July 15, 2018 at 1:42 pm
Seniors Being Hungry is a Nationwide Epidemic
Nearly one in every six seniors in America faces the threat of hunger and not being properly nourished. This applies to those who aren’t sure where their next meal is coming from and those who don’t have access to the healthiest possible food options. The issue is severe enough that the AARP reports that seniors face a healthcare bill of more than $130 billion every year due to medical issues stemming from senior hunger.
Senior hunger is an expansive issue that requires an understanding of exactly what constitutes a senior being “hungry,” the issues that stem from senior hunger, and how seniors who are hungry can be helped.
To understand the concept of seniors being hungry, you must understand what it means to be “food insecure.” When you are food insecure, it means that there is “limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways,” as defined by a study published in The Journal of Nutrition. Essentially, it means that you aren’t receiving and/or don’t have access to the necessary foods and nutrients to help sustain your life.
The concept of being “hungry” is a state-of-mind, meaning that there is a physical aspect to the lack of food. Attending to an area where people are hungry and basically starving is a much more immediate and severe problem to solve. Being food insecure, on the other hand, helps include people who may have enough food and don’t technically live consistently in hunger, but the food they are eating—usually in large amounts—isn’t up to nutritional and dietary standards.
In 2006, the USDA broke down food insecurity into two categories to help determine how food insecure someone is:
Of Households In America Are Food Insecure
Low Food Security
While there may not be an overall reduction in how much food someone is intaking, there may be a lower quality and variety of your diet. For instance, there may be reduced amounts of fresh vegetables and meats, but that may be replaced with fast food. In this category, people don’t miss many meals, but the type of meals that are being eaten diminish in quality.
Very Low Food Security
When you have very low food security, your health and ability to correct it with healthy food is in a dire situation. To be assigned this categorization, the USDA says there must be “multiple indications of disrupted eating patterns and reduced food intake,” meaning you’re often missing meals and not eating enough to survive.
The Numbers Behind Senior Hunger
In 2017, there are just more than 49 million Americans age 65 and over, and about 8 million of them can be considered facing the threat of hunger.
Not only is senior hunger such a large issue now, the threat of it persisting as a problem into the future is high because of the high rate of seniors expected to exist. As seniors lost million dollars in the stock market through the 2007 economic recession, their wealth- including retirement funds, insurance payouts, and pension checks – plummeted. This increased the rate at which seniors spent money on lesser quality food in favor of other things like insurance.
In 2014, the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger (NFESH) reported the following facts:
Of seniors “face the threat of hunger,” meaning they’re at some level of food insecurity
Increase in hunger among the senior populations from 2007 to 2014, which is credited partially to the economic recession that started in 2007
Seniors are expected to be in America by 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau
Seniors are expected to take up 20% of the population by 2050
Are Some Seniors More Affected than Others?
An even deeper issue with senior hunger, aside from how many seniors it affects, is how disproportionately the food insecurity is spread out amongst race, class levels, and geographic location. Let’s take a look at some of the factors that contribute to how certain seniors are more affected than the others.
CLASS
NFESH performed a deep analysis of the level of food insecurity among seniors in 2008. Within the report is the role seniors’ closeness to the poverty line plays in how food insecure they are, whether they are marginally food insecure, food insecure, or very low food secure. For example, nearly 80 percent of seniors “below 50 percent of the poverty line,” which in 2013 was $15,510 for a two-person household, were at some level of food insecurity.
While food insecurity rates dropped closer to and above the poverty line, the report clarifies that “hunger cuts across the income spectrum.” More than 50 percent of seniors who are at-risk of being food insecure live above the poverty line.
Craig Gundersen, a professor at the University of Illinois and food security expert, says that the main areas where food insecurity is increasing the most is among Americans making less than $30,000 per year and those between the ages of 60 and 69.
Gundersen blames the increase in food insecurity rates to many things, but primarily there was a decrease in wages and overall net worth after the recession in the late 2000s. Many seniors lost mass amounts of money when the stock markets crashed, and as they’re entering retirement, they didn’t have the time to recover. “Most of them can’t rely on Social Security income, and can’t receive Medicare until they are 65,” Gundersen said.
