Case Study: The New York Common Pantry

Previous funds were used to pay the pantry’s one employee, Program Director Stephani Nichols. Her resume is attached. She has brought great value to Project 66 Food Pantry and has provided assistance well beyond her wages. Stephani has enabled the pantry to meet their previous goals (find and purchase a building, buy, and implement computers) and has created new goals that meet the needs of the Edmond community.

The agency I participated at for my ten hours of service learning this semester was the Plain City food pantry. The food pantry is located on 156 W Main St, Plain City, OH 43064. There are many people that run this agency. A couple names are Phyllis and Jane. I participated March 2nd from 9:30 to 11:30, March 3rd from 9:00 to 12:00, April 4th, from 9:30 to 11:30 and April 6th from 9:00 to 12:00.

Writer received a call from Kathy that she needs to recertify her public assistance benefits on the 8th but she doesn’t have any sort of transportation to get there. Care manager asked of the time of her appointment and she said at 10:30am. Care manager assure her that I will pick and drop her home. Kathy was glad to hear that and said thank you

During my second week of my community health hours, I was placed at River City Food Bank. River City Food Bank’s main goal is to lessen hunger in the Sacramento region by offering healthy food and assistance to vulnerable populations. They do not only provide healthy food but they also provide nutrition education and counseling. In addition, they provide diapers for babies and the older population. They also provide health services for mothers and assist them with contraceptives and other important education for their women daily life. Their mission is to help people from all ages, from homeless to the working poor and families who are struggling.

My group and I were asked to work on a project for the Brazos Church Pantry. We had many parts to this project starting with just an over view of the website. For this over view we as a team sat down and looked at the Brazos Church Pantry website and discussed what we found good, bad, what we believe needs improvement, and how the organization can improve it. From this inicial overview of the website we then began to write the first draft of our report to Greg Barfield explaining what we had found in the website, but gave no recommendations yet, because we also explained to him we intended on doing further research to get an outside view through a usability study. Before, the usability study was completed Greg Barfield requested that my team

Thesis Statement: The Houston Food Bank uses the efforts of volunteers as well as donations to support the reduction of hunger in the community.

During 2014/2015 we served 354,170 meals, including 330,735 hot lunches, to our homebound neighbors. The remaining meals provided either a lunch or breakfast bag to help our most vulnerable clients. Recognizing that seniors in our state are disproportionally susceptible to going hungry, we are making every effort to combat food insecurity by providing more quality and nutritious foods.

Denny’s can impact childhood hunger in the US by working closely with food banks across the nation, creating food pantries, and creating community gardens in low income areas. Food banks collects food from many different sources and it also distributes its resources. Furthermore, creating a food pantry in high schools that are in low income areas can help families. Students who attend these high schools will also be from families who struggle with obtaining food. Moreover, students can come to the pantry and get some food for their families. In addition, a high school is a central location for numerous families. High schools Students can volunteer in expanding the food pantry, who will also work closely with the city’s food banks.

This particular article is written by Patricia A. Duffy who states that low income families use the food pantry for emergence assistance for food, aside from the traditional government programs; this article suggests that food pantries are heavily used for emergency food (Duffy). The article focuses more on lower income families instead of the homeless. It compares food stamp programs along with the food pantry to understand how they both tie in to one another. There are various statistics and interviews of those who participate in such programs across the nation.

Describe the program’s Theory of Change: The Salvation Army food pantry believes that though their programs that their clients would eventually in the long run become educated on resources and knowledge that would help them overcome poverty. The food pantry provides monthly food services and other resources for clients. From those their hope is to provide low income families, individuals with one hot meals for families of 4-5 people a month. They also hope to offer other recourses that could be hindering families from saving enough money to buy groceries every month. Their end goal is to improve food insecurity in the community.

Above were ways that local groups assist people in their own communities. Participating in food drives in an excellent way to help. Bringing three or four cans of food to the local food pantry could potentially be a family’s dinner in the near future. This is also a great way to donate, as described earlier. If one is a student, there are many ways to volunteer (Handbook 125). One of these is by volunteering to help the Campus Kitchen Project which brings unused food from school campuses to those in the community who would benefit from it (Handbook 125). If someone is feeling particularly lead to be an aid to local hunger, one could hold a food drive for the local soup kitchen. This may seem ambitious, but completely possible keeping a few things in mind (Feeding America 12). Number one, make sure all details are panned out before it starts. Location, goals, volunteers, and donation criteria should be created pre-food drive to ensure organization throughout (Feeding America 14). Number two, the New York City Coalition Against Hunger suggests that one “make a list of what food items that you need most” (Handbook 16). One final step that is crucial for a successful food drive is to get in touch with schools, markets, churches, and farmers to ensure that the community is united in the food drive (Handbook 16). These steps are among several that would help someone hold their own local food drive. Holding a food drive or just donating food, effort, or money are all wonderful ways that a citizen can serve their

In conclusion, hunger in America is at an all time high due to poverty and the economy. The increasingly high number of starving children has gone up over the past years and needs to be stopped. There are government programs set up to help stop hunger in American, such as, SNAP Food Stamps and WIC. We can get involved by volunteering with Feeding America or other non-for-profit organizations set for feeding the hungry. Food donations and monetary donations have always been a great way to help out for those who don’t have the time to donate.

According to the statewide anti-hunger coalition website Hunger Action Network of New York State, “1 out of 5 New York City residents lives below the federal poverty level”, which means that it's about $18,300, causing families to starve. The sad thing about hunger is that the average New Yorker does not know that there are people within blocks from him starving. First, people need to become more aware of hunger and understand that the issue can be resolved if everyone contributes a little bit. The best ways to solve this imminent issue of hunger in the New York City area are government subsidies, encourage the private field to donate, and grant access to loans.

On Tuesday, October 3rd Monica Banks, a Wake Forest Divinity School student and a co-founder of New Communion, shared her experiences about her career/field of study and how it began to intermingle with food. Banks first began her career with a degree in business leadership and management and opening approximately 40 restaurant venues. After years of experience, she was looking for something more in life. After pursuing nursing she felt her calling was in the pastoral field and specifically surrounded food and poverty. As a second year student at Wake’s Divinity School, Banks was required to complete a group project, which led her the idea of the mobile pantry—now new communion. Banks felt such a passion for this project that she completed a grant application to United Way, which was eventually granted for the interfaith mobile food pantry. Banks took

Meals on Wheels is an excellent solution to hunger for elderly people. They currently feed around 500 people a week. The volunteers and employees work tirelessly with people from their community and other organizations to ensure that the elders they are helping get all the things they need which include food, company, and that there house is in order. They go out of their way to go above and beyond. For instance, Meals on Wheels is not open on holidays, but the employees go to other organizations that are open, help pack food, and then they go drive it to the people who have do not have family’s house. All the people who work at the Meals on Wheels based in Asheville are kind and extremely willing to help you out even if they do