THE HUNGER SUMMIT March 14, 2019

FOOD BANK OF NORTH ALABAMA THE HUNGER SUMMIT

March 14, 2019

NOTES from Keynote Speaker, Clancy Harrison

Keynote Address, 9:15a - 9:50a

Clancy Harrison, registered dietician, TEDEx speaker, food program advocate, president

Food Pantry organization, instructor at Pennsylvania State University.

I am a recovering “food elitist.” What is a food elitist? Perfect organic, free range recipes, no canned food (!), buy the $4 egg, not the $1 egg. I even said food with food coloring was poison! Bad for brain development.

One day, I’m at the food pantry. Beautiful case of yogurt. Popular kids yogurt with food coloring. Mom is there, crying, wants to take the yogurt. OMG! She’s going to feed that poison to her child! Mom said, “I feel like a mother..my kid has been asking for this and now I can give it to her!” Ah ha moment. Wow...who gave me the right to put food on a pedestal, create food and shame around foods? Who says I can do that, just because I can afford the best food, have the privilege of being able to buy whatever i want?

This is how my story began. My kids were in school full time, and I’m sitting in church and they said we need a food pantry president. I was a food service director, a dietician, so it’s a great fit. A volunteer position, 10-20 hours a week. But started thinking about who I’d be dealing with….lazy, alcoholics, people out to take advantage of the pantry. Other side of me said it’s not my place to judge, help one person and that’s enough.

Got into the pantry, realized my misconceptions. Not addicts, not lazy, not what I thought. People aren’t lazy. In fact, we have people coming in patching jobs together,

several at a time. Had a gentleman come in, mid 30’s, crisp suit, professional. Said,

“Is this the food pantry?” I got excited, thought he was a potential donor! He put his head down low and said he’d been looking for a job for months, has kids, can’t go home empty handed. Wow...assumptions.

83% of children have one working parent in the household, so where does this misconception come from?

I now work to get in front of leaders and change THEIR misconceptions about hunger.

We can’t end hunger without creating a culture of understanding about hunger, without educating them about the real face of hunger. We have to remove the shame from using food programs, pantries, WIC, etc.

Story about a doctor who had, at one point, been on food stamps. Clancy said, “Tell your patients!” Tell them to remove the shame, to make it okay to ask for help.

What is food insecurity? We all know what hunger is. But we get caught up in thinking that “hungry” means no food. In fact, you can have food but maybe eating only pancake mix with water, day in day out, because that’s all you’ve got. Buying the most food you can for $10, even if it is not good for you. Malnourished while eating.

Bad bone density.

Food insecurity: Limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe food.

Hunger: Uneasy, painful sensation caused by lack of food.

Food Secure: Access by all people, at all times to sufficient food for an active and healthy life.

How many people in US are really food secure?

Was approached by a gym that wanted her to work with gym members about food insecurity. She balked - a rich gym? Not “my” clientele. But agreed to survey the members. Asked them about eating a “balanced meal” in the last 30 days. 36% of they gym members screened positive for food insecurity! They were afraid of death, dying, being alone. They were choosing to work with a trainer to address their disease, but sacrificing food security for it! Another assumption. Lesson learned.

27% of people who are food insecure don’t qualify for food assistance because their income is too high.

31% of people who are food insecure in ALABAMA don’t qualify because of their income.

Maryland rate is 42%!

We need to make people aware of these numbers.

People still don’t “get” what “food insecure” means. They think famine, emaciation.

But we have normal weight, even overweight who are food insecure.

58% of people struggling with food insecurity have income 100% above the federal poverty level.

61% of people living in poor households are food-secure.

Why? Why would someone who is poor have access to food and not be food insecure?

Because of you! Because of your work, food assistance programs.

34.5% of poverty is “situational.” Only 2.7% is considered “chronic.” We tend to think the opposite, that poverty is chronic, intergenerational. 34.5% are out of poverty in two months. Most people’s minds have those two numbers switched.

Situational poverty: loss of a job, working hours cut back, medical expenses, affordable childcare, housing, natural disasters, death of a family member, college student, difficult choices! The face of hunger is constantly changing in the U.S. The reasons are varied.

59% of food insecure households participated in at least one of the three major federal food assistance programs (SNAP, School Feeding Programs, WIC). Where are the other

40%? Why aren’t they participating? Don’t qualify, stigma, treatment by staff, office/work hours, lack of knowledge, transportation. The working poor can’t necessarily make it to your pantry - what are you pantry hours?