A Census Bureau report from 2011 notes that about 15 percent of seniors (about one in six) live in poverty, based on a “supplemental poverty measure” that adjusts the poverty level to modern day living expenses. This is important because you are more likely to develop an illness like cancer or heart disease—both often linked to your overall health— when you live in poverty.
Of Seniors Who are At-Risk of Being Food Insecure Live Above the Poverty Line
Of the Population Without a Car in Many Southern Counties Don’t Have a Supermarket Within a Mile
RACE
Another issue with senior hunger—and food insecurity in general—is how much race affects the likelihood that you are food insecure. And this is directly tied to class level, as minorities often live in lower income brackets. While the AARP points out that, as you age, the rate of food insecurity raises among all races and ethnicities, there are still those who experience food insecurity at much higher rates.
The aforementioned 2008 report of food insecurity found that African-American seniors were far more likely to have some sort of level of food insecurity than white seniors (almost 50 percent compared to 16 percent) and that Hispanics were more likely to live at some level of food insecurity than non-Hispanics (40 percent compared to 17 percent).
“African-American households are two to two-and-a-half times as likely to be in one of the three categories as the typical senior household,” the report clarified, also noting that Hispanics face similar odds. It’s also more likely in both these minority groups for someone to be food insecure if they are widowed or divorced and live alone.
FOOD DESERTS
As mentioned, there are also certain parts of the country that are more likely to be food insecure than others. Areas where access for fresh produce and food is the most limited are known as “food deserts.” Not only does this include the absence of fresh food, but food deserts also include areas where access to food is inhibited because of the lack of grocery stores or the lack of transportation to get to one.
Food deserts often fall in poorer areas of the country, which further fuels the food insecurity levels due to class.
All but one of the top 10 states for food insecurity are in the South or Midwest. These states match a map of the United States that shows the high concentrations of food deserts. In many of the states with high levels of food insecurity, there are also counties with larger concentrations of areas where there is no supermarket within a mile of people who don’t have a car. For instance, in many counties in Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisiana, more than 10 percent of the population without a car doesn’t have a supermarket within a mile.
This severely affects an individual’s health. Those who lived more than 1.75 miles from a grocery store actually turned out to have a higher body mass index (BMI) than those who lived closer to one, a 2006 study found.
According to the USDA, the states with the highest levels of food insecurity (rates between 20 percent and 30 percent) among elders 60 and older are:
South Carolina
Alabama
Mississippi
New Mexico
Maine
Louisiana
Texas
Arkansas
Missouri
Kansas
The Challenges that Can Cause Senior Hunger
As we’ve seen, there are socioeconomic reasons why a senior may be food insecure, and we just looked at some of the main ones. But there are plenty of other factors that may cause someone to not get the proper food they need to maintain their health:
LIVING ALONE
According to a 2012 report, nearly half of the senior households that experienced food insecurity were those where a senior was living alone. There are many things that living alone can do to spur food insecurity, such as not having someone else to help get food from the store if you’re lacking mobility and cook it for you. Living alone also factors into depression and the development of dementia, both of which have side effects of the suppression of hunger. The NFESH study backs this up as well, noting that “those living alone are twice as likely to experience hunger compared to married seniors.”
AGE
Seniors aged below 70 are more likely to experience bouts of food security than those aged 70 and up. The NFESH report showed that as seniors aged, they were less likely to be any level of food insecure, with those under 70 (20 percent) living at some level of food insecurity than those over 80 (14 percent). This can be attributed to many factors, such as the amount of money received from government programs like Medicare (which help alleviate medical costs so more money can be spent on food) and whether or not they live in an assisted living facility, which may help with more consistent eating habits.
EDUCATION LEVEL
Those with a high school degree or no high school degree at all are more likely to experience some sort of food security than those with a college degree. There is a stark drop off of food insecurity levels with someone who at least has some college education. This can be tied to getting paid higher wages at jobs, which then translates to the potential of having more money saved up when you’re older.
Overall, senior women are slightly more likely to be food insecure than men, but the rates are not vast enough to be a determining factor in the likelihood of food insecurity. All of these factors, though—from the big ones like geographic location and race to the smaller ones like age—play into seniors’ overall health, a detrimental factor to how long seniors will live.
