Staff Writer

Texas Hunger Initiative, a program of Baylor’s School of Social Work, is partnering with the United States Department of Agriculture to host the Together at the Table: Southwest Regional Hunger Summit, which will stretch from today to Thursday.

The summit, which beginning at noon, will last until 1:30 p.m. Thursday. The event will be held in on the second floor of the Bill Daniel Student Center.

The summit will give leaders and practitioners from across the Southwest United States and beyond a chance to share their knowledge about food insecurity.

“The keys to alleviating hunger are organizing communities, creating models that are replicable and scalable, identifying the most efficient ways to distribute food and connecting those who suffer from food insecurity with the resources available to help them — all of which will be addressed during this summit,” Jeremy Everett, director of the Texas Hunger Initiative, said in an October press release. “Presenters, panelists and attendees will learn from each other and then go home and implement these strategies in their local communities.”

One in six households in Texas experience hunger, according to statistics provided by the Texas Hunger Initiative.

The summit will focus on proven methods to fight hunger.

More than 65 speakers and panelists will lead sessions.

Keynote speakers include Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Working Poor,” David Shipler; Craig Gundersen, professor of agricultural consumer and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois; and Harriet Phillips, who works in the office of Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe.

Topics such as food policy, urban agriculture, congregational outreach, community health and senior hunger will be discussed.

Registration is open online. The cost is $75 for the public, although attendance is free for students.

The registration fee includes dinner tonight, light breakfast on Thursday and lunch on Thursday.

Those interested in learning more about the Texas Hunger Initiative can visit www.baylor.edu/texashunger.

Baylor School of Social Work's Texas Hunger Initiative received a $230,000 support gift in 2011 after partnering with Share Our Strength, a national non-profit organization, to fight childhood hunger in Texas.
Photo illustration by Matt Hellman | Lariat Photo Editor

By Amanda Thomas
Reporter

Texas is the second-hungriest state in the nation, with 4.2 million people at risk of experiencing hunger. At 8 p.m. today, PBS will air “Feeding the Minds: Texas Takes On Hunger and Obesity,” a documentary featuring Baylor School of Social Work’s Texas Hunger Initiative. The documentary will discuss the issue of hunger in Texas by highlighting the efforts of the Texas Hunger Initiative and its partners.

One of the topics discussed in the documentary is childhood obesity specifically caused by hunger. Jeremy Everett, director of the Texas Hunger Initiative, said the correlation can be found in children that are from food desert areas. Food desert areas are places where people do not have immediate access to healthy foods and cannot afford healthy food, making only junk food accessible.

“Food desert kids are physically obese, however, malnourished,” Everett said.

The documentary shows footage from seven Texas PBS stations, which produced individual documentary packages. Everett and Camille Miller, president of the Texas Health Institute, will narrate the documentary.

The footage shows what the Texas Hunger Initiative is doing to solve these hunger problems, such as working with community and government leaders. The film will also answer what is happening at the state level, the regional level and the individual level to fight hunger and obesity.

“We have been talking about [a documentary] for several years,” Everett said. “I am excited; it elevates the voices of people from Waco and [those] who have been working hard.”

Everett started the Texas Hunger Initiative three years ago. Its mission is to end hunger through policy, education, community organization and community development.

In it’s website, the Texas Hunger Initiative that it believes that by addressing hunger from the policy level and from the grassroots level, coordinating services and resources across the state, the state of Texas can bring security to its citizens.

Everett said Texas has enough money and food to feed its people, but the established programs that help fight hunger need to become organized. Everett said there is money set aside by the government to help fight hunger, but it is not being used as it should be.

“There is a lot of money to address the problem, but we [established hunger prevention programs] have not done a good job to utilize it,” Everett said.

Texas Hunger Initiative works to use this money by working with other hunger prevention organizations and the government. The initiative works with the United States Department of Agriculture, Texas Department of Agriculture, the Health and Human Services Commission, the Texas Food Bank Network and local community members involved in the food system to establish Food Planning Associations across the state. Food Planning Associations are associations of organizations and individuals committed to making their communities food secure.

“We are working to bring the voice of those living in hunger to the FPAs and working to connect the FPAs with the Food Policy Roundtable in order to help policies reflect the reality of hunger in the local communities,” (the Texas Hunger Initiative website said).