Food Dignity is a cultural collaborative that supports and honors everyone’s right to nourishing foods at all times. Someone not being ashamed to walk into a pantry.

That’s why we’re here! You’re welcome.

You are in a powerful position to influence people you work with everyday. Find the crack and become the glue!

Start where your participants ARE. If someone is living in poverty, they’re only thinking about EATING, not about food quality, nutrition, etc. If in middle class, they’re thinking about does the food taste good. If wealthy, they’re thinking about food presentation, an eating “experience.” The three groups think/react differently.

Tips to address the “hidden rules” of food insecurity: Accept that decisions will be made against other ways of thinking than you rown. Know the need for survival trumps EVERYTHING. Survival is a reactive skill, not a planning skill. Make a realistic plan for them.

Money gets you past survival, but it does not change your thinking. How can you help your clients feel safe around food. Story about a client whose kids aren’t eating. I know they’re on SNAP, they’re on WIC, so what’s going on? She has the food, but not feeding kids. Why? She was hoarding, she was afraid of running out. Still in survival mode, so she was trying to stretch out what little she had. Food pantries can do this too!

How do we determine the solution when we walk in with such assumptions, misconceptions? Are my perceptions right? How do I start peeling back my assumptions, listening and understanding people’s stories better?

Pennsylvania wanted to take soda off of SNAP, make it so SNAP users couldn’t buy it.

Clancy spoke up and disagreed. WHY? Sugar is bad! She believes in food dignity, didn’t think prohibiting this was possible. Why do the poor drink soda? Because the carbonation and the sugar ends hunger pangs! So what gives us the right to take that away from a child? Whole different perception. Incentivize fruits and vegetables instead of doing away with soda.

Milk is one of the most requested, yet least available items in the food banks. 46.5 million food bank clients get less than 1 gallon of milk per person per year. USDA has a surplus of milk right now, so it’s making its way to the food banks. But refrigeration / storage is an issue.

Grants available to get coolers, reefers to store milk, but funds can’t be used to directly purchase milk. Milk2MyPlate program to supply milk to pantries.

My wish: for all of us to connect without assumptions, always seek to understand the why.

Text “Screening” to 44222 to get a hunger/food insecurity screening tool. She’d love some feedback on this tool if you use it. She’s looking to get it validated, get it in the hands of doctors and others to use.

“Each of us can make a difference. Together we make change.”

Better Together, 10:00am-10:50a

Clancy Harrison: Ignite a Culture of Food Dignity.

(Looking for people ot interview, to highlight best practices for a book she’s writing).

We have to collaborate with the people we serve, let them collaborate in decision making. Also, within our own organization, are we talking to each other? People tend to work in their own “silos” and don’t work together. Reality is if they work together, they’ll get even more funding and other benefits as a larger whole. Enlist your “competition.”

How often do you collaborate with other food banks? I don’t. I’ll answer their questions and such, but my goal is to collaborate with the people who are working with the same clients I am.

Look at dietetic interns. Look at WIC, getting a partnership with them in your community.

We sent interns to WIC to help educate clients, give them as much produce as they want, educate them on how to use it. Normalize the process of sharing food.

Had people from the hospital next door come and take the food, no questions asked.

Some of the hospital people got mad. Why? It might be the first time they were getting “food assistance,” it was shaming for them.

Partner with a career fair - set up a stand with fresh produce, or granola bars, or whatever. Educate in general but also educate individuals about food pantries, food programs. Take it for yourself, take it for another.

Woman who was going to school, had kids, didn’t want to “be seen” taking food.

How do you get in front of people and make it empowering, dignified for them to accept food assistance?

Working with seniors, products of the Great Depression, trying to get them milk, dairy, meat, vegetables. Spent $7k to get a walk in refrigerator. Some called it an

“accessory,” unnecessary expense. Over $1k worth of fresh produce goes into the coolers each year. Encourage you to get a refrigeration grant, it can change the life of your pantry.

Know the why if you’re going to collaborate. Need to know what their mission is, connect it to your own. Learn what people’s fears are, what keeps them up at night?

What’s your biggest problem, how can i solve it by merging our missions: that’s the secret to collaboration.

Stamp Out Hunger: 2000 pounds of food we had to throw away because people donated expired product. Where is the dignity in that? A bag of pasta that smelled of urine! How? And why would you donate that? If you have a pantry and do a food drive, always ask for one thing: don’t open-end it. I want milk. Or I want canned peaches. If you open end it, you get a lot of waste.