Illnesses Caused by Malnourishment
As seniors become more food insecure, they also become more likely to develop diseases and illness that could cut their life short. Feeding America, a nonprofit organization that focuses on hunger issues across the country, took a look at various illness that were more likely to occur when seniors lived with food insecurity. We’ll dive into those illness—along with a couple more—that can stem from eating poor food and eating at an infrequent rate.
According to a 2017 report from Feeding America, food-insecure seniors are 60 percent more likely to suffer from depression than food-secure seniors. Another study from the AARP determined that food insecure people were nearly three times more likely to suffer from depression.
Some of the leading causes of depression include having conflicts in your interpersonal relationships and life-altering events that completely shift your life, typically trending negative. The inability to provide consistent healthy food for yourself or your family can lead to depression. This is because though you may have once lived food secure, you are constantly worrying about making sure you’re going to have some sort of food on your plate for your next meal. Years of worrying about your next meal can take a toll and put you in a constant depressive mood. If you do suffer from depression, a side effect is a suppressed hunger, and that can further worsen your health—it’s a vicious cycle.
There are many negative effects food insecurity has on the heart, both from a level of stress and other physiological aspects. The Feeding America study found that seniors who suffer from food insecurity were 40 percent more likely to experience congestive heart failure, where the heart ceases pumping blood around the body at a necessary pace. This is a direct result of the quality of food eaten among food-insecure seniors and how lacking the necessary nutrient—especially when older—can play a role in exacerbating dire health issues.
The inconsistency at which food-insecure seniors eat also fuels stress levels that have negative effects on the heart as they’re consistently worrying about their next meal. The American Heart Association notes that prolonged stress can increase your risk of high blood pressure, overeating, and the lack of physical activity—all leading causes of heart disease. So just as the type of food you’re eating can have physical effects, food insecurity can also have psychological and physiological effects because of the situation at hand.
But these heart issues don’t start once you’re older. The Center for Disease Control conducted a 10-year study on 30 to 59 year olds and the relationship between their levels of food security and their heart. The study found that those with very low food security were far more likely to develop a cardiovascular disease that those who were at least marginally food secure. This shows that health problems associated with food insecurity, while prevalent in seniors, can begin with prolonged exposure to food insecurity.
The overall quality of food—and how inconsistently it’s eaten—plays a role in developing type 2 diabetes in seniors.
A 2012 study, which analyzed the role food insecurity plays in cardiometabolic disease (a disease that increases the risk of diabetes), points out that some aspects of food insecurity include binge eating food when it becomes available and eating energy-dense food, which can put an overall unhealthy strain on the heart and contribute to becoming diabetic. In 2013 and 2014 alone, a separate study found that food-insecure seniors were nearly twice as likely to be diabetic than food-secure seniors. Overall, it concluded that food-insecure seniors were 65 percent more likely to be diabetic.
Not only does food insecurity increase the risk of diabetes, it’s also difficult for a diabetic person to afford a diet that supports diabetes when they are food insecure. When concluding that food insecurity is an independent risk factor in developing diabetes, the study said:
“This risk may be partially attributable to increased difficulty following a diabetes-appropriate diet and increased emotional distress regarding capacity for successful diabetes self-management.”
Limited Activities of Daily Living
Food insecurity among seniors generally affects how they can live their day-to-day lives. Sidney Katz, a physician from the mid-1900s, developed the concept of Activities for Daily Living (ADLs) that helps determine how functional an elderly person is and whether or not they are able to support themselves or not. The six detrimental ADLs to an elderly person include:
- Bathing
- Personal hygiene
- Going to the bathroom
- Sleeping on their own
- Mobility (getting in and out of bed, walking, etc.)
- Being able to feed themselves
The presence of food insecurity has been found to negatively affect seniors’ ability to complete these ADLs, which hinders their ability to continue to live on their own. An NFESH study found that food-insecure seniors were 30 percent more likely to report at least one ADL limitation, and this is largely fueled from being unable to physically get to the store and purchase food. This can then affect a senior’s health and take its toll on other ADLs, such as the ability to go to the bathroom on their own.
Organizations Working to End Senior Hunger
There are ways to combat senior hunger, and there are thousands of workers out there to help stemming from non-profit and governmental organizations.
