Hunger Must Be Fought on All Fronts

To the Editor:

As executive director of Foodchain — The National Food-Rescue Network, I agree with Janet Poppendieck (“Emergency Food: Moving Beyond the Hunger Trap,” September 10) that the federal government should play the key role in providing for those in need. Our network, and most national hunger-relief organizations, have become tireless advocates for strengthening the social safety net, which was thinned considerably by the welfare-reform legislation of 1996.

While the author makes many good points, I believe she simplifies things too much when she suggests that emergency-food programs are responsible for creating what she calls “a culture of charity that normalizes destitution and legitimizes personal generosity as a response to major social and economic dislocation.”

In fact, community-based programs, such as those food-rescue programs in the Foodchain network, represent an opportunity for private industry to take more responsibility without absolving the government of its role. By engaging the business sector, we are educating hundreds of thousands of people about the state of food insecurity in America today. As a result, they may come to realize that the non-profit sector cannot address the need alone.

The effects of 1996’s welfare-reform legislation are gradually being felt in virtually every community around the country. Our national organization and the local Foodchain programs have been forced to be more innovative with the limited resources we do have.

One efficient response is Foodchain’s “Community Kitchens: A National Job-Training, Food-Recycling Initiative.” This national initiative, funded by lead corporate sponsor Philip Morris, is a logi cal response to a chief cause of hunger — unemployment. Clients at emergency feeding sites are trained in professional kitchen skills while they prepare donated food into balanced meals.

We feel that this initiative is changing the traditional social-service response to hunger. It helps people take real steps toward improving their lives. The prototype program — D.C. Central Kitchen, in Washington — has since 1992 trained more than 200 formerly homeless and/or unemployed men and women in professional kitchen skills. Today, 10 similar kitchens are operating around the country, with twice that number expected to be in operation by early 1999.

Let me emphasize that neither community kitchens nor emergency feeding programs can begin to close the widening gap brought on by the dissolution of the federal safety net. They are crucial parts of the process, however. Only a broad collaboration between the public, private, and non-profit sectors can make a significant impact in the fight against hunger in America.

Christina A. Martin
Executive Director
Foodchain-The National Food-Rescue Network
Kansas City, Mo.