Be a connector of resources. You don’t need to go start a garden, start a program, when there are already ways to recover food that isn’t being utilized. How can you be the connector to get food to people that need it? Can strengthen another’s operation.

Audience question: One of the struggles he has with Food Bank is a lack of collaboration with other agencies, he says Food Bank discourages collaboration with other agencies. How to overcome that? Clancy: Just do it. Any donated food carries no regulation. If I’m picking up food in my area, if I’m using my own car to pick up produce, I hand pick it out. Goal is to end hunger. So I’m taking food from whomever will give it to us.

Also, when government shutdown, we let anyone/everyone come to the food bank for food. It’s fighting hunger.

She does help organizations set up as agencies with the food bank. Such as universities.

Sarah: Asking for clarification of the question, pastor is asking about sharing his surplus of food from the food bank. He’s been told he can’t share it with another agency.

Sarah clarified that what’s important is that the food we are passing on is being held in an approved place, with good storage, food safety practices, etc.

Another audience member: Scottsboro person wants to partner with WIC. Is it okay to give free produce to the WIC people in her area? Clancy says yes. She pushes the rules and then asks permission. But difference between handing out food to an end user versus leaving it with another entity to store/hand out.

She thinks WIC should be a member agency of Feeding America. Wants those kinds of decision makers to work together.

Client who comes in habitually late. Instead of getting mad, seek to understand why she/he is always late. Find out what the problem is. What story can you use to

relate to them? Connect by relating. How can you use a story to relate to someone?

When I talk about collaboration, I also like to talk about the little collaborations.

Starting a program soon with a local dairy that has a Grief Camp for kids each year, so the food bank is going to work with them on that. She got all the zip codes of all the kids who attend, so intern can research ALL the available pantries in their area, get that info to the kids for future use.

You can give them free produce once...what about next week? Give them info.

Ignite Food Dignity: They write kind words on produce! Write it on potatoes, bananas. “Come back and see us!”

Snow day, bring kids to the food bank and have them pretty up the produce.

Little things can make a difference.

When we do a food drive, she gives out bags that are sent to the schools and write on the bags what is needed. Let the kids draw on the bags. Kid goes home invested in the project. Then use the bag to pack food parcels.

FREE bi weekly produce stand at the food bank. Client choice. Open to anyone.

Allow volunteers to take produce, let anyone take as much as they want.

Telling customers “take as much as you want.” Person signing in clients is disputing this, they can’t take all they want! They’ll take EVERYTHING! Volunteer said,

“Shame on you!” Important to work against that stigma and shame. Reality is no

one takes a truckload, if anything they are hesitant to take as much as they may actually need. Perception versus reality.

Letting her food pantry volunteers take the produce starts a process of collaboration, sharing recipes, sharing uses, normalizing the process.

Did a collaboration with a restaurant, “The Giving Fence.” Once a month students pack up bags of food and hang them on the fence at the restaurant, for the homeless to take.

At a local state prison, they had a huge garden, wanted to donate their surplus. Called the food bank to come get it. Everything harvested, planted by hand. They now provide all kinds of produce to help local kids. Sense of purpose and pride for the prisoners.

Summer meal site at a WIC location.

RESULTS program: teaches people how to share their stories of hunger and poverty.

What are YOU doing.

Audience member: Malnutrition initiative, I’d like to start something like that in

Alabama. Lions Club has a malnutrition initiative. How do we collaborate? Lion’s can become a member agency if they’re a non profit. Lion’s club also does health screenings, so it’s a good collaboration.

Clancy is working with local school nurses to set up a food pantry in the schools.

Audience: She works with elderly, one of the things they do is a vegetable garden.

What’s your feeling about collaborating with a jail to help with the garden? Clancy thinks it works, she’d take school kids to the jail garden if she could.

Audience: Child nutrition director. They’re seeing a drop in participation, any idea why? Clancy: look at stigma of free lunch program. Look at what we’re saying about the program, how we’re promoting it?

Audience: We have a warehouse, jails send their trustees to volunteer in the warehouse two days a week. When they leave, we send them out with bread and produce for the prison, which has trouble feeding prisoners on very small budget.

Audience: I’m a SNAP supervisor. Over the last 5 years drop of about 600 cases, people participating. Misconception that they won’t qualify for ANY programs if they qualify for SNAP. Work with clients to educate them about other programs that are available. Talk to the people you’re serving, find out what the hurdles are.