The Texas Food Policy Roundtable is a group of Texas leaders who joined to develop, coordinate and improve the implementation of food policy.

Kasey Ashenfelter, who started working with Texas Hunger Initiative as a field director six months ago and is a student at the George W. Truett Theological Seminary, puts these plans to action by developing individual Food Planning Associations in communities across Texas.

He works with these communities by discussing how placing Food Planning Associations in communities will help fight hunger within communities.

“I am expected to spread the word by talking to the communities,” Ashenfelter said. “People just don’t realize that there is not one blanket plan to solve hunger.”

Everett said he hopes this documentary will inform people of the hunger issues facing Texas and what people can do to help.

Everett said he thinks once the hunger problem is solved, poverty in general will be easier to tackle. “Hunger is the harshest form of poverty,” Everett said. “This is an issue we can address. By learning to address hunger, we can take on other poverty issues.”

Baylor students from all academic disciplines can now minor in poverty studies and social justice, a program housed in the School of Social Work.

It took time to launch the new minor because of its interdisciplinary nature, said Dr. Jon Singletary, associate dean for baccalaureate studies, the Diana R. Garland Endowed Chair in Child and Family Studies and the director of the Center for Family and Community Ministries.

“We wanted to have different departments who are on campus involved, and so we wanted everybody to have a chance for some input, and also just be able to get all the approvals that are necessary [for an interdisciplinary program],” Singletary said. “But it’s finally approved, and we are definitely excited.”

The minor is part of the academic foundation and focus of the Baylor Interdisciplinary Poverty Initiative, an organization designed to “create a catalyst for social change around issues of poverty, social justice and human capability,” according to its website.

Dr. Gaynor Yancey, professor of social work, said that even prior to the creation of the initiative, it had been determined that a minor should be created.

“We knew there were all sorts of instructors who were integrating social justice issues and poverty issues into their courses,” Yancey said. “There was a reason for the minor because it gave an emphasis, especially interdisciplinary [in scope], to these issues of poverty and social justice.”

The minor is structured with flexibility in mind in order for students to use classes from many departments.

“Half of the hours for the minor are a required core set of classes. Two of those are in social work, and one is in economics,” Singletary said. “But then the other nine hours of the minor can be taken from different departments. We have 25 or 30 pre-approved classes, but if students identify other courses that are related to poverty, they can include those pretty easily.”

In order to appeal to a wider group of students, especially outside of the School of Social Work, Singletary said they tried to create a new course listing prefix, but this attempt failed.

“We wanted to create a poverty prefix so the courses wouldn’t be social work or engineering, they would be poverty classes, but the university wouldn’t do that,” Singletary said.

This has not deterred interest in the program, however, Yancey said.

“We already have seen some [interested] out of philosophy. We have some from religion,” Yancey said. “It’s not contingent on any one group.”

2010 alumna Katie Yocham, who now works as a grassroots organizer at the Texas Hunger Initiative said she took enough classes to have earned this minor had it been offered at the time.

“My perspective on poverty at that point was from my personal experiences,” Yocham said. “This was the first time that I really had more of an educational background in it.”

Yocham said the interdisciplinary nature of the classes was beneficial, giving her an education to go with her personal experiences.

“You don’t look at poverty just from one angle. You really get to go at it from all different perspectives,” Yocham said. “You also get to look at specifics and focus on a certain issue of poverty if you want. It gives you a pretty good general picture of what’s going on around poverty in all different areas.”

Yocham said having this educational base has helped in her work at the Texas Hunger Initiative.

“Something as vast, complicated and complex as poverty takes a lot of learning and a lot of trial and error [in the workplace],” Yocham said. “You have to know what you’re talking about. You can’t just pull from personal experiences that you’ve had to convince people of something. Not only has [the education] affected how I am working with these people in this organization, but it’s also encouraged me to continue to work in areas of poverty.”

For those who do not want to pursue careers in issues of poverty and social justice, Singletary said the program can provide a deeper awareness of these issues.

