Part II - Who Feeds the Hungry/That's a Wrap

A few weeks ago, I discussed some of the government-funded social programs which assist low-income families who need help paying for food and groceries. For this final edition of Hunger Games, I want to focus on some of the private, non-profit organizations who help to fill the gaps.

As I mentioned before, government assistance to food-insecure populations can only go so far. That's when the non-profit community steps in, in the form of food banks, food pantries, and charitable organizations that support this valuable network. According to the USDA, "there are currently more than 200 food banks in the country, with more than 63,000 affiliated agencies like (food pantries and shelters). This network distributes more than 2.5 billion pounds of food to needy Americans each year" (USDA, 2013).

Food banks are usually located in larger urban areas, and serve as organizing centers and distribution points for a larger surrounding area. The Tarrant Area Food Bank, for example, is based in Fort Worth, but serves a surrounding 13 country area, and works with 300 smaller food pantries, shelters, and faith-based groups devoted to serving their communities (Tarrant Area Food Bank, 2013). Organizations such as the TAFB count on both monetary and in-kind donations from corporate partners, larger state and national organizations, such as Feeding America and the Texas Food Bank Network, and individuals like you and me. Regardless of where you live, there is probably some sort of food pantry being operated near you.

Among the non-profit groups whose focus is feeding hungry people, there are several organizations which serve specialized populations. Meals on Wheels is an organization which works specifically to provide a daily meal to the nation’s elderly citizens who are unable to afford, or prepare, food for themselves. No Kid Hungry, part of the Share Our Strength Network, directs its resources toward feeding school-aged children.

You can find all of these organizations online at the links provided below. Even a small donation to these groups, or your local food bank or pantry, can be beneficial. If you’re short on cash, you can always donate a few hours of your time. Volunteers are always needed!

Tarrant Area Food Bank: http://www.tafb.org/

Feeding America: http://feedingamerica.org/

Texas Food Bank Network: http://tfbn.org/

Meals on Wheels: http://www.mowaa.org/

No Kid Hungry: http://www.nokidhungry.org/

My goal in presenting food insecurity as a blog topic was to raise awareness. The facts and numbers I’ve presented throughout this blog are no longer shocking to me, but I’ve been living with them for a while now. I guess that’s why I’m always surprised to relay them to someone else and witness that person’s shock and disbelief. And it is hard to believe that hunger is such a prevalent problem in a nation as prosperous as ours.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this blog, and I hope that you’ve learned something from the experience. That there are still so many Americans struggling to keep food in the house, and to make sure their children have regular meals, is a serious problem here in the land of plenty. We, as a nation, are better than this problem would suggest. There are solutions to the hunger problem. We simply have to keep working to find them.

Tarrant Area Food Bank, 2013. About Us. Retrieved from: http://www.tafb.org/AboutUs.html

United States Department of Agriculture, 2013. Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Retrieved from:http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentidonly=true&contentid=fnp_page01-4C.xml

PowerPoint presentation

Link to Presentation:
http://youtu.be/ocLP0ovtqUw

Revised Lesson Plan 072714

Food Insecurity Lesson Plan

Presented to Food Bank Volunteers

Kelly Greene

7/27/2014

HS 6453.50

Program: Food Insecurity Education Program

Health Topic and Intended Audience: Food Insecurity in America. The audience for this presentation will be volunteers at the local food pantry or food bank. The majority of the volunteers who offer their time and assistance to this program, are, for the most part, fortunate enough to have never truly experienced food insecurity, so they may have sympathy and concern for the citizens who seek help from this organization, but they may not have had to shop for food while maintaining a strict or limited budget. The purpose of this program is to create more knowledgeable volunteers. Even if they have not shared the same experiences with the community we serve, they should be aware of the issues those people face.

Goals: Through today’s activities, the goal is to raise awareness of the plight of those individuals who come to the food bank for assistance every day. In order to better serve the community and the citizens who come through our door, it’s important to become familiar with the SNAP program and how it works, and for each volunteer to experience the process of shopping on a strict budget, just as the citizens we serve are forced to do on a regular basis.

Lesson/Presentation: SNAP Benefits and Smart Shopping on a Shoestring

Setting/Audience: Adult volunteers at area food pantry/food bank

Date: 7/12/14 – 4 hour session from 1:00-5:00 PM

Materials Needed: notepads, pens, pencils, whiteboards, dry erase markers, handouts from USDA and other organizations, calculators, food bank classroom and “mock” grocery store, food bank vouchers.

