Community Service Experience Paper

Food Service Program, the Child and Adult Care Program in addition to other programs. As

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

4. A single bag of food—which provides highly nutritious meals for six children—costs around $1.44 to produce, and 93 percent of all donations to FMSC goes directly toward the food program.

For those living in poverty in New Orleans, Louisiana, there are over 51 assistance programs and help agencies; from legal, medical, financial, and residential assistance programs to Food Banks, shelters, employment centers, and childcare agencies. The main to Food Banks for the area, the Bogalusa Help Center and the Second Harvest Food Bank, combined feed roughly 500,000 people in the greater New Orleans, Jefferson parish region. Aside from providing food access, these Food Banks also provide education, advocacy, and disaster relief. Community medical clinics such as the Cancer Association of Greater New Orleans, and the Louisiana Foundation of Dentistry, are non-profit clinics that run with the help of medical doctors and volunteers,

The Plain City food pantry collects donations from people and/or stores like Wal-mart, Wendy’s etc. They also have a small thrift store that they run based off only donations. Their mission is to contribute to the small community of Plain City by providing food, toiletries, clothes etc. They want to feed people who struggle and can’t afford to put food on the table or clothes on their back. The specific area they provide for is the locals in Plain City. The schools in Plain City will have food drives and all the donations would go to straight to the pantry.

Zion ministries. Again, there was no assurance that those who needed the food the most were served. Many of the same faces that came through the lines headed to another giveaway taking places a half-mile from the church. The church can state that they have performed their duty of community outreach by participating in these type programs. My question is what happens to the hungry in these communities the other 364 days of the year?

Frazee Community center is located on 1140 W Mill Street San Bernardino, this is a center where they service the public. They are a non-profit organization where all the donation come from other place like Salvation Army and from the public. Every donation is recorded and receipt are giving out. The center has two restroom both men and female, a kitchen, a dining area, and three offices. There are two other small building which are the closet room that has one restroom that the employees use. The third building is the storing building where most of the donation of can foods, cereal, mayo, peanut butter, and etc. are stored. The center is run by Candice the interim Executive director, Jose the administrative assistant, and Marion the Veterans case manager.

It is apparent that the individual is out of touch with his/her environment, as we live in a time of isolation. This view of a frightful outside world is a common mindset in people, prompting them to stay home with the excuse that some things are not worth experiencing. Beyond this misconception, is a world that although may need some work, has opportunities for every kind of person. In fact, a "frightful outside world" can change with the contribution of a helping hand; this is what makes community service imperative. There is no better way to encourage students in assisting their communities than implementing service requirements in High School, and various sources explain the benefits behind these standards. A few of these excerpts include "Community Service

The independent Health Foundation has many events that take place throughout each year. A lot of the events that take place are for kids, which is amazing. It is very important to teach kids healthy habits at young ages so that children can live a healthy lifestyle from the beginning. For children, they have soccer for success, kids run, fitness for kid’s challenge, and first night buffalo which is for the whole family to go

Over the last 17 years the number of families actively been served has fluctuated. As of right now, they are serving around 300 families per month. Each month, families are given approximately $100 worth of groceries. A member of each household arrives on either Monday or Friday to pick up their food box. Each week the food box contains bread, dairy, produce and pantry items. The future of Least of the Brethren is looking very bright. Later this month the pantry will be operating their Mobile Market. The Mobile Market is fairly new but has received great feedback. Volunteers will line food up outside the pantry and those in need will simply pull up, each vehicle is then load with an abundance of food. This is the only time families receive more than their monthly allotment of

Soup kitchens and food pantries are also important and mostly unfunded organizations that are helping to fight hunger. Food pantries are located throughout North Carolina and almost every county or town has one. Here, families can purchase foods at a discounted price or receive them for free. Most are set up just as a grocery store would be and have many different options for food. Almost all sites accept donations of money or food. The most common donated items are canned foods, such as soups and canned vegetables; and boxed sides such as mashed potatoes and macaroni, because most just need to have water added and can be easily fixed. Although there are thousands of food pantries, twenty-eight percent of clients get turned away because a shortage of food, which means many end up going hungry (“All About Hunger”). Soup kitchens also provide free meals to families and their children. Soup kitchens rely on citizens to volunteer to cook and serve food. Volunteers must buy and cook the meals with their own money and some money donated by the kitchen. Most kitchens serve foods with a lot of carbs to keep the children full longer since most only get one to two meals a day. This is also a good resource for children because they can come by themselves to have a free meal, or by coming with their

The homeless and low-income families have numerous resources available like the Interfaith Church that offers a Soup Kitchen Supplemental Nutrition program that is made up of these sources: commodity supplemental food program, emergency food program, food assistance, and USDA commodity program. The number of soup kitchen meals served peaked in July to just over 50,000, and were the lowest in April at just under 40,000. Majority of their clientele is homeless adults. Another good resource is Social services that can assist with charitable healthcare, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or S.N.A.P. These programs help to provide access to health care and proper food and nutrition. The Affordable Housing Project offers studio apartments, 1-bedroom

Food banks provide prevailing economic need as a distribution outlet for the federal government (USDA), and national local food sources. Food banks serve and help create an infrastructure of member’s agencies, food panties that provide food directly to food insecure seniors and other food insecure populations, soup kitchens and relief organizations. Food banks networks provide food support for over 37 million Americans yearly including 14 million children and over 3 million older adults. As of 2015 there were over 15, 000 food pantries throughout the United States. The majority of seniors that use food banks receive some social assistance, over 41% lived alone, and over 22% of food bank recipients in food insecure senior households had sought help from food banks, soup kitchens, or other charitable agencies to feed themselves in the past year (AARP, 2014, p. 29-30).

Most of these food pantries are sponsored and supplied by local churches and community coalitions. A food pantry’s mission is to serve the local community food needs for residents who suffer from hunger and food insecurity within a specified area ("Food pantry," 2015, p. 1). A food bank is defined as a centralized storehouse or clearing house for millions of pounds of food or other products that are directly given to people in need of food free of charge (Food bank," 2015, p. 1) However, food banks and pantries are not the same, but they do share the same commitment to combat food insecurity. Food banks have become powerful advocates locally and nationally feeding and empowering the elderly. Food banks provide emergency food that become local food security, turning empty calories in nutritious foods, turning malnutrition & poor health into health and food literacy, and finally turning charity for the needy into empowered

They have other programs as well. They have a program called Community Cupboard. Which is open 4 days out of the week and the hours differ depending on the day. It is being basically a food pantry and are located on the southwest side of Indianapolis. It’s open for people who are in need of hunger relief assistance. One requirement that is needed to have access to this pantry is proof that you are an Indiana resident and are only allowed to go to the pantry once a week. They also have a program known as the Mobile Pantry. Mobile Pantry is a truck filled with food to distribute to people through a farmer’s market-style. The people who use the mobile pantry is allow them to choose what they need. Usually one Mobile Pantry can feed or provide