“After Steppin’ Out, or the summer mission projects, students are always saying, ‘Well, we got to work with poor people, but how do we really change the system?’ And I think that’s a part that motivated us to [create the minor] — wanting to educate students to be able to change systems to address poverty.”

Singletary said the minor brings together faculty and students to study the issues surrounding poverty in a more immersive way.

“There had been a couple of research projects where students had been able to work together on different areas of poverty,” Singletary said. “You know, students could always take one or two classes that would address these issues, but to have a whole curriculum where students could work together across majors [has been] something that we’ve been dreaming of for several years.”

For a detailed look at the poverty studies and social justice minor, students can visit www.baylor.edu/student_life.

Participants in Steppin’ Out prepare to work on a blind widow’s house on Oct. 29. Steppin’ Out is one of several events and organizations at Baylor that allows students to volunteer in the community.
Meagan Downing | Lariat Photographer

By Jade Mardirosian
Staff Writer

Baylor has more than 15 official student organizations dedicated specifically to service, numerous fraternities and sororities that require members to volunteer, and various other opportunities for students to get out into the community and lend a helping hand. However, not all students choose to actively volunteer in the community.

For Lantana junior Janice Wong, service events like Steppin’ Out and service organizations like Campus Kitchen are a good fit for getting involved in the community. Wong is on the steering committee for Steppin’ Out, which organizes a day each semester for volunteering throughout the community with various projects, and includes about 2,000-3,000 student volunteer participants.

“The mission [of Steppin’ Out] is to raise awareness for students to see what Waco is like and how they can serve practically,” Wong said. “[Steppin’ Out] also [works] to unify students and help establish leadership in students, while giving them a taste of what service is really like.”

Wong also volunteers once a week or every two weeks, depending on her schedule, with Campus Kitchen, which grows and cooks food and distributes it to various agencies in the community.

About 360 students are registered volunteers with Campus Kitchen, and there are service opportunities Monday through Friday.

Chico junior Jacob Creighton volunteers through Alpha Phi Omega, which is a co-ed service fraternity. A certain number of service hours are required of its members for every semester and there are different volunteer opportunities throughout the week, which allows members to choose a project that fits their schedule and interests.

Service projects range all across the board and include opportunities with Fuzzy Friends Animal Shelter, Crestview Retirement Home, Habitat for Humanity, World Hunger Relief Farm and Mission Waco, among others.

“I try to [volunteer] at the hunger relief farm,” Creighton said. “I really enjoy that project. It’s getting your hands dirty and I enjoy that kind of manual labor.”

Creighton said he joined Alpha Phi Omega because of its diverse group of members and its service-oriented commitment.

“For me, it was important to find a group of people I could get to know and it was important to me for it to be a diverse group of people who were all interested in giving back,” Creighton said. “We get the benefits of giving back to the community and the pleasure of having a brotherhood and a good group of people.”

Mary Katherine Van Hook, project manager and placement coordinator for community engagement, service, and scholarship, said that according to the department of Student Life, nearly 10,000 students are actively involved in volunteering in the community for a total of more than 60,000 hours annually. Van Hook said since students are beginning to hear about the community engagement, service and scholarship office, more are coming by looking for opportunities to get involved.

“We’ve seen individual students come in and ask for different volunteer and service opportunities and we also hear from organizations as a whole who are interested and really just want a better way to learn about these opportunities in the community, and that’s where our office comes in,” Van Hook said.

Van Hook said the office has students answer a few questions related to their interests and availability in order to match them with an organization they can best serve. Van Hook said the office works directly with many local organizations, including Meals on Wheels, Texas Hunger Initiative, several food pantries and different churches.

“We are trying to help out the niches [in the community] that haven’t been filled yet, and that students haven’t heard about,” Van Hook said.

However, not all Baylor students feel compelled to volunteer or are able to find the time to get involved in the community.

Joshua junior Colton Dearing works as a tutor at Brook Avenue Elementary School two days a week, but is not a volunteer since he is paid. He said although he enjoys working as a mentor in the community, he does not get the chance to volunteer in Waco.

“I have no time; I work 10 hours a week and have classes,” Dearing said. “The weekends are my time to relax.”

Coppell senior Brad Parker does not volunteer in the Waco community, although he is involved in the Coppell community.