Guiding Health Education Theory/Model: The lesson presented here is not designed to assist with behavioral change among the participants, per se. The purpose of the lesson is to create a greater awareness of the issues faced by those individuals who must cope with food insecurity and/or procure food for themselves or their families while operating with a very limited budget. The majority of our volunteers may not have experienced this same situation, so by mirroring the behaviors of those individuals, and becoming familiar with the SNAP system and its mechanisms, the volunteers will become familiar with the system, and recognize the need to learn sensible shopping habits that will make grocery dollars go further.

For this reason, the Social Cognitive Theory may best fit the lesson. SCT considers the relationship between environment, the people in it, and their behaviors (Gilbert, Sawyer, & McNeill, 2011). The goal of this lesson is to raise awareness among the food bank volunteers. By providing them with a real-life situation (providing them with a voucher and giving them a task of shopping for a week’s worth of food with only that voucher), we are putting them “in the shoes” of those individuals our organization serves, and thus changing their environment. The purpose of this exercise is to force them to change their behavior (how they shop for food) and allowing them to experience this activity from someone else’s point of view.

The opportunity should not only raise the awareness of the volunteers, but also help them learn to be more budget-minded and savvy shoppers. Even if they don’t use these lessons in their own lives, they will be able to share the information they take away from the lesson to assist those individuals who come to this food bank for help and guidance.

Objectives:

As stated above, our overall objective to this lesson is to help develop volunteers who are familiar with the concepts of food insecurity, managing SNAP benefits, and becoming more aware of the obstacles that the community we serve must face on a daily basis.

·         (Cognitive) – The participant will become familiar with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and learn to calculate appropriate SNAP benefits using the eligibility guidelines provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)  (http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligibility)

·         (Cognitive) - By the end of this session, the participant will be able to identify the seven food items to buy when shopping on a shoestring budget (http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2014/01/16/7-foods-to-buy-when-youre-broke)

·         (Cognitive) – By the end of the lesson, the participants will be able to accurately list these items on the grocery list worksheet handout. (http://www.choosemyplate.gov/budget/downloads/grocery_list_interactive.pdf)

·         (Psychomotor) – By the end of the session, the participant will construct a grocery list of healthy foods and “shop” for these items with only the limited budget allowed for a single individual receiving SNAP benefits.

·         (Affective) – At the end of this session, the volunteer will recognize the challenges of selecting healthy foods on a limited budget, and at least half of the participants will show a willingness to experience the challenges first-hand by volunteering to take the SNAP Challenge.

Introduction: Now that everyone has had the opportunity to tour the food pantry facility and see how this organization works, we’re going to spend our session today learning more about the challenges that those individuals who regularly experience food insecurity face on a daily basis. Many of the individuals we serve are unemployed or disabled, but there are also many who are classified as “working poor”, those who work a full-time job, or sometimes multiple jobs, but whose income is so low that they qualify for additional assistance in the form of SNAP benefits.

At the conclusion of today’s session, you will all be familiar with SNAP, you will know who qualifies for these benefits, you’ll know seven grocery items which are considered the most nutritionally sound for those who must learn to stretch their grocery dollars, you’re going to construct a grocery list and “shop” here in the food pantry, on a strict budget. If you are particularly moved by this experience, I would like to see if you will volunteer to put yourself in the shoes of the public we serve, and agree to take the SNAP challenge, spending one week preparing and eating only those foods which you have purchased with the SNAP benefit allowance, based on the participation guidelines handout. http://www.harvesters.org/_FileLibrary/FileImage/ParticipationGuidelines-evergreen.pdf

Content Outline	Method	Time Needed	Materials Needed
1)      SNAP ·         What is SNAP? ·         Who funds it? ·         Who is eligible? ·         How are benefits calculated?	Lecture/Discussion	One hour	Notepads, pens, pencils, whiteboard, markers, calculators, PowerPoint handout
2)      Learning to Shop with limited funds from SNAP ·         Making a plan ·         Where to shop ·         What to buy ·         How to save	Discussion/Activities	One hour	USDA handouts, computers with internet access
3)      Let’s Go Shopping! ·         Meal planning ·         Making a grocery list ·         Shopping at the pantry ·         Explaining purchases	Activity/Discussion	One hour, 30 minutes	Notepads, pens, calculators, grocery “vouchers” or play money
4)      Wrap-up ·         Raising awareness ·         Experiencing firsthand ·         The SNAP Challenge	Discussion/Questions	30 minutes	None

The four-hour lesson, shown above, will be broken into four parts.

