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Food Pantry System Hungers For Change

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The Washington Post

Published: January 26, 2009

WASHINGTON - In soup kitchens, food pantries and universities across the country, activists are planting the seeds for an overhaul of the way America feeds its more than 35 million hungry people, the first major challenge to a system largely developed in the 1960s.

They have begun providing food where people live and work, reconsidering the need for big, urban facilities and pushing for larger government food subsidies.

The goal is to make food more easily available to working poor women, to children and to others who, research shows, are a larger portion of the hungry than the urban homeless. They also hope to lessen the stigma associated with standing in line for a hot meal or groceries.

"The first generation of soup kitchens are getting to the point of outgrowing their kitchens and thinking they have to build new multimillion-dollar facilities," said Robert Egger, president of D.C. Central Kitchen and a nationally recognized anti-hunger activist. "And we're saying, 'We need to be adapting to future needs, not building the same things but bigger.'"

WHAT'S NEW

MOBILE FOOD BANK: In Austin, Texas, a food pantry has gone mobile, traveling to rural parts of the region where people have no source of emergency food. The program is similar to Meals on Wheels, which made its U.S. debut in 1954 and has lengthy waiting lists in many cities today. But the mobile food bank is not limited to seniors and focuses on providing groceries rather than pre-made meals. The food bank also helps clients enroll in food stamp or Medicare programs and attempts to address other needs.

CAMPUS KITCHENS: The organization grew out of D.C. Central Kitchen. Each of the 15 participating high school and college campuses has tailored its program specifically for the community it serves. The goal of Campus Kitchens is to build a system where parents can pick up meals for their family when they pick up their children from school.

"There are school cafeterias that sit empty most of the day and food there is being wasted, and so why can't we use those instead of building new facilities?" said Maureen Roche, director of the Washington-based Campus Kitchens programs.

CURRENT SYSTEM

Soup kitchens, which provide hot meals, and food pantries, which offer groceries mostly to families, are the backbone of the current nonprofit food system. Most are in the hearts of cities and rely primarily on individual donations of food or bulk supplies from large food banks.

Operating soup kitchens during traditional business hours shuts out a large group of hungry people. About 30 percent of households headed by single mothers reported going without food at least occasionally in 2007, almost four times the rate for single people, according to Feeding America, an umbrella group for 200 food banks nationwide.

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