The primary organization you should know about if you’re a food-insecure senior—or suffer from food insecurity at all—is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known more commonly as food stamps. SNAP assists low-income citizens with getting the necessary food they need.
As of 2014, it was found that less than 50 percent of the elderly eligible for the program were enrolled, which is a staggeringly low number. The government is willing and able to help seniors suffering from food insecurity. You can visit the benefits website to see if you are eligible for the programs and apply.
There are also organizations seeking to end senior hunger and decrease levels of food insecurity among the senior population. Some of these include the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger, Meals on Wheels and other food delivery services, USDA services, and AARP:
The National Foundation to End Senior Hunger is a large non-profit organization dedicated directly to putting an end to senior hunger. Their vision statement is as follows: “We will identify and assess this challenge in communities through funding senior-specific research, fostering local collaboration and engaging diverse partners. We foresee the creation of tangible, replicable solutions in ending senior hunger to meet the needs of an aging population.”
Government organizations like the USDA started services that bring food to seniors who don’t have the means of getting to a grocery store. There are also organizations like Meals on Wheels that help deliver healthy meals to people of all ages, including seniors.
Healthy Eating Tips to Remember
In addition to looking for assistance from organizations, there are steps you can take when buying your groceries to ensure that the money is spent on the proper healthy foods.
Primarily, you must know what you’re looking for when you enter a grocery store, so it’s important to make a list. This way, you won’t deviate from the plan of buying healthy foods. Make sure to look out for deals on healthy food, and buy multiples of one product if it’s non-perishable so you don’t have to make a trip back for the same deal.
It’s also important to not waste any food. If you are buying vegetables and produce in bulk, put them to use and prepare multiple meals at one time. It’s also perfectly fine to freeze meats for months at a time, so buy a few more pounds than you originally planned and put it in the freezer for several weeks from when you buy it.
You should also know exactly what you’re buying. Make sure to not load up on food that is high in carbohydrates. This can contribute to weight gain and cause you to accidentally skip meals if you are too full from previous meals. You should also compare labels when choosing between products. The products with lower sugar and sodium levels are typically better for you than their counterparts.
With these tips and the information presented above in mind, hopefully we as a society can move closer to ending hunger for seniors and our nation as a whole.
1200 G STREET, NW, WASHINGTON, D.C., 20005
May 3, 2018 at 10:51 pm
This is the season for a food drive! It’s food drive time!
Food drives are important in the spring and early summer because food pantry shelves are depleted now. Storerooms are empty. The emptiness will continue from now until the fall.
It’s food drive time!
Food pantries everywhere are trying to build their stocks up for the worst month of the year: August.
So, now is a really good time for you to put on your generous hat and donate food to your food pantry! There are a couple of ways to do this.
You can clean out your kitchen shelves and give the food you know you are never going to use to a nearby food pantry. That’s an easy, and tried-and-true way to donate food. But, if you want to get creative, there are other ways to go about donating food to a food pantry.
Do you have a birthday or anniversary coming up? Invite everyone you know to a party celebrating your birthday or anniversary and ask everyone to bring food for a food pantry instead of a gift.
Have a food drive where you ask someone in a group you belong to for donations. This can be pretty easy. You can have a work food drive or a school food drive or a church group food drive. It really doesn’t matter what the group is. What matters is that you and a group of your co-workers get together and give food to a food pantry to feed hungry people.
When you are planning a food drive, don’t forget that pantries are in need of items of dignity. Now might be a good time to hold an Item of Dignity drive. People are always looking for toothbrushes, toilet paper, razors, tampons.
April 22, 2018 at 1:49 am
The truth is that food pantries are not perfect. Not anywhere near perfect, actually. And, they never will be. How can they be near perfect when there is often not enough food in the pantry to feed the many people shopping there?
But, they get to be as near to perfection as they do because the people who work in them are often retired, elderly volunteers who really care and have the time to put in extra effort.
And, how can they be perfect when the food is mostly donated food that was on its way to the landfill before some enterprising person snapped it up for the hungry people in the line?
And, the truth is that food pantries, to a certain extent, are neighbors helping neighbors. This is a wonderful attitude.
