Foundation Journal

Food banks traditionally have operated under the premise of providing temporary food assistance to low-income and working poor families. The economic crisis, which started in 2007, caused a significant increase in families and individuals seeking food assistance from job loss and foreclosure. Food pantries served by Harvesters, the Kansas City area food bank, saw a 40% increase in food distribution. This dire situation has evolved into a chronic condition with as much as 25% of people in communities seeking food assistance from various sources like pantries, soup kitchens, and Food Stamps/SNAP benefits. The economic crisis has shifted the need from extremely poor to working poor people. If a chronic condition of hunger in the U.S. is not enough to convince people to change their perception of the growing need for food assistance, then a devastating tornado season may help people understand the need for government assistance. A recent account by a USDA public relations worker sha...

Last week the Interdisciplinary Center for Food Security at the University of Missouri in Columbia released its updated Missouri Hunger Atlas . The atlas provides a county-by-county statistical accounting of the levels of hunger in Missouri. The atlas reflects trends documented in news reports and national hunger studies, like the recent report in the Kansas City Star that shows food stamp use in Kansas increasing 20% in a single year from 2008 to 2009. However, given the significant drop in jobs and income in Missouri over the past few years, the report underscores a possibly chronic, long-term hunger problem. The report does not investigate how to create jobs that will pay sustaining wages; the purpose of the atlas is to show the level of food insecurity and the response to meet the need. Given the drastic decline in local property taxes, decrease in education funding, and drop in job skills training programs, it's difficult to maintain an optimistic view for working families...