Part 1 – SNAP – This part will be presented in a lecture format, discussing the USDA’s SNAP benefits program. How did SNAP begin, and how is it funded? These questions will be answered, and then there will be a discussion about who is eligible to receive SNAP benefits and how benefits are calculated. Using handouts from the USDA which indicate guidelines for SNAP benefits, the participants will be given several samples of individuals or families who may or may not be eligible for SNAP benefits, and they will work together to calculate what the benefits will be for each sample. Depending on the size of the audience, this activity will be completed in small groups, with each group taking a different sample.

Part 2 – Learning to shop on a SNAP budget – This section will be part discussion and part activity. We will discuss a list of seven food items which are both nutritionally sound and inexpensive, and which can be included on the grocery list of most any SNAP shopper. We will also talk about the importance of meal planning, where to shop most affordably, what items to look for, and where to find coupons. Participants will use the internet to look at grocery ads or find coupons.

Part 3 – Let’s Go Shopping! – Based on budget estimates for SNAP benefits for a single individual, each participant will make a shopping trip to the food pantry store to “purchase” a week’s worth of groceries for him/herself, using a voucher or play money. Prior to shopping, everyone will create a basic meal plan and a grocery list to follow. At the store, participants will shop, following their grocery lists as closely as possible, and using their calculators to keep track of their purchases. Anyone who exceeds the set grocery budget must put something back to stay within budget. When everyone is done, we will spend time discussing the purchases, and the rationale for buying the items acquired.

Part 4 – Wrap-up – As part of the wrap-up, we will discuss the SNAP Challenge, the program which tasks those participants who volunteer to participate with living for one week on the typical SNAP allowance that they had for their shopping trip. By taking the SNAP Challenge, each volunteer will get to experience first-hand the difficulty of eating every meal on a strict budget for a full seven days. The idea is that by experiencing this challenge, and possibly feeling hungry part of them time, empathy for the citizens we serve will be increased. Even for the most compassionate volunteers, this dose of reality can improve and increase their resolve to continue their work to help food pantry clientele, and to better understand how to discuss their hardships.

We will set aside 5-10 minutes during the wrap-up period for questions and comments from the participants.

Anticipated Problems/Solutions: Technical issues are always a possibility. In order to be prepared for any issues with the PowerPoint presentation, I will provide handouts of the presentation to the participants. This will allow them to make notes, even if the presentation  proceeds without incident.

The students will be given the opportunity to look for grocery coupons or circulars via the internet, but if there are issues with connectivity, I will provide some grocery adds and circulars for the participants to look through as they prepare their shopping lists.

References

Crowe, A. (2014, January 16). 7 Foods to Buy When You're Broke. Retrieved from U.S. News and World Report: http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2014/01/16/7-foods-to-buy-when-youre-broke

Gilbert, G. G., Sawyer, R. G., & McNeill, E. B. (2011). Health Education. Creating Strategies for School and Community Health. Sudbury, MA: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.

Harvesters Community Food Network. (2014). Take the Food Stamp Challenge. Retrieved from Harvesters.org: http://www.harvesters.org/GetInformed/Index.asp?x=060|080&~=

United States Department of Agriculture, 2013. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.        Eligibility. Retrieved from: http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligibility.

United States Department of Agriculture, (n.d.). Healthy Eating on a Budget. Retrieved from:              http://www.choosemyplate.gov/budget/index.html

Handouts to accompany Lesson Plan

Handouts

SNAP Eligibility information - http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligibility

Seven grocery items listing - http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2014/01/16/7-foods-to-buy-when-youre-broke

Create a grocery game plan - http://www.choosemyplate.gov/budget/downloads/grocery_list_interactive.pdf

SNAP Challenge information - http://www.harvesters.org/_FileLibrary/FileImage/ParticipationGuidelines-evergreen.pdf

Hunger is color-blind

Hunger does not discriminate.

Food insecurity is found in 12.6 million American households (No Kid Hungry, 2013), and these households are made up of people from all races, ethnicities, and religions.

However, according to information from No Kid Hungry, food insecurity is disproportionately higher in minority households. The national average of food-insecure households is 10.9%, but black households experience food insecurity at double this rate, 21.8%, and the rate for Hispanic households is almost that high, at 19.5%. By comparison, white households experience food insecurity at a much lower rate of 7.8%. And the news is even worse for households with children. The rates of food insecurity increase among all racial groups in households where children are living (No Kid Hungry, 2013).

