Hunger and the Holidays: How you can be an anti-hunger advocate at your own Thanksgiving table

Living in a county with the 5th richest city in America, it’s hard to imagine that so many people go hungry each day in our region. Hunger in San Diego County does not always mean starvation, but it does mean not knowing exactly how to pay for groceries, not being able to afford nutritious foods, or regularly skipping meals so your children can eat. We call it “food insecurity,” and it means not having enough food at all times to lead an active, healthy life.

As we head to the table this Thanksgiving, we encourage our supporters to take a moment to help spread the word about the hunger that lives right in the heart of our own communities. Typically, we think of Thanksgiving as a great time to volunteer at the food bank, but did you know that many food banks and pantries actually have to turn away volunteers at this time, since it is one of the only times more people volunteer than they can handle? If you can’t find an opportunity to volunteer, there are still many other ways you can get involved in the fight against hunger this Thanksgiving holiday season!

Suggestions for how you can bring hunger issues to the conversation and be an active advocate for the hungry this Thanksgiving:

1. Create place cards with hunger statistics on the back of them for setting your Thanksgiving table.
2. Enjoy a good Turkey Trot? This one benefits two local anti-hunger organizations (and it is dog friendly!).
3. Create a “Tip the Cook” jar and donate that money to your favorite anti-hunger organization.
4. To spark the conversation around hunger, ask everyone at the table to guess how many people are food insecure in America (49.1 million) and San Diego (470,000).
5. Sometime during Thanksgiving weekend, screen A Place at the Table, an insightful documentary about hunger in America, which includes testimonials from Jeff Bridges and Tom Colicchio.
6. In honor of giving Tuesday on December 1st, give the Hunger Coalition a good old-fashioned donation. Your money in partnership with the Hunger Coalition funds the incubation of new, permanent solutions to hunger. 

CalFresh Outreach Director Amanda Schultz wins Freshy Award for Innovative Leadership!

CFO Director Amanda Schultz with State Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins and her Freshy award

The San Diego Hunger Coalition is thrilled to announce that our CalFresh Outreach Director, Amanda Schultz, was awarded the statewide 2015 CalFresh Forum "Freshy" Award for Innovative Outreach Leader of the Year!

Each year, California Food Policy Advocates hosts the CalFresh Forum to bring together CalFresh policy advocates from around the state to share out and collaborate on improving CalFresh benefits and enrollment. This year the Forum was designed with three plenary speakers each bringing unique insight into modernized business processes and systems which can be adapted to improve CalFresh participation and customer service, including our own Rick Wanne, Director of Eligibility Operations for the County of San Diego.

As part of the Forum and voted on by peers, each year the Freshy Awards honor the actions of individual Californians and organizations from across the state who have worked diligently in the last year to improve CalFresh.

Freshy Awards at the CA Food Policy Advocates CalFresh Forum 2015

SDHC Receives Grant to Increase Access to Healthy Food for Head Start Families

The San Diego Hunger Coalition (SDHC) works to identify and address systemic barriers to participation in CalFresh, and we have a special focus on vulnerable populations not being successfully reached through existing outreach efforts. Though Head Start families are almost 100% eligible for CalFresh, only 40% are enrolled countywide.

With a $10,000 grant from Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, San Diego, SDHC is launching a new program to connect Head Start families to CalFresh benefits and nutrition education. We are developing a new outreach program tailored for Head Start providers, and our partners on this initial pilot will be Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) Head Start and 2-1-1 San Diego.  AKA Head Start serves over 1,500 very low-income three- to five-year-olds at 13 centers in East San Diego County. 

When asked why they have not applied for CalFresh benefits, AKA Head Start families have reported they do not understand eligibility guidelines, need help applying, and/or fear cultural stigma or adverse effects on family immigration status.  Our program will: (1) train Head Start staff on CalFresh application assistance; (2) pair AKA with 2-1-1 for the final stages of CalFresh enrollment through their telephone service; and (3) match the Head Start provider with one or more agencies providing nutrition education. 

We anticipate this will increase the food purchasing power of at least 350 AKA Head Start families by an average of $150 per month through CalFresh enrollment. Other expected outcomes are increased knowledge and motivation to purchase and prepare healthy foods and a decrease in the overall rate of overweight or obesity among AKA Head Start children by 5% during the 2015/2016 school year. 

This pilot project will be self-sustaining, because we are increasing the capacity of AKA Head Start through training, arranging what will be ongoing partnerships, and working with AKA to incorporate the program into organizational protocols.  AKA, 2-1-1, and nutrition educators are all funded by federal, state, and county programs for their elements of the program. The long-term strategy is to scale up the program model developed through this pilot with Head Start providers countywide.