“I’m more apt to volunteer in my home community,” Parker said.

Although he has been at Baylor for four years, Parker said he has never found a service organization he was compelled to get involved with.

“For the first several semesters of school, I was merely very lazy,” Parker said. “I am probably more inclined to do something [to volunteer] these days, but accounting kind of rules my life so I pretty much only have time for that and just a little bit of extra time for relaxation.”

Although he does not volunteer, Parker said that he thinks Baylor students are eager to volunteer in the community.

“As a whole, Baylor students seem quite willing to help out and give a hand, but maybe that is just because we live in Waco,” Parker said. “Waco is pretty clearly impoverished and even kind of walking around the outskirts of campus you can see the effects of it.”

Parker said since many students at Baylor come from middle class families, it could be a culture shock to come to Waco and see the poverty-stricken parts of the city.

“I guess that compels a lot of people to want to help out [in the community],” Parker said.

Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Todd Staples addresses children from Austin, Connally and Waco Independent School District Wednesday at the No Kid Hungry campaign launch in Austin.
Ashley Yeaman | Reporter

By Ashley Yeaman
Reporter

AUSTIN— Government, non-profit and corporate leaders came together to celebrate the statewide launch of the Texas No Kid Hungry campaign Wednesday at Capitol Hill in Austin.

Also in attendance were more than 100 school children from Austin, Waco and Connally Independent School Districts.

The No Kid Hungry campaign unites the Texas Hunger Initiative of the Baylor School of Social Work with Share Our Strength, a national nonprofit organization, to end childhood hunger in Texas by 2015.

Texas has been ranked the second-hungriest state in the nation, and one in four children go without food, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. According to the Texas Hunger Initiative, the state is fifth in the nation for child food insecurity.

Todd Staples, Texas commissioner of agriculture, said that these high numbers can be reduced.

“We have a situation where too many Texas children are going hungry,” Staples said. “Texas is a leader in many things. Child hunger should not be one of them. And we have resources in Texas to help bridge the gap and to build a better future for all children.”

Jeremy Everett, director of the Texas Hunger Initiative, said the resources that are available can provide all children access to food.

“Five and a half million people are considered food insecure in Texas, which means they don’t know where their meal is coming from,” Everett said. “[But] there’s actually a number of sources to address hunger. We’ve already got resources allocated right now in Texas to ensure access to three healthy meals a day, seven days a week.”

Bill Ludwig, the USDA Food and Nutrition Service Southwest regional administrator, said there is no reason any child should go to bed hungry.

“We have 15 national nutrition programs that are designed to end hunger, not only in Texas, but also across the United States,” Ludwig said.

Ludwig said a national perspective will help to utilize these programs.

“We need an organization like Share Our Strength because they bring knowledge about hunger issues across the United States,” Ludwig said. “They bring experience. They have an understanding of hunger, but more than anything else, they bring resources and boots on the ground to end hunger, and they’re here to help us end hunger in Texas.”

The partnership between Share Our Strength and Texas Hunger Initiative unites not only two organizations, but representatives from other nonprofits, the government and businesses for a common goal, said Bill Shore, chairman and chief executive officer of Share Our Strength.

“One of the reasons we’re all here, even though we all have very different ideas, different jobs, different views on things is really [the children],” Shore said. “I started an organization that does exactly what the title says. It means that everybody has something that they can give back to others. Everybody has something that they can give back to the community. So everybody up here is sharing their strength to end childhood hunger.”

Shore said the problem of childhood hunger lies in the lack of participation in food programs.

“Children in this country who are hungry are not hungry because we lack food,” Shore said. “We have food in abundance in America. Children in America are not hungry because we lack food nutrition programs. We have programs like school lunch and school breakfast, and the SNAP program and summer meals, but not enough kids have access to these programs.”

Shore said that in Texas, 2.4 million children get a free or reduced-price lunch, but only 1.4 million get breakfast.

“How do we get more kids enrolled for programs that are already set up? They exist, they’re paid for, and we just have to connect kids to it,” Shore said. “We’ve got all of the ingredients here today to make that happen, so this is the beginning of an effort.”

Success has already been seen through the implementation of pilot breakfast program in Dallas, Dora Rivas, food service director of Dallas ISD, said.

