St Mary's Food Bank

On Tuesday evening, over fifty of our leaders from Auto, Innovation, and Recovery came to fight hunger and feed hope at the San Antonio Food Bank. Collectively they sorted through 20,330 pounds of food which resulted in 16,264 meals for the city of San Antonio and it's surrounding counties. It was an evening of camaraderie and fun that will never be forgotten.

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.

"In the article “When There’s No School Lunch in St. Louis, food vans help fill the gap” written by Allison Colburn, the central idea was how a food van (or business) drives to different homes every day delivering free meals during the summer, Monday-Friday. In this business they will go from house to house spending from 20-30 minutes. This information is stated in the 8th paragraph, “Each van makes 11 stops Monday through Friday and spends about 20 to 30 minutes at each location.” The food van will deliver meals to children that would normally eat food at school but now that it is summer, they are not able to. My next supporting detail is, “The summer program, now in its sixth year, has grown from providing 5,000 meals in 2012, Executive

My community service experience at All Souls Friday Soup Kitchen taught me the impoverished population of New York City and myself. The volunteer work pushed me to better myself in several areas. Serving the diners helped me expand my social skills with fellow workers and customers by forcing me to communicate with others. Also, setting up and deconstructing the dining room helped grow my management skills by having me order where the plates, mugs, etc. should be placed. Most importantly, working at the kitchen helped humanize the poor population of New York City for me. Often on the subway and on the sidewalk, I try my hardest to avoid the homeless man or woman begging for money, acting like they didn’t exist. Gratefully, my experience at

Daily Bread Food Bank. (2010). Fighting Hunger. 2010 Profile of Hunger in the GTA. Retrieved

There are so many people in this world today, that are not aware of the huge storage in our local food bank community. Per the Houston food bank the goal of the Feeding America program is to make food accessible to feed hungry people in their greatest times of need. Therefore, our team is gear up to break the food shortage in defining the problem, analyze the cause, identify criteria, potential solutions and selecting the best solution.

For example, I drove around the neighborhood previously looking for healthy food choices at an affordable price. However, I found that around the clinic, there were not many healthy food options in walking distance. For example, Hillen Grocery store, a convenient store that sells snack options is located eleven minutes walking distance from the clinic. Giant food market, which serves more healthier options at a high price range, is located eighteen minutes walking distance from the clinic. Because of this reason, I provided patients at the clinic with alternatives to remedy the problem. Besides teaching them how to replace meals, I also gave them information about virtual supermarkets provided through the program Healthy Baltimore

There is currently a food desert issue in the downtown area of Greeley, Colorado. Greeley is home to 96,539 people. A staggering 21% percent of the residents live in poverty ranking it the highest in the state. The issue in Greeley is not only the amount of people that live in poverty, but those who live in a not so desirable area. Greeley is divided into three sections. On the east side is where most of the poverty is found. The middle section of the city is average or middle class and the west side of town is the high class area where the wealthiest residents live. The issue at hand is the east side of Greeley. The most recent shut down of the only grocery store on that side has left the residents in that area struggling to find adequate groceries to fill their refrigerators and cupboards. Their only way to provide for their families is the local convenience stores. There is a convenience store on just about every corner however, there are multiple problems with having the convenience. One issue is that the prices at a convenience store are substantially higher than that of a regular grocery store. Symptoms include, lack of proper amenities on the east side of town including a grocery store. Transportation to and from the closest grocery store is limited and most people have to walk to the bus stop. The other symptoms include residents with children that can only get a hot meal at school. Most are on free or reduced lunches so the parents at least know

In this commination class I have learned many ways to communicate my ideas through verity of concepts. Also, working in groups have enabled me to learn a lot and express my thoughts, and words. However, for my final project I have chosen to talk about an organization that many students are not aware that existed on campus. I used a multimedia art performance as my communication concept to communicate to students about the values of this organization, what it stands for, how impacted students on campus, and what it does.

Many areas in the United States contain an abundance of neighborhoods that function with little to no healthy food sources nearby because of the large number of people in poverty. With the fleeing number of locally owned grocery stores and convenient fast food restaurants sprouting in urban and rural areas, residents do not have an adequate quantity of fruits and vegetables readily available. The City of Baltimore defines a food desert as “an area where the distance to a supermarket is more than one quarter of a mile; the median household income is at or below 185 percent of the Federal Poverty Level; over 30 percent of households have no vehicle available; and the average Healthy Food Availability Index score [convenience stores, corner stores, and supermarkets] is low” (Food Deserts). Baltimore City today “ranks second among similarly sized cities for the number of low-income people living in food insecure areas” (Freishtat, 2014). Leaving eight percent of white Baltimoreans living in food deserts compared to the 35 percent of black Baltimoreans, and 30 percent of children living in food deserts in Baltimore alone (Buczynski, 2015).

GCU should lower the prices of groceries in on-campus shops. This is the simplest and most direct way to solve the problem. However, if GCU is unwilling to comply with the students’ wishes to lower the prices, the university should provide a free shuttle service that takes students to a local grocery store on a weekly basis. This service should be available a few days during the week, such as Monday, Wednesday & Friday. There should be an available ride to the local store every two hours from noon to six p.m. This gives the shuttle time to drive there and back, while giving students around 45 minutes to complete their shopping. The students without cars have the opportunity to buy groceries at fair prices multiple times a week with free transportation, all before it becomes too late and possibly unsafe to be out around town. Although not all students have an outside source of income, this shuttle service will cut down on the number of students without cars who are unable to feed themselves due to inflated grocery prices, as well as those with cars who are unable

On August 4, 2015, Vivian Cu and I chose to volunteer at the Second Harvest Food Bank located on 700 Edwards Ave. in New Orleans. Our Tuesday morning of service started at 9AM and ended around 11:30AM. In preparation for my first time at Second Harvest, I wore comfortable clothes that were easy to move around in and that were possible to get dirty in. The man in charge of all volunteer services, Vince, quickly gave me my duty for the day. There is a huge case of canned goods and my job was to put as many canned goods as possible on a conveyor belt. The conveyor belt would carry these cans to many aisles where other volunteers would put them into smaller boxes that had to weigh from fifteen to thirty pounds. After packaging these boxes, Second

In order to further support low-income communities and improve this population’s health the federal government needs to not only continue with the supplemental food programs they’ve already put in place, but enhance them by considering the barriers and address them. The government can intervene by integrating other components to the programs that further support people and help eliminate the main barrier by providing them direct access to grocery stores and healthier options. In order for government resources to be more effective in areas where there are limited grocery store options in the community, the government could begin by providing transportation services in areas where grocery stores are limited or if any at all. Providing transportation to those who are receiving government resources like WIC and SNAP would allow families to exhaust

Every day there are many kids that forget to make breakfast, pack a lunch, or forget to pack a water or snack for daycare. Without that food kids get very hungry and start asking for food from their friends which then makes that person more hungry because they don’t have a full lunch or snack. In order for the ECS students to stay hydrated and healthy, it is important they get a good, hearty, healthy breakfast and lunch. The best way to keep these kids full and healthy is to have some type of food station. A food truck can be helpful to serve breakfast, lunch, and an after school snack for the students at ECS.

While this initiative is for anyone, the specific target is for pre and school aged children. This initiative reaches into childcare centers, schools systems, as well as museums, gardens and faith communities across the country. In St