Audience: There are schools where the parents don’t have to fill out all the paperwork

- the amount of paperwork that goes home with kids is unbelievable. It’s possible the school lunch program paperwork is just getting lost in the shuffle. Clancy: Maybe a free produce stand instead.

Audience: Client choice agency, our clients also spend time with a trained counselor who will dive deeper into the client’s story, to find out what their specific needs are. If you’re not actively engaged in your county’s human resource councils, you should be.

Lots of networking, leveraging resources.

Clancy: A plug for her quest to talk with people about collaboration, she’s accepting applications for a free one-hour session. https://calendly.com/clancyharrison/60min

Clancy: Local pediatrician wanted an obesity prevention program. She said they should survey kids / families first. They wouldn’t do it. How do you implement a program based on assumptions?

Senior Health and Hunger, 11:00a-12:00p

41.2 million people in US are food insecure, 5.4 million of them are elderly.

Story about Evelyn, who disappeared from the food pantry for a while, then reappeared. Her husband loved the beef stew from the pantry, but didn’t realize she was getting it from a food pantry - and he forbade her to do so! Husband died, now she was free to go to pantry again. Would husband have benefitted from that protein?

Alabama has one of the highest rate of elderly food insecure - 12%. Majority of food insecure seniors have incomes above the poverty level, so they might not qualify for food assistance.

Seniors between 60-64 have 50% higher rate of food insecurity. Why? Those who are much older than this group are likely in some kind of assistance, in a facility, being provided food.

Those with a disability are more likely to be food insecure.

Those living with a grandkid are 3x higher risk.

Coping strategies: Skip medication. Purchasing low cost/low quality food to stretch the budget. Dilute food, dilute milk. Making trade offs between food and other basic needs. Audience mentions shoplifting and attending ANY event where there is food.

ELderly will give grandkids the food or money instead of themselves. Turning heat off and burning scrap wood instead to save money. Choosing food over utilities, food over medication, hygiene, dental care.

Audience: Seniors have to buy more expensive “ready to make” foods because they’re not ABLE to cook, or maybe their dental care is so bad they need the softer, microwaveable food. Clancy: WOW, we’re seeing this at our pantry, now I know why!

Audience: Arthritis impacts eating, if you can’t hold a fork, cut with a knife, not getting as much food in.

Audience: Gas leak, can’t afford to fix it, so no cooking.

60% of adults with multiple chronic diseases make a choice between food and caring for their medical needs. 60%!

Daily Dilemmas: What would YOU choose?

60% of seniors will eat food past the expiration date. 73% purchase cheap, unhealthy food. 35% will water down their food or drinks.

Health risks associated with adult food insecurity. Arthritis, asthma, kidney disease, stress, suicide, and many more (over 100). We need doctors to be aware that these health issues may be masking food insecurity. Difficult to get doctors or nurses to get this. They don’t work in that world, they don’t get it.

If you have a senior who don’t want to go on SNAP, because it is high effort/low payoff, educate them that nutrition improves their ability to live, to interact with grandchildren, etc.

Senior health risks include limited vitamin intake, low calcium, anemia, decreased mobility, 3x more likely to be depressed, 1.5x more likely to be diabetic. Will go into healthcare system at a faster rate if food insecure.

Transitional Care is the way to go! Someone is released from hospital or nursing home

(normally the elderly). If readmitted in 30 days they have to go to hospital and hospital won’t get paid for it! More $$ in transitional care because they don’t want people coming back. Involve social worker, physical therapy, but nothing about dietician!

Nothing about providing for their nutritional care at home. They have to get protein to avoid a return to care! Malnourished when they go in, go home and they’re malnourished again.

How do we get in front of this problem with seniors? You can help doctors by supplying food to their clients. Call your own doctor and ask for a conversation about transitional care.

Strategies to improve food access. How do we get them to accept food pantry help?

Find out what is important to them. Show specific benefits of eating well (sleep, mood, bone health, etc). Even a little bit of SNAP aid adds one good meal once a week. For free. Bring other resources in. For instance, teach people who enroll people in Medicare how to also enroll them in SNAP. Educate about other types of assistance that are available.

Good for heart health shelves in the pantry, so people know what types of food might be good for that. Simple things that educate.

Audience: United Way person, if you see a person who has a need beyond what you can fulfill, have the person call 211.

