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Agencies rally to raise awareness of hunger
archived from: 2004-06-11
by: Patricia Bartos

Some 35 million people in this country struggle to meet their daily food needs, while a patchwork of governmental and charitable agencies try to assist them.

Many people bring home paychecks but still cannot overcome what experts in the field call “food insecurity.”

“Most poor people are working,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, addressing more than 300 people at the third annual National Hunger Awareness Day rally June 3 in Market Square in Downtown Pittsburgh.

They are cooking for and raising other people’s children, cleaning, working in hospitals, guarding buildings, but still not making it economically.

“The working poor need help,” he said.

“We must put America back to work,” the Rev. Jackson said. “We have a plan to rebuild Afghanistan and to rebuild Iraq, but there is no plan to rebuild America.”

The National Anti-Hunger Organizations have produced a “Blueprint to End Hunger” as part of the commitment of the U.S. government to cut food insecurity and hunger in half by 2010. The plan calls for strengthening federal nutrition assistance programs while encouraging communities and schools, businesses and faith-based groups to become involved.

Area leaders in public health, education, government and human services spoke at the rally on the need for such involvement.

“Hunger is not confined to the inner city today, it’s moved out to the suburbs, it impacts all races and all ages,” said Cynthia Moore of the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. “Hunger has spread to the well-educated.

“They are your co-workers,” she said. “They are people who, on the surface, look as if everything is OK.”

The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank in Duquesne, a co-sponsor of the rally, serves 120,000 people each month through 350 member agencies across the region. More than 37,000 of those served are children and 35,000 of the households have at least one person working full time.

Sister Liguori Rossner, executive director of the Jubilee Association, sees between 150 and 175 people a day at the Jubilee Kitchen in Pittsburgh’s Uptown neighborhood.

“Food insecurity is the common thread,” she said. “People don’t know where their food will come from.”

She has three solutions to help ease the crisis.

“First is affordable low-income housing leading to home ownership,” she said. “In some families, housing costs can reach more than 70 percent of income, including utilities.”

She wants to strengthen the food stamp program. Currently, just one-third of people visiting the Jubilee Kitchen access them.

“Food stamps are the first line of defense,” she said. “But it has a stigma attached and not enough people are using it. We have to streamline the enrollment process that is now so difficult. And we have to make it a free-standing program. We have to have officials say, ‘We encourage you to sign up.’”

And she wants to see an increase in the minimum wage, to bridge the distance between a living wage and the minimum wage.

“We must close the gap,” she said.

Sponsors for the rally were the food bank, Allegheny County Department of Human Services and Giant Eagle.

“We’re grateful for the community response that allowed Pittsburgh to be part of this nationwide effort to build a movement to end hunger,” said Joyce Rothermel, who heads the food bank and serves on the board of America’s Second Harvest.

To follow up the event, Giant Eagle stores will encourage contributions by making available donation tickets in denominations of $2 and $5 through June 30.

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