A publication of the Washington Food Coalition
P.O. Box 95752 Seattle, WA 98145-2752
P 206.729.0501
F 206.729-0504
Connect with us online to stay up-to-date on information about our member agencies, advocacy updatess, and resources to improve hunger relief.
Resolve to Renew Your MembershipWashington Food Coalition Membership is your opportunity to join and support a strong emergency food system.Fighting hunger is challenging even in the best of times. Washington Food Coalition membership helps you meet those challenges with tools that expand your skills, keep you current with industry best practices, uphold our sector’s standards and advance our cause as the voice for a strong emergency food system. Share and learn from other members. All levels of experience are welcome, from newcomers to seasoned hunger relief partners.
Benefits of Membership Include: # Doing your part to support a statewide, coordinated e!ort at fighting hunger # Major discounts on WFC events # Eligibility to run for the WFC Board of Directors # Free resources and training materials # Networking and mentoring with other WFC members # Advocacy and information on how local and national politics e!ect your program # Additional discounts on Washington Nonprofits Membership, Philadelphia Insurance Policies,
WellCard Health Care and Prescription Benefits, and more!Learn more at www.wafoodcoalition.org/membership
Visit wafoodcoalition.org and read about the latest news on our blog.
Find us on YouTube, Facebook & Twitter
WFC Newsletter Winter 2012.indd 2 11/27/12 12:44 PM
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