“As a result of the breakfast program, our breakfast participation has doubled, tripled at the pilot schools,” Rivas said. “The hard work of the staff and the collaboration with partners resulted in us going from seven pilot schools in the spring to 50, with the goal of expanding the program.”

Rivas said 20,000 more children are now eating breakfast every morning, giving them increased focus in the classroom, fewer trips to the nurse’s office and social benefits, such as serving one other breakfast and taking responsibility for clean-up.

“Because of community support and other collaborations, we are closer to eliminating the symptoms of hunger that are a barrier to student learning and that ultimately will lead to more students benefitting in Texas as well,” Rivas said.

Beth Drew, campaign manager of No Kid Hungry at the Texas Hunger Initiative, said in an interview after the event that the next planned step will be to unite the resources of all the organizations involved in the effort to end childhood hunger.

“In January, we are going to kick off the state operations team, which will be a place where representatives from state governments and from private entities and community nonprofits and companies every single stakeholder in the state will be in a room to figure out how to streamline the administration of these [food] programs.”

Baylor’s School of Social Work Texas Hunger Initiative recently received $230,000 in support after partnering with Share Our Strength, a national non-profit organization, to fight childhood hunger in Texas.
Photo illustration by Matt Hellman | Lariat Photo Editor

By Ashley Yeaman
Reporter

Baylor’s School of Social Work Texas Hunger Initiative is partnering with Share Our Strength, a national non-profit organization, to fight childhood hunger in Texas.

The four-year partnership will focus on the No Kid Hungry campaign, a national effort to end food insecurity in children by 2015.

Food insecurity occurs when an individual faces hunger or lives in fear of starvation.

Share Our Strength will provide $230,000 to the Texas Hunger Initiative this year to fund its activities. In addition to funds, the partnership also brings a wealth of experience to the initiative.

Share Our Strength has partnered with several other public and private organizations in more than 13 states to streamline the administration of organizations that support childhood food programs, said Beth Drew, the No Kid Hungry campaign manager at the Texas Hunger Initiative.

“In any project, it’s very beneficial to have someone who’s been there, done that and has that practical experience,” Drew said. “I think it’s a great partnership.”

When Dr. Jeremy Everett, director of Texas Hunger Initiative, met with Share Our Strength prior to the finalization of the partnership, he said he felt the two organizations shared common goals.

“Their dreams for domestic food insecurity reduction seemed to be just simply in line with what we’re doing,” Everett said. Texas Hunger Initiative and Share Our Strength will work together this year on two primary objectives: to increase access to breakfast for children through in-school programs and expand access to summer meal programs.

“Our goal is that we will increase overall breakfast consumption in Texas by 6 percent this year, which will affect 89,000 children each day,” Everett said. Their efforts will target 10 school districts.

“In the summer of 2010, we increased summer meal access by 2 million meals over the course of the summer for kids in Texas. Our goal for 2011 is to match that number,” he said.

Drew said the two organizations will work with state agencies and private programs.

“We’re working on the state and local level to make sure these programs, like Breakfast in the Classroom and summer meal programs, run as efficiently as possible,” Drew said. “Money just sits up in the federal government right now, and we’re not utilizing it as best we can.”

Drew said the best way to implement these programs involves cooperation between state and private agencies.

To coordinate conversation among groups, task forces will be established to focus on specific projects, such as the summer meals program, Drew said.

Drew said the ultimate goal is to change the current system.

“Changing the actual infrastructure of the system is going to be a lot more beneficial in the long run than trying to figure out where the next handout is going to come from,” said Drew.

“That’s not to say that those programs are bad. Food banks are incredible, and there’s an absolute need for them. But our goal is to make sure that infrastructure is in place so we can get the money we need for this and people can get the food they need,” she added.

To jumpstart awareness of the No Kid Hungry campaign, the Texas Hunger Initiative organized a media event from 11 a.m. to noon on Wednesday, Oct. 12, on the south steps of the State Capitol in Austin.

Baylor students, faculty and staff are invited to attend the launch and an information session on childhood hunger that will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. in Room E2.014 at the Capitol.

Transportation will be provided. To RSVP, visit www.texashunger.org.