The positive energy is exhibited in this sharing wonderful world, indeed. Without these wonderful people and their generous attitudes, people would be starving in this great nation of ours. Food pantries are our first line of defense against hunger.
But, often these food pantries which depend to a great extent on the generosity of individuals simply don’t have enough food. Insufficient is the word used.
Because there is little oversight, there is little control. So, a person shopping at a pantry may get enough to eat or may not. The quality of the food has little oversight. So, the person shopping may be getting food which is all out-of-date, or which is food which cannot be eaten by the person needing the food.
An example of this is the person without teeth. People without teeth are very restricted in what they can take because they can’t chew many foods.
Another example is the diabetic person who can only eat certain types of food without health problems.
And, all quality issues aside, there may simply be insufficient food in the pantry to feed the number of people shopping even though a pantry is the first line of defense against hunger.
Personally, in the Good Neighbor Food Pantry, I had a morning when I ran out of food. I simply didn’t have enough food to give to the people. This was an experience I’ll never forget.
Finally, the Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program people sent down guidelines requiring that pantries serve a three-day-supply of food for each person in the household. HPNAP guidelines required that pantries serve fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables. Pantries were asked to serve whole grain breads and low-fat milk.
This was a wonderful thing which I applauded enthusiastically when I learned about the guideline. However, it was challenging to the many pantries without freezers and refrigerators.
The truth is that pantries everywhere simply don’t have enough food to meet the demand.
What can we do about this? For starters, we can realize that pantries are our first line of defense against hunger in this country.
Then, we can follow up this realization with food donations throughout the year.
One can of something every week helps over time. Find a pantry and give to help those in need. Do you plant a garden in the summer? Add a row for your pantry!
Thank you for what you are doing for those in need.
March 21, 2018 at 12:38 am
The world of people who are homeless may seem very foreign – But, it’s actually very near. We meet people every day who are just like us, only they don’t have a roof over their heads.
We can all find ourselves without a roof when we lose a job. Or, maybe a spouse dies. Possibly an accident which leaves physical disabilities is the cause. In short, all it takes is a personal tragedy.
There are many things we can do to help end homelessness. There are many, many things we can do to help those who are struggling with homelessness.
One easy way we can help is to take a little extra food along when we go out of our home to work or on errands. A few extra sandwiches will help. When a person asks for change, offer him or her a sandwich.
A couple of times each year, gather the clothes you are no longer going to wear and donate them to shelters and pantries providing services to help those who are homeless.
While you gather clothes for the homeless, look at your family’s toys, books, and games and select those that are no longer being used. Children living in shelters have few possessions and will enjoy them.
Can you spare an hour or two? Tutors can make all the difference. Volunteer to tutor children in shelters.
Celebrate your birthday or anniversary and ask the people you invite to bring items for the homeless.
Carry fast food certificates with you when you are going out. Hand them out to people who are homeless.
Hold a food drive and take the food to a shelter or a pantry in your area.
Donate your collectable recyclable cans and bottles to people who are homeless. Donate a bag of groceries to a soup kitchen, shelter, or food pantry.
Volunteer at a food pantry or shelter.
Volunteer your professional services. Lawyers, doctors, psychiatrists, counselors, and dentists can all use your skills when you volunteer at a pantry or shelter.
Ask your company, church, school to host a fund-raising event for a pantry or homeless shelter. Items of dignity are really needed by the homeless.
Thank you for reading this article!
Please refer this article to your favorite social media network.
Thurman Greco
PS: The hunger book is really moving along. Things just never get finished as quickly as we all wish. Writing a book requires years and years of research and writing. In writing the hunger book, I have gone through thousands and thousands of sheets of paper and three computers. I have spent years and years getting this story moved from an event in my life to a book which will attract you or not in less than two minutes.
Whew!
March 7, 2018 at 12:48 am
The homeless have problems just like you and me: employment, health issues, disabilities, domestic violence. They just don’t have a roof over their heads.
Homeless people, families enter food pantries very quietly. They’ve lost their voices. The goal is to melt into the background, get food, and disappear.
There’s an exception to the voicelessness – when the person communicates with beings unknown to the rest of us. One shopper I know has been in another world since before I began working in the pantry in 2005. He communicates in a high, shrill, unknown tongue which I cannot describe. His shrill vowels are punctuated with hard, sharp whistles, clicks, squeaks.
