Baby Boomers and Hunger: A new report

Baby Boomers and Beyond: Facing Hunger after Fifty takes a close look at the unique health, economic and nutritional challenges of older adults between the ages of 50 and 64. This recent research study from Feeding America, with help from an AARP Foundation Grant, highlights how "pre-seniors" are more vulnerable to hunger than older seniors since they don't yet qualify for safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security. This research aims to explore the circumstances of older adults and their households who utilize the Feeding America network of food banks.

Fighting senior hunger

May is older American's month and a good time for all of us to reflect on this issue  of hunger among our senior citizens.

Last year, across the country, the Feeding America network provided 563 million meals to seniors age 60 and above through special programs including the Senior Grocery Program, Mobile Pantry Program, Senior Cafes, multi-generational meal and food programs and partner programs that focus on feeding seniors who are homebound.

According to Feeding America's recent study, Hunger in America 2014, more than half of all seniors report having to make tradeoffs, sometimes having to choose between purchasing food or paying for healthcare or prescriptions, paying for food or transportation, and paying for food or utilities.

Although Feeding America, the Food Bank of Central New York, and our local food pantries are working to ensure vulnerable seniors do not have to make these difficult choices, charity alone cannot solve senior hunger.

Go here to learn more about the issue and find resources to get started solving senior hunger.

New "Meal Gap" research

Feeding America released new meal gap research earlier this month.  This work identifies both the food insecurity rate by county for the entire country and the meal gap, or unmet need for food.

Bad news for St. Lawrence County - the food insecurity rate has risen from 13.6% of the population to 14.8% or 16,610 people who do not always know where their next meal is coming from.  A third of those who are food insecure have incomes too high to qualify for federal assistance, like SNAP (formerly called food stamps) or free meals at school.

The only counties in New York state with similar food insecurity rates are our neighbors in the North Country - Jefferson and Franklin Counties - and the Counties that make up New York City.

Go here for an interactive map that lets you click on any state, county, or Congressional district in the country for local data.

Earth Day and food waste

So much is being done to prevent food from being wasted.  Feeding America and local food banks, like the Food Bank of Central New York, recover literally billions of pounds of food that might otherwise go to waste every year.

Yet there is more to be done.  Read more from Feeding America here.

From Paycheck to Food Pantry

More than half (54%) of all households seeking charitable food assistance from the Feeding America network include at least one member who had employment in the past year, according to a recent study released by Feeding America® andOxfam America® ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday season. All told, approximately 25 million people live in these households. The study details the challenges that many working Americans face in providing enough food for their households. Feeding America is the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief organization and Oxfam America is an international relief and development organization.

Recent economic growth has resulted in improved circumstances for some individuals and their families, but its benefits have excluded many others, including the more than 17 million1 American households facing food insecurity. Many of these households have working members whose wages are too low to support themselves and their families.

Too many veterans need help with food

From today's PittsburghPost-Gazette  (but I'm fairly certain it's true everywhere! - Gloria)


As we mark another Veterans Day with people around the country lining streets to cheer their heroes as they parade by, we need to be aware of another, less honorable, parade of veterans, which is growing at an alarming rate.

That parade leads to the local food pantry or soup kitchen. According to a recent Feeding America report titled “Hunger in America,” here in southwestern Pennsylvania a growing number of households that receive assistance from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank include a veteran or a person now serving in the military.

Additional statistics show that there are about 230,000 veterans in the Pittsburgh region, with approximately one-tenth of those falling below the poverty level. And while nobody in our country should be at risk of not having enough nutritious food, it is particularly troubling that so many veterans — men and women who gave so much to protect the freedom and prosperity we as Americans enjoy — struggle daily with this challenge.

Thoughts on St. Lawrence

As I continue my "Season of Lasts" in the world of food banking, I'm at my last Feeding America meeting, but glad I got to come to this one since it's in New Orleans.

I've shared some thoughts with my peers about succession planning and how to help their organizations think through planning for an expected or unexpected leadership change.  I've also been picking the brains of the New York state food bank folks about what's happening in New York to start getting up to speed before I head up to Canton next week.  My biggest shock though was learning that one downstate food bank director doesn't even know where the St. Lawrence River is, much less St. Lawrence County!  (Don't they teach geography any more?  I consider it one of the greatest and most beautiful rivers of the world, right up there with the mighty Mississippi and the Nile, both of which I have also cruised on.  How could you live in New York and have never heard of it?  Okay, end of rant!).

But it's New Orleans, so free time has been spent having some fun and little did I know, as a St. Lawrence University grad, class of 1979, that in New Orleans, St. Lawrence is a bar!

Snapped the photo, but didn't go in, I swear!

Gloria