At Baylor, the Texas Hunger Initiative and CitySquare, a non-profit that exists to fight the roots of poverty, hosted a screening of the documentary “Food Stamped” on Sept. 29, followed by a panel discussion.

This event marked the beginning of a lecture series that will engage students on hunger issues, said Laura Hilton, program coordinator at Texas Hunger Initiative.

“We’d like to develop sort of a consistent way for students to be involved with THI and to just gain from hearing some of the people we get to work with on a day-to-day basis,” Hilton said.

Everett said the lectures can also show students how it’s possible to make positive changes toward stamping out issues such as hunger.

The next lecture will take place from noon to 1 p.m. Nov. 3 in the School of Social Work Room 320.

There will also be a second media launch event for the No Kid Hungry campaign. It will occur Nov. 9 in Dallas at the Dallas Farmers Market.

A graph showing the percentage of residents in McLennan County who are eligible for nutrition programs. Texas was ranked No. 2 on a list of the nation’s hungriest states.Matt Hellman | Lariat Photo Editor

By Ashley Yeaman
Reporter

Texas ranks second in the nation with citizens suffering from food insecurity according to a report recently released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Those who experience food insecurity either live with hunger or are unable to adequately meet daily nutritional needs because of limited resources.

Four million individuals, or 18 percent of the population, experienced hunger or had to change their lifestyles in order to avoid being hungry in 2010.

In the face of this news, Baylor’s Texas Hunger Initiative, The Texas Food Bank Network and First Choice Power have released a detailed report that outlines food insecurity in all 254 counties of Texas, as well as plans to fight hunger at the local, state and national levels.

This is the first time the report has been released.

“Hunger by the Numbers: A Blueprint for Ending Hunger in Texas” includes a hunger scorecard for each county that helps individual communities work to solve food insecurity problems, according to Jeremy Everett, director of the Texas Hunger Initiative.

“It gives them a foundation to stand on,” Everett said. “It takes the mystery out of hunger for the community. So instead of wondering how many are hungry, what percentage are elderly, what percentage are young adults, what income levels are, now they have a better idea of what the state of the union is within their community.”

Barbara Anderson, executive director of the Texas Food Bank Network, a coalition of the 19 food banks in Texas, said that the dual nature of the report, detailing shortcomings but also solutions, makes it an invaluable resource.

“[The report] is not just publishing statistics, but rather a way for communities that actually solve these problems,” Anderson said. “It gives local communities the tools and a plan on how to use all resources available to them.”

Hunger in Texas has been a long-term problem, linked closely with poverty levels, according to Everett.

“Food insecurity ratings on an annual basis are really based on poverty statistics,” Everett said. “People are experiencing hunger because their income levels aren’t enough to pay the rent, pay for medication and other basics.”

With a nation struggling economically, it may seem difficult to get programs off the ground to combat hunger.

However, Everett said that information outlined in the released report illustrates that helping alleviate hunger could also stimulate the economy.

In McLennan County, 19 percent of citizens were food insecure in 2010.

The same year, $48 million from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was left unused in the county, Everett said.

SNAP benefits, known as food stamps, provide a way to get this money directly to families who are considered food insecure.

The money is invested back into the community when families use their benefits to purchase food, Everett said.

“For every dollar that comes in a community through SNAP, it is a $1.85 return for the economy,” Everett said.

“That means that if we were to sign those families up and pull in that $50 million for them, it would have a stimulus effect.”

Stimulating the economy through hunger relief has the potential to provide benefits for Mclennan County, specifically the city of Waco.

“Once it gets into the economy, it would have a stimulus effect of about $87 million in Waco’s economy,” Everett said.

“So that just has huge ramifications for the well-being of our city. That’s huge for us.”

That a smaller city such as Waco could have such a large amount of additional funds move into its economy is significant, Everett said.

“We need to invest in SNAP outreach jobs so we can start signing these families up for this program, because this program is good for our economy and it’s good for hungry people,” Everett said.

The SNAP program is just one of 13 programs that the report looks at that could positively affect Waco, Mclennan County and other cities and counties around the state.

The hunger report will be released annually to provide the most updated information to communities working to solve the problem of food insecurity.