There are a number of significant consequences of food insecurity, as have been mentioned in this blog previously: children from food-insecure homes have poorer health overall than children from food-secure homes. They are sick more frequently, are more prone to ear infections, are more often iron-deficient, and must be hospitalized more often than kids who don’t have to worry about getting enough to eat (No Kid Hungry, 2013).

As you can probably imagine, this has a negative effect on their ability to learn.  Food-insecure children miss more school days, and are more likely to underperform at school when they do attend. And don’t forget the psychological effects of chronic hunger. Food-insecure children suffer with higher levels of stress, and tend to be more withdrawn or disruptive. Rates of behavioral disorders and mental health issues are higher for these kids, too (No Kid Hungry, 2013).

One of the by-products of food insecurity, oddly, is obesity. While it may seem to be a strange consequence, the risk for obesity is somewhat higher for people living in food-insecure households.  One of the major reasons for this phenomenon is the availability, or lack thereof, of healthful foods in urban settings. Finding healthy food options is most limited in these areas, which are historically more heavily populated by racial and ethnic minorities  (Freedman & Bell, 2009).

Why is this? According to a 2009 study conducted by Darcy Freedman and Bethany Bell, food environments, or the collective sources for food and groceries in a particular area (this includes grocery stores, convenience stores, restaurants, local farmers’ markets, and fast food outlets) differ based on the communities in which they are located. Healthier food options – fruits, vegetables, whole grain products, lean meats, etc. – are more easily found in larger chain supermarkets. Larger chain supermarkets, in turn, are found more frequently in communities that are populated mostly by whites, and/or those families who are classified as middle- to high-income.

For those families who live in poorer neighborhoods, the food environment most readily available to them doesn’t offer the same options. Fast food outlets and convenience stores are much more prevalent, and offer little in the way of fresh, unprocessed, or low-fat options.  Add to this a limited food budget, and those options are further reduced. Feeding a family on a tight budget may often be achieved with an unhealthy (but cheap) array of junk food from a convenience store, or a bag of burgers off the dollar menu at the local drive-thru window.

In order to address the issue of food insecurity among all populations, there will need to be a shift in thinking on the parts of both local governments and economic boards, and corporate America as well. Rather than offering economic incentives to grocery chains and big box corporations to open a new location in the new “hot” or trendy areas of our cities, there should be a greater effort made to install these outlets in lower-income and urban communities. Until there are better options available to the residents in these communities, food insecurity will remain one of the most troublesome issues we face as a nation.

References:

Freedman, D. A., & Bell, B. A. (2009). Access to Healthful Foods among an Urban Food Insecure Population: Perceptions versus Reality. Journal of Urban Health, 86 (6), 825-838.

No Kid Hungry. (2013). Food Insecurity, Children, and Race. Retrieved from Nokidhungry.org: http://join.nokidhungry.org/site/DocServer/Food_Insecurity_as_it_relates_to_Race_and_Ethnicity.pdf

Lesson Plan

Program: Food Insecurity Education Program

Lesson/Presentation: SNAP Benefits and Smart Shopping on a Shoestring

Setting/Audience: Adult volunteers at area food pantry/food bank

Date: 7/12/14 – 4 hour session from 1:00-5:00 PM

Materials Needed: notepads, pens, pencils, whiteboards, dry erase markers, handouts from USDA, calculators.

Objectives:

·        (Cognitive) – The participant will become familiar with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and learn to calculate appropriate SNAP benefits using the eligibility guidelines provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)  (http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligibility)

·        (Cognitive) - By the end of this session, the participant will be able to identify the seven food items to buy when shopping on a shoestring budget (http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2014/01/16/7-foods-to-buy-when-youre-broke) and will accurately list these items on the grocery list worksheet handout.(http://www.choosemyplate.gov/budget/downloads/grocery_list_interactive.pdf)

·        (Psychomotor) – By the end of the session, the participant will construct a grocery list of healthy foods and “shop” for these items with only the limited budget allowed for a single individual receiving SNAP benefits.

·        (Affective) – At the end of this session, the volunteer will recognize the challenges of selecting healthy foods on a limited budget, and at least half of the participants will show a willingness to experience the challenges first-hand by volunteering to take the SNAP Challenge.

Introduction: Now that everyone has had the opportunity to tour the food pantry facility and see how this organization works, we’re going to spend our session today learning more about the challenges that those individuals who regularly experience food insecurity face on a daily basis. Many of the individuals we serve are unemployed or disabled, but there are also many who are classified as “working poor”, those who work a full-time job, or sometimes multiple jobs, but whose income is so low that they qualify for additional assistance in the form of SNAP benefits.

