Fall 2006, Volume 11 Number 3

Table of Contents

I talk about hunger a lot; as the Hunger 101 Coordinator for the Atlanta Community Food Bank, it’s my job to get people talking about hunger and poverty. Some months ago it dawned on me that before I got people to discuss hunger, I needed to get them thinking about food.

I went online and typed “food” in the search line to see what might pop up. One of the first things to appear was the PBS Web site The Meaning of Food, a great site that tells wonderful stories about food and family, food and culture, and food and life.  Since viewing the series, I’ve experienced a small but important shift in how I approach my work.

“Beyond merely nourishing the body, what we eat and with whom we eat can inspire and strengthen the bonds between individuals, communities, and even countries” (PBS, Meaning of Food).

This quote in particular resonated for me. As food bankers we work to strengthen communities by increasing access to nutritious food.  Bill Bolling, our founder and executive director, has often said, “Food is the tool we use to bring people together.”  We do a lot of work with food: we move it, pack it, ship it, store it and weigh it. We do our core work of distributing it to more than 800 nonprofit organizations with feeding programs. But most of us do very little talking about what food means to us. Fortunately, in my job, I get to do that.

And the message I’ve been putting out there lately is this: Limited access to nourishing food does more than limit nutrition; it weakens communities and the bonds between families and it can separate people from their personal history, their faith and more.

Our society’s relationship to food is also having a huge impact on the bonds between individuals and communities. Food used to take up much of our time. We used to have to rely on each other for the harvest and the preparation. Most kids now don’t know where their food comes from.  Many of us don’t sit down to a meal or cook for each other anymore. We grab bites. Food is a commodity—a package—not something most people grow or raise or slowly prepare.  Slews of people out there don’t connect food to a person or a family but rather to a store or a restaurant. How do we hold onto each other like this?

As a hunger educator I need people to care about the issue of hunger. I want them to leave a workshop and go home and feed someone. I want them to donate good food and write passionately to their elected officials. I want them to come back year after year, sort food, start gardens, raise money and educate their community. So, I decided that before I talk about hunger, I needed to get people talking about beautiful, delicious food and whom they ate it with. They needed to tell stories about what they ate as children: what they loved, what they hated and who cooked it for them. People should speak about the food that is connected to their faith and the people they love. I needed to get to the heart of food.

Inspired by The Meaning of Food, I now begin nearly every hunger workshop with this exercise. We list all the different ways food is a part of our lives: ways that it is an expression of love or a vehicle for nutrients, ways that it gives us energy, how it is a creative process for many of us, and how it is integral to our faith, celebrations, rituals and memories. Then we name foods that connect us with our past, with a person we love or people who are no longer living. We describe how we prepared a meal and who taught us; was it a happy time, a feast or a passage? Only then do we begin to talk about hunger- for only then will we come with a deeper understanding of the loss.                                                               

                Lindy Wood has worked at the Atlanta Community Food Bank for over 5 years doing community outreach and education around the issues of hunger and poverty. She can be reached at lindy.wood@acfb.org or 404-892-3333 ext 1228.

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