“Hunger is not a symptom of poverty that we have to continually deal with,” Everett said.

“We already have adequate resources available to end hunger right now. The primary reason that we have hunger is because we haven’t matched those resources with the families who need it most. If we just utilize the tools we currently have, then we can take hunger off the map.”

Those interested in learning more about the Texas Hunger Initiative are encouraged to visit the Baylor school of social work website or http://www.baylor.edu/texashunger.

By Sara Tirrito
Staff writer

For the 27,000 students on free and reduced lunch at schools in McLennan County, finding balanced meals throughout the summer can prove challenging.

This year, several Waco groups are joining together to strengthen the city’s branch of the USDA Summer Food Services Program, which provides free meals to any child between the ages of 1 and 18 at various sites throughout the summer regardless of their socioeconomic status. Some sites provide breakfast as well. Sites are located at various schools in Waco, Connally and La Vega Independent School Districts, and also at other organizations and churches that volunteer to become sites.

“Part of the challenge with hunger issues is there’s not really anybody that it stops with,” Alexis Weaver, a member of the executive committee of the Food Planning Task Force of McLennan County and director of community development for the Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce, said. “It’s not anybody’s responsibility, and so we really want to make this feel like it is a community responsibility.”

Currently, the program in Waco faces some challenges. Not all of the sites at schools can stay open once summer school ends because of the cost of keeping buildings open and having staff present. Transportation to the sites has also been a hurdle for some students, and Weaver said many do not even realize they can receive the free meals without being enrolled in summer school. But this year, the Food Planning Task Force of McLennan County, the McLennan County Hunger Coalition and the Baylor School of Social Work chapter of the Texas Hunger Initiative are partnering with local school districts, church congregations and community groups to help increase the number of sites available for the Summer Food Services Program and to increase student participation in the program. The groups are being asked to plan simple activities that last 45 minutes to an hour and a half to encourage the students to take advantage of the program.

“Research shows that just saying ‘come eat free food’ is not enough to bring people out. And so what’s really needed is essentially almost like a mini summer camp. It doesn’t have to be a lot or an extensive activity, but being able to promote like come and read this summer or come and play basketball or whatever thing,” Weaver said.

Last Tuesday, the Food Planning Task Force of McLennan County, the McLennan County Hunger Coalition and the Baylor School of Social Work chapter of the Texas Hunger Initiative hosted the area’s first Summer Meals Summit to bring the churches and community groups together to discuss what they can do to strengthen the program this summer. Weaver said three churches signed up to serve as feeding sites at the summit and others agreed to meet again for further discussions in the coming weeks. Getting the community involved in the program has been a longtime goal of Cliff Reece, Waco Independent School District director of child nutrition services. He said the community’s involvement will help get the word out, and that the passion and commitment of those volunteers will help increase families’ comfort and participation in the program.

“Once you get to that level, there’s a lot of confidence between them and people feel comfortable,” Reece said. “If you can get the community to buy into something, understand it and then disseminate the information, I think we can actively get more children involved in the program, especially the kids that need the program.”

Reece said he hopes community involvement can also help to bolster participation even after summer school ends so the school district administration can support keeping more school sites open through the end of summer, despite costs. The district generally has 27-32 sites, about half of which are located at schools.

“In the past, unfortunately, when summer school ends the participation drops dramatically,” Reece said. “What I’m hoping is through the community effort, we can keep those participation levels up and we can keep those sites open.”

The Rev. Kenneth Moerbe, chairman of the McLennan County Hunger Coalition, said it is important to expand the Summer Food Services Program because there is poverty in Waco, but there is also nutritious food available for those who are hungry – many simply don’t know that it is available. Moerbe said the results of poverty in Waco are often visible in the obesity of children who have had to substitute fast food and other unhealthy options for more expensive fruits and vegetables that their families cannot afford.

“Wherever there’s poverty, there’s hunger. It’s not the kind of thing that you see in Third World countries,” Moerbe said. “You are going to see a lot of obese children.”

Because the Summer Food Services Program is federally funded, sites are reimbursed for the food they distribute to those under 18. However, grants and donations are needed in order to make meals free to parents and guardians accompanying the students. When such funding cannot cover the cost, parents and guardians can eat for $3 per meal.