At the conclusion of today’s session, you will all be familiar with SNAP, you will know who qualifies for these benefits, you’ll know seven grocery items which are considered the most nutritionally sound for those who must learn to stretch their grocery dollars, you’re going to construct a grocery list and “shop” here in the food pantry, on a strict budget. If you are particularly moved by this experience, I would like to see if you will volunteer to put yourself in the shoes of the public we serve, and agree to take the SNAP challenge, spending one week preparing and eating only those foods which you have purchased with the SNAP benefit allowance, based on the participation guidelines handout. http://www.harvesters.org/_FileLibrary/FileImage/ParticipationGuidelines-evergreen.pdf

Content Outline	Method	Time Needed	Materials Needed
1)      SNAP ·        What is SNAP? ·        Who funds it? ·        Who is eligible? ·        How are benefits calculated?	Lecture/Discussion	One hour	Notepads, pens, pencils, whiteboard, markers, calculators
2)      Learning to Shop with limited funds from SNAP ·        Making a plan ·        Where to shop ·        What to buy ·        How to save	Discussion/Activities	One hour	USDA handouts, computers with internet access
3)      Let’s Go Shopping! ·        Meal planning ·        Making a grocery list ·        Shopping at the pantry ·        Explaining purchases	Activity/Discussion	One hour, 30 minutes	Notepads, pens, calculators, grocery “vouchers” or play money
4)      Wrap-up ·        Raising awareness ·        Experiencing firsthand ·        The SNAP Challenge	Discussion/Questions	30 minutes	None

The four-hour lesson, shown above, will be broken into four parts.

Part 1 – SNAP – This part will be presented in a lecture format, discussing the USDA’s SNAP benefits program. How did SNAP begin, and how is it funded? These questions will be answered, and then there will be a discussion about who is eligible to receive SNAP benefits and how benefits are calculated. Using handouts from the USDA which indicate guidelines for SNAP benefits, the participants will be given several samples of individuals or families who may or may not be eligible for SNAP benefits, and they will work together to calculate what the benefits will be for each sample. Depending on the size of the audience, this activity will be completed in small groups, with each group taking a different sample.

Part 2 – Learning to shop on a SNAP budget – This section will be part discussion and part activity. We will discuss a list of seven food items which are both nutritionally sound and inexpensive, and which can be included on the grocery list of most any SNAP shopper. We will also talk about the importance of meal planning, where to shop most affordably, what items to look for, and where to find coupons. Participants will use the internet to look at grocery ads or find coupons.

Part 3 – Let’s Go Shopping! – Based on budget estimates for SNAP benefits for a single individual, each participant will make a shopping trip to the food pantry store to “purchase” a week’s worth of groceries for him/herself, using a voucher or play money. Prior to shopping, everyone will create a basic meal plan and a grocery list to follow. At the store, participants will shop, following their grocery lists as closely as possible, and using their calculators to keep track of their purchases. Anyone who exceeds the set grocery budget must put something back to stay within budget. When everyone is done, we will spend time discussing the purchases, and the rationale for buying the items acquired.

Part 4 – Wrap-up – As part of the wrap-up, we will discuss the SNAP Challenge, the program which tasks those participants who volunteer to participate with living for one week on the typical SNAP allowance that they had for their shopping trip. By taking the SNAP Challenge, each volunteer will get to experience first-hand the difficulty of eating every meal on a strict budget for a full seven days. The idea is that by experiencing this challenge, and possibly feeling hungry part of them time, empathy for the citizens we serve will be increased. Even for the most compassionate volunteers, this dose of reality can improve and increase their resolve to continue their work to help food pantry clientele, and to better understand how to discuss their hardships.

References:

Crowe, A. (2014, January 16). 7 Foods to Buy When You're Broke. Retrieved from U.S. News and World Report: http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2014/01/16/7-foods-to-buy-when-youre-broke

Harvesters Community Food Network. (2014). Take the Food Stamp Challenge. Retrieved from       Harvesters.org: http://www.harvesters.org/GetInformed/Index.asp?x=060|080&~=

United States Department of Agriculture, 2013. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.             Eligibility. Retrieved from: http://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/eligibility.

United States Department of Agriculture, (n.d.). Healthy Eating on a Budget. Retrieved from:              http://www.choosemyplate.gov/budget/index.html