We can all help homeless people in some way. Each of us has talents and skills which can be useful.
DONATE. Homeless people carry their kitchens in their pockets . So much food which we take for granted is just not helpful. Important in the homeless diet is peanut butter and crackers in individually wrapped packages, cereal in self-serve packaging. Fruits and vegetables which can be eaten raw, milk and/or fruit juice in individual containers. Donate these items throughout the year by regularly giving the food to a food pantry in your area which is homlesss friendly.
VOLUNTEER. Pantries everywhere need an extra set of hands to answer mail, drive a truck, serve food, clean up at closing time, send press releases, hold food drives, stock and straighten shelves, deliver food to the home bound.
CLEAN OUT YOUR CLOSETS. Donate clothing, bedding, books, and other gently used items to places where the homeless will have access to them.
SHARE. Do you or someone you know have a garden? Donate the excess to a homeless friendly pantry in your area. When your garden tomatoes get to be too plentiful, there are those in your area who need the food.
PUSH THE ENVELOPE. Contact elected officials about homeless issues in your area. Encourage them to make ending homelessness important in your community.
EDUCATE YOURSELF. Returning veterans have special needs. For one thing, they begin separation from the military homeless.
FIND A JOB. Encourage your church or community to hire a homeless person. Many homeless want to work, have skills, but have trouble finding regular employment.
DO YOU HAVE A SKILL TO SHARE? Contact a local shelter and offer to give classes.
For a time, one of our most trusted volunteer/shoppers was homeless. His partner, Nancy, died and her children didn’t want him in the house they had lived in together for many years. He fought her children for a year with a lawyer, made several trips to court, the whole enchilada.
He finally moved out and ended up homeless for a time. He eventually got housing through a homeless veterans program. I helped him move his clothes and things over to his new apartment in Saugerties.
Homelessness cannot be generalized. Each homeless person is a special personality and has a special situation which s/he deals with. So here’s my rule about homeless people:
IF YOU’VE SEEN ONE HOMELESS PERSON, YOU’VE SEEN ONE HOMELESS PERSON.
Thank you for reading this blog post. Please share it with your preferred social media network.
BOOK UPDATE: The new hunger book is going to be out soon. The publisher assures me that we’re going to see the book within a month! Hurrah!
Thanks again
Thurman
February 27, 2018 at 1:17 am
Starving seniors? Is that too harsh a word?
Let’s ratchet it down: hungry.
Or, maybe: food insecure. Yeah, that’s better. It sounds better anyway.
Call it what you want, the event is the same. It’s your grandmother or grandfather (or me…I’m certainly a grandmother) caught in a situation where there’s simply not enough food in the house.
Seniors living on Social Security are finding themselves routinely choose between food and medicine, food and transportation. When they need new clothes, seniors regularly shop at the boutique of the closet.
The issues with seniors and food insecurity are serious because when seniors no longer have the money to buy the food they need for proper nutrition or why they can no longer buy the medicines they need, they become ill and finally end up being cared for by their children or they end up in a nursing home.
I know many stories about:
The older woman in Woodstock living on mashed potatoes.
The older woman in Bearsville who ended up in a nursing home when she was cut off from her pantry take out food and didn’t have the resources or physical ability to get to a grocery store.
The older man who doesn’t have enough money for food and is slowly starving to death.
There is food available for all these people
if they can get to a pantry
if they can connect with a pantry offering take out food
if they can sign up for SNAP (food stamps).
I recently spoke with a retired friend. “Richard, do you get SNAP?”
“No.”
“Why Richard? SNAP is usually easy to get. All you have to do is apply.”
“Well, I’m getting by without it. Let someone else, needier than me, get the money.”
“Richard, think about getting SNAP. This is something you paid for with your taxes. Why leave money on the table?”
I haven’t convinced him yet. However, we’re not through negotiating. As seniors, we’re in a situation where every little bit helps.
The barriers to SNAP for seniors are great. Seniors resist going to a pantry, soup kitchen, getting SNAP until they simply can’t resist any longer. I know the feeling. We grew up as children and went into adulthood feeling that if we worked hard and paid our taxes, we would end up okay. We worked all our lives believing this. And now, there simply isn’t enough.
