In response to “Value-Added Food for Hungry Families”: Does your host campus participate in any annual food drives? What role do you think these annual projects play in addressing the year-round issue of food (in)security in our communities? What additional projects or initiatives might a campus consider engaging in to deepen their commitment to issues of food (in)security?
John Carroll currently maintains a community garden on campus in which all food harvested is donated to the Heights Emergency Food Center. We had a VISTA Summer Associate start the garden this past summer, and she also volunteered her time at the Food Center. In her work there, she realized many of the people served by the Center did not know how to prepare the fresh produce. She created materials to help aid families in the meal preparation process. John Carroll hopes to expand its community garden initiative by involving more groups on campus, recruiting more volunteers to help harvest the garden, and hopefully create more gardens around campus by working with JCU’s Environmental Issues Group. Julia is currently working on this.
An aspect of food security that I would like to see happen before the VISTAs leave JCU, is catering to those families who do not speak English, let alone read recipes in English at the Food Center. We had a senior OAI student working on translating recipes as for practicum credit, but unfortunately it fell by the wayside.
JCU also holds an annual food drive for the Fatima Family Center each November in which Arrupe students collect bags of food throughout the University Heights area. This year, we realized that the large Jewish population in the local area was unable to participate in the food drive due to observing the Sabbath. This will definitely be taken into account next year.
Since dry boxed and canned food is usually collected through this drive, JCU also sponsors a 5K Run/Walk in the fall to raise funds to purchase turkeys and fresh produce for the Hough families served. This helps supplement their Thanksgiving dinner and provides meals for them the entire holiday week.
Unfortunately this specific activity does not really address the issue of year-round food security, although it is definitely helpful to the families at that time. I believe the community gardens are much more effective when addressing the issues of hunger.
But what else can be done to address this issue? In our conversation I found it interesting when we spoke about how easy it is for people to lose enthusiasm for social justice issues as time goes on. In particular, if people are not given concrete ways to address these issues they’re passionate about, it’s harder and intimidating for them to believe they can make a change. So what else can we tell our students to do to address food (in)security? I think advocacy and lobbying to politicians is the only way to resolve such a large issue. Power in numbers and the power of a collective voice can definitely make a difference to those who are able to spur change: the policy makers.
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