Identify unique partnerships. Share over lunch what it is you do, you might find a person across from you who can fulfill that need, partner with you.

Alabama Elderly SImplified Application Project: An easy, fast track way for elderly to apply for SNAP benefits. Can be faxed or emailed, don’t have to go into an office to apply. Debit card for privacy, no taxes on SNAP purchases. Can count their medical expenses toward their award amount calculation. Self-declared income, application lasts for three years. Removes some of the barriers to elderly signing up for SNAP.

Benefits of food assistance: Reduce food insecurity, keeps elderly in their own home, improved health, less stress, more peace of mind.

Elderly don’t participate, why? Pride. Worked their entire life, don’t need it!

Transportation. Don’t know they qualify. Not worth the time, not a lot of money for elderly on SNAP.

To combat that resistance: $10-20 = a chuck roast. Or Ensure, which is expensive.

That could be a gift for your grandchild, a box of cookies for the kids that doesn’t have to come out of your pocket. Buy laundry detergent with it.

“I worked my entire life” response: Yes! Exactly. You paid into it, now it’s available for you!

Audience: I had a flood several years ago. Red Cross offered me rent until I could get the house fixed back. Red Cross said hey, you gave to United Way across the years through your work, now we’re here to pay it back.

Audience: Turn it around, say “If you met someone who needed help, you’d talk them into it.” Put the shoe on the other foot.

Audience: Elderly think it’s the last step toward becoming dependent. Point out that better health will keep them independent.

Audience: Raised giving food baskets to the needy. Who are we to judge? We don’t know people’s situation. If you perceive need, the last thing you want to do is let them know that. Give them info, give them their dignity back.

Audience: You talked about collaboration earlier, I’m thinking if every church of every denomination thought about collaborating with other churches. Your OWN church members will be less likely to get defensive about accepting help.

Another way we get people to take food is to let them volunteer! That way people get to feel like they’ve worked for their handout. Sense of dignity, not standing in line for food.

Audience: I don’t see transitional care happening with dieticians at all! We’re not involved in the process of transitioning someone back to their home. We need to be more vocal about being involved in this process. Help people understand what role nutrition has in transitional care.

Consider new partnerships. Bingo? Go hang out with them! Promote your program there. Local church activities. Who is in the room you can connect with? Bring a case of apples from the food bank, look what you can get!

Audience: We partner with some senior centers. But running into regulation problems,

Meals on Wheels for instance has some strict rules about taking food from other sources. Clancy: work with local laws and legislatures to allow food harvesting from organizations, businesses that discard food every single day.

Audience: Learning Center director, we do bingo during the day, I serve breakfast or lunch, hadn’t thought about sending them home with produce.

Audience; I work with college students, use the Cornell model where we have packaged food that can go home with a student, or provide meal tickets for students who aren’t on the meal plan. College hunger is an issue.

My call to action: Think outside the box. Make it fun. Ask people you work with what they’re passionate about, what drives you, why are you here. It can spur additional ideas for collaborative, fun ways of addressing hunger. Playing music while packing food, the little things make a big difference.

I walked into food pantry one day and someone said, “Did you SEE what’s in this freezer?!” No...oh my, what is it? I walk up, I open it up, and found chicken.

Frozen chicken. “Who eats chicken?!” the volunteer said! “Must be a big BBQ down at the projects!” Clancy said, “I hope they are!” And then instead of getting mad at her, I decided to start looking into judgment. Why is she judging so strongly? Started reaching out to professors and ministers and asked for a sermon on non-judging!

Talked to professors, studies show people judge out of fear, their own insecurities.

Better to think someone is in a situation because they’re lazy, or addicts, or deserve it

- versus possibly believing, “It could be me one day.”

When I say include and collaborate, how do we learn from our most difficult people, but also from the people that we serve.

Bring community resources to you. End canned food fear - promote it! Many don’t eat ANY produce, at least add canned into the mix. Can buy more produce canned or frozen than fresh. Lasts longer, less waste. Potatoes are cheap, nutritionally solid.

Eggs are high in protein, great for the elderly, easy to fix. Dry milk powder, shelf

stable but it has a stigma attached to it. She has a handout about how to make smoothies with it. Add to baking, pudding, cake mixes, smoothies, mashed potatoes, oatmeal, mac and cheese, etc.

Other online resources: MyPlate, Cooking Matters, Cooperative Extension services, etc.