With this event comes feelings of inadequacy and self blame. “I must have done something wrong. Here I am living hand-to-mouth. I don’t even have enough money for food. What did I do wrong?”
I don’t like a whole generation of people blaming themselves. I feel we’re not totally to blame. The rules have changed. Because we’re retired, we’re not in the rules making game anymore. Retirees are somewhat disempowered. Whatever happened to the Grey Panthers?
Thank you for reading this article!
Please refer it to your preferred social media network.
The new memoir about hunger in America will soon be available! I’ll keep you in the loop.
Thanks again for your support!
Thurman Greco
December 5, 2017 at 12:27 am
“How dare you feed this kind of food to these people? If they’re hungry enough they’ll eat anything.”
“That woman has a car and her son has a job. She shouldn’t get pantry food.”
“How dare you serve this much food to those kinds of people?”
The “are they hungry” issue looms large in food pantry conflicts. The fears are many and boil down to this:
1. Financially comfortable people will shop at a pantry when they actually have the money to go to a supermarket.
2. Riffraff are going to take the pantry food and sell it.
3. Many people shopping at a pantry wouldn’t need to come to a pantry if they managed their money better.
Very few people are comfortable with the concept that pantry volunteers give the food away…no strings attached. An unspoken concept here is that the hungry, the struggling class, individually and as a group should be punished for being the downtrodden.
Sometimes when I try to sort the whole thing out in my head, I’m reminded of the chicken yard my grandmother had during World War II. Occasionally, a chicken would be ill and the other chickens would begin to peck at it. If the chicken didn’t get well, it would be pecked to death.
For me, this is simply not an issue. I welcome all shoppers. They don’t have to be destitute although I did see many hungry people in a pantry. Pantry shoppers everywhere routinely endure
long lines
uncomfortable waiting conditions
lack of choice.
The lines in a pantry can routinely be longer than an hour. The hungry wait in line whether it’s raining, snowing, or if there are broiling summer temperatures. Outside pantry buildings, there is little or no protection from the elements.
The hungry wait in these lines to have access to about 30 different food products. Compare that number to a trip to your local super market with it’s 10,000 or more items to choose from.
And, finally, if I ever could take the attitude that hungry people must have done something wrong and don’t deserve that kind of food, I remember the time I foolishly asked a child in line in the basement of the Woodstock Reformed Church about Christmas.
Santa doesn’t come to families that stand in the pantry line.
Thanks for reading this blog/book.
The story is true. The people are real.
Please refer this article to your preferred social media network.
November 4, 2017 at 4:09 pm
It’s been a looong time everyone! I’m offering an update today because the book is finished and going to press soon. It’s been months, eons maybe, since I’ve posted on this blog and I’m grateful to be back. It’s as if I’ve been living in a cave – a writing cave.
When a person purchases a book, the attention put to that purchase may certainly have been less than five minutes, maybe even two minutes. Writing a book can take years. This book has been in the making since 2005. The manuscript has been foremost in my life since 2013.
And, if anything, the issues are more relevant now than they were in 2005.
For the past months I’ve put my full attention to the book because hunger alleviation is extremely important not only to me personally but to our nation in general.
Even if people don’t realize it.
But, yes, hunger alleviation is important because we have many, many people in our country who are not getting enough to eat.
There are many hunger prevention programs working to feed people who otherwise would not have enough to eat. The holidays are coming. Please think about sharing what you have with those who have less.
And, now, act on those wonderful thoughts of generosity. Join the hunger alleviation movement!
Thanks for reading this blog post. Thank you for your support of the hungry in our nation and around the world.
Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
April 9, 2017 at 4:01 pm
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This is the story of hunger in America as only the hungry can tell it.
It began as an outreach activity at St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church in Woodstock, New York. My job was to pass the pantry key from one congregation to the next each month. Total monthly time commitment: two hours. By the time I moved on to another food pantry eight years later, it had become a calling.
From the very first day, I felt compelled to write down things people said to me in the pantry. Trouble is, I’m not a writer and never have been.
So, the prayers manifested themselves. It was all I could do to just keep up with the words.
