Articles in the Featured Category
Last Thursday’s Hunger Action Forum was the perfect precursor to this week being Hunger Action Week. One thing was clear from all of the large- and small-group sessions: It’s not just United Way of King County who’s talking about shining a light on hunger in our community.
Forum-goers talked about everything hunger: obesity and widespread access to nutritious food, summer meals for kids on subsidized school meal programs, cooking classes, community gardens, food delivery for seniors and…
I figured I’d start out this post with a old adage I’ve heard more than a few times in the past week:
“A hungry man is an angry man”
Ellen Gustafson started off her presentation at the Hunger Action Forum with this quote, and in her work with a military defense think tank, she found it to be true – areas where there is very low food security are the same areas of the world that are the most violent and…
At first glance it is easy to make the connection between hunger and agriculture – after all, our food comes from farms, so if there is hunger there must be something wrong with our farming practices, right? However the nuances of this web of relationships are more complex and meaningful than meets the eye. From the selective subsidies in the Farm Bill to poor working conditions and pay for farm workers to the consolidation of “Big Ag”, the way we have been producing our food…
To Plan…
The folks over at Rainier Valley Food Bank are showing us just how important planning is to this challenge. The Executive Director of the food bank, Sam Osborne, writes that although he is a thrifty shopper and a practical cook, the “very thought of shopping for food on a budget is giving me the willies”. Follow Sam as he gets over his shopping-on-a-budget phobia and finds a way to spend only $18 a day for his family of three.…
The Hunger-Obesity Paradox
It is hard for many to believe that there is a hunger problem in America when the same population that is hungry is also often excessively overweight. This paradox forces us to look at hunger in a different way: not starving, but food insecure. This means that nearly 50 million people in America have at some point been unsure where their next meal is coming from, don’t have enough money to buy the basics and pay rent and utilities, or have trouble…
With food bank use up 30%, the donation of nonperishable food items couldn’t have come at a better time! Whitepage.com employees decided that their participation in Hunger Action Week was going to be in the form of a food drive, and they collected quite the bounty in a very short time (just 2 weeks). It was such a delight to help unload the fully packed Subaru on Sunday, March 18th at the Microsoft Store in University Village. They had collected an assortment of items that…
I have to confess upfront to borrowing the title of this feature article (and a lot of content) from JD Lasica (thanks JD for essentially writing my article for me). I just read an article he posted on the Socialbrite blog titled “The 7 elements of a Strategic Social Media Plan”. Lasica asks “how many nonprofits do you know that have incorporated “social” as part of their overall strategy, or even their communications strategy?” The question about strategy struck a…
The Seattle-King County Asset Building Collaborative will be having their annual Financial Fitness day on March 31st. They have joined with over 40 community partners to be able to bring community members FREE financial services. These services include everything from one-on-one help filling out a tax return, printing and analyzing free credit reports, opening bank accounts, creating a household budget, working with a financial planner, applying for public benefits (food, utilities, child care, health insurance, social security), learning how to start a business, shredding…
Each March, United Way of King County holds our annual Spirit of Caring Celebration which honors and celebrates the best of the best in our community. One of the most coveted Spirit of Caring awards, “Volunteer of the Year” is typically reserved for an individual volunteer who has shown commitment to the mission and priorities of United Way that exceeds expectations and whose work has had a significant impact on advancing United Way’s mission. Well, this year’s Volunteer of the Year was a bit different…in…
United Way of King County is shining a bright light on hunger and we’re asking everyone including teenagers and children to think about their relationship to food. Who has food, who doesn’t, where does your food come from?
As parents or educators you might be wondering how you can get your children/students involved in Hunger Action Week. Whole families can participate in the Hunger Challenge (eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner, spending only $7 a day—the same amount allotted to a single person on food stamps),…