The McLennan County Hunger Coalition has provided funds for the past two years to allow parents to eat in an initiative called Have Lunch on Us, and will be doing so again this year. Last year, the funds were distributed to five feeding sites in the area and approximately 500 parents were able to eat for free.

“We thought it would be encouraging to parents to bring their children if we bought them lunch,” Moerbe said.

Anyone under the age of 18 can eat at any site for free no matter where they live, where they go to school or their socioeconomic status.

For those with interest in volunteering for Summer Food Services Program, Reece can be reached at 254-752-5522 or creece@wacoisd.org.

Courtesy Photographs | Mark Menjivar
Two refrigerators, one with a jar of mayonnaise and another stocked with bread, toritillas and a yellow snake, are both part of Baylor alumnus Mark Menjivar’s “You are what you eat,” series of photographs on display at Baylor’s School of Social Work located downtown at 811 Washington Ave.

By Liz Hitchcock
Reporter

You are what you eat is an age-old phrase, used by moms and grandmothers across the nation to scare children into eating healthier, but most people do not take it as literally as artist and Baylor alumnus Mark Menjivar has.

Menjivar’s most recent series of photographs for the “You Are What You Eat” series is being shown at Baylor’s School of Social Work. The 35 photographs in the show are photos of people’s refrigerators from across the country, and they are accompanied with captions telling the back stories of the interesting items found in the refrigerators.

In 2006 Menjivar was involved in the filming and researching of a documentary about hunger in the United States.

He said he was inspired to take on his own creative challenge thanks to experiences working with that documentary. Menjivar spent the next four years compiling refrigerator photos, and proclaims the series as his most complete body of work to date.

“I was spending a lot of time with people that were dealing with food insecurity. I was reading about food issues,” Menjivar said. “I was thinking about food, about where it came from, who prepared it, the effects that it has on the land, our responsibility to society and the people in it, and all of the decisions we make with food. This led me to a very simple idea of making portraits of people through the insides of their refrigerators.”

Menjivar said his concept behind the series is that looking into a person’s fridge — unchanged and honest — is like looking into a part of their life.

“There were two things that the people I chose had to agree to. One was that they didn’t move anything, so everything that you see in the photographs is as is,” Menjivar said. “Nothing is added and nothing is taken away. Also, they had to agree to talk to me, whether it be for 10 minutes or an hour.”

Menjivar said he developed relationships with all of the people who allowed him to shoot their fridge.

“I would invite people into the project that I was drawn to for one reason or another. It really varied,” Menjivar said. “I may have chosen them because of the way they look or where they live.”

Some of the most common items in his photos are beer or some type of alcohol, milk, leftovers, take-out boxes, milk and condiments or spreads.

Dr. Diana Garland, dean of the School of Social Work, described some of the pictures as shocking.

“The pictures pull you in. It’s not just a picture of a refrigerator. It is a picture of somebody’s life and their lifestyle,” Garland said.

“You can see the differences in how we live. It’s startling. … It’s like being photographed naked.”

One peculiar fridge included bread, tortillas and a frozen yellow snake. Another had a jar of mayonnaise and a black plastic grocery bag.

“It’s not just the nothingness of some refrigerators,” Garland said. “ It’s the healthiness of some. There is fast food in some and just lack of healthy nutrition in others.”

The captions placed next to the photographs in the series tell autobiographical information without revealing their names, stating where they live, the number of people in their household and a personal fact.

Vicki Marsh Kabat, the director of marketing and communications at the School of Social Work, spoke of the captions as being very insightful. “It’s all these levels at which you’re drawn in to these refrigerators, that you’re just not expecting.”

The show ties in with the School of Social Work program, The Texas Hunger Initiative, and looks to inform the community about the 36.2 million Americans who live in food insecurity.

“Social work looks at the person and the environment,” Garland said. “We are always looking at the environmental context for people, families and communities.”

Mejivars work is the first of many artists the School of Social Work hopes to display, Kabat said.

“We appreciate what art can do or mean and how one can benefit from it on so many different levels,” Kabat said.

The show will be open until April 29 in the new School of Social Work building downtown at 811 Washington Ave.