Obviously, I needed supervision, guidance, mentoring. As I lived this story and began to write it under the direction of Lillie Dale Cox Thurman and Uralee Thurman Lawrence, the story and the people strengthened me. I found that I wanted things for these people. Mostly, what I wanted for these hungry people was the same thing they wanted. What I wanted, (and what they wanted) really, wasn’t much:
I wanted the hungry to sleep with full stomachs at night.
I wanted them to wake up in a dry space in the morning.
I wanted them to have healthcare.
And I wanted them to have jobs which paid the rent, bought food, and covered their transportation needs.
I wanted them to be a part of the community where they lived.
Finally, I wanted their children to be well educated.
My hope is that you will see this book as a glimpse of what I see…a collection of prayers offered as prize crystals or gems to be shared with the universe.
This book is being edited now. I hope to have it finished by the end of the year!
Please send kind thoughts and support on this project!
Cover art by Michele Garner. Thank you Michele. This cover is perfect!
Thank you for reading this blog post.
Please share this article with you preferred social media network.
Thanks,
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
“A Healer’s Handbook” by Thurman Greco is now available on Amazon or at http://www.thurmangreco.com
December 23, 2016 at 1:56 am
“When we talk cooking and eating, we are talking love, since the entire history of how a family loves – when and how they learned to love – can be told in most kitchens.” – Marion Roach Smith
The first year a person uses a food pantry for primary shopping, Christmas is a holiday gone wrong. After several years, Christmas becomes whatever the household can make of it. The adjustment is, for some, difficult and for others more difficult.
The difficulty lies, mostly, in the ability to get food items considered “traditional” by a household when no money is available to purchase them in a grocery store.
Once, I heard some pantry shoppers talking in the line about holidays past. Their conversation centered around people celebrating by eating too much delicious food and visiting with relatives, friends, neighbors while swapping stories, catching up on the news.
For more and more people living in poverty, this just doesn’t happen. Both households and individuals find themselves unable to finance the expense of the holiday event.
Not only can they not afford the food, more and more people no longer have the table to sit at, the chairs to sit on, and the stove to cook the food. Recipes, pots and pans, china, silverware, crystal are long since gone. Eating without a kitchen is the way of the modern household living on a minimum wage.
With luck, today’s struggling class household will have the gas to get the car to a soup kitchen. Otherwise, it’s going to be a regular day with a meal prepared in a crock pot, or on a hot plate. The economic situation for some is that just to take the day off and still be able to buy groceries the next day is more a goal than anything else.
Realities faced by the hungry pantry shopper weigh on my shoulders every day of the year. This weight keeps me squirreling away food so the pantry shelves can be stocked for celebrations with canned soup, canned gravy, potatoes, stuffing mix, canned green beans, cranberry sauce, chicken broth and all the fruits and vegetables that can be gotten at food drives and the food bank. Storeroom space and a few freezers at the food pantry are essential.
Pantry volunteers have a difficult time just keeping up with the ever increasing client census. Those with a stable shopper base, a large storeroom and connections can begin scrounging in July to set aside food. It’s extremely challenging to get several hundred or a thousand of an item in the summer and store the food until December.
After several years and several holidays, the food gatherer in the household becomes, if time allows, more skilled at scrounging for food in both the pantry and the grocery store. The difficulty lies, mostly, in the ability to get food items considered “traditional” by a household when no money is available to purchase the items in a supermarket.
While distributing food, I mentally predict who’s going to be successful at scrounging and gathering by the sound of the automobile as it’s driven into the parking lot of the pantry. A successful holiday dinner depends on a working automobile, time available between jobs, and the energy to sustain the search.
Transportation challenges, disabilities, and serious illness in the family can defeat all efforts.
Thank you for reading this article.
Please share this story with your preferred social media network.
Thurman Greco
Woodstock, NY
Book Update: “A Healer’s Handbook” has been published and is available on Nook and Kindle! It will be available in the paper version in early January. If you order it now, it will be mailed directly to you upon publication.
More information about this book can be found on Thurmangreco.com.
Publication of “The Unworthy Hungry” is now scheduled for January 2018.
Thank you for your support and your patience. Now that “Healer’s Handbook” has been published, there will be more frequent and regularly published articles on all blogs.
Thanks Again
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