US Charities Struggle With Food Crisis Overseas
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:05 pm | posted by Virginia SimmonsAm important article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy today details the struggles of US charities in trying maintain services despite rising food cost.
Some have even been forced to scale back services. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, in New York, dropped 25,000 people from a food and medical-assistance program in the former Soviet Union after expenses jumped by 20 percent.
“We’ve lost $4-million in buying power,” said Steve Schwager, the group’s chief executive officer. “We’ve had to cut off the least needy to ensure the most needy can still get food….
Action Against Hunger, the Pan American Development Foundation, and many other charities are trying to raise awareness about the need for long-term solutions, such as increased spending on agriculture. The eight wealthiest nations plan to add the topic to their agenda when they gather this summer for the G-8 summit, a move promoted by the ONE Campaign and other organizations.
Read the full piece here.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:44 pm
On poverty in America: For seven years, there wasn’t a raise in the minimum wage. Illegals were filling in what might have been a second job for some families, and other jobs were being outsourced. Many families were only a few weeks away from being homeless. But prices continued to rise, even though salaries didn’t.
Even a fifth grader could tell you that if he got a nickle each week and candy bars went up to a dime, that he wouldn’t be able to afford one. How come Congressmen and Representatives couldn’t figure that out? I guess they were too busy deciding whether or not it was ‘Constitutional’ to burn a piece of red, white and blue cloth.
This country is being run into the ground, and hunger is just one of it’s terrible symptoms.
April 22nd, 2008 at 11:24 pm
The rise in food prices is caused by higher oil prices and growth in India and China among other things. I know someone who has all his money (a little over a million dollars) invested in oil futures and stock markets of the emerging economies including China and India. He’s making heaps of money and is giving about half the profits to the WFP. If everyone did this, we could hedge hunger.
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:50 am
Johnny, Your friend will be blessed for the work he is doing.
I am a senior who is getting into trouble financially. My Soc. Sec. got a small raise (this year) but by the time my Medicare payments, and my rent subsidy went up, I lost money. This is happening to millions, not just me, in our own country. Just give a little and take more back!
Practically everything is trucked in the US, especially food items. As gas went up, prices went up. (ie: The brand of coffee I buy, medium range, has gone up $2 per 3 lbs). These are small items but multiply that by 100 other small items like, shampoo, toothpaste, laundry detergent, plus ALL food items, (not to mention gas if you have a car,) and it has a great impact. Those whose income is below poverty level are being severly crippled financially, and as I said before, that is in the millions in our own country.
A few weeks ago, a lady and I were buying Ramen noodles at a local chain store. She commented, “Where else can you get a meal for a dime?” I smiled and agreed with her, however, a package of 10 cent package of noodles is not a meal, or at least it shouldn’t be!
The gasoline prices are causing serious problems for the independent truckers who make a delivery and can’t afford the gas to go home, (that is until they find a job that pays them to go in their home direction). These people are the backbone of our distribution system. Why is this government not supporting them either. Oh, they got a small stipend in the form of a gasoline voucher, but that is the same as giving $300 once every 4 or 5 years to the desperately poor. It is just a bandaid on a gaping wound.
One of the large oil companies had a profit margin in the billions in the first quarter of this year. Why aren’t they contributing by stableizing gas prices?
I believe some of the descriptive words might be, inconsiderate, insensitive, unconscionable and dispassionate greed? Anyone agree with that?
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:28 am
It is important that we work on a global scale but if you want to change the world change yourself. I for one have decided that with next years garden I will be double the size and I will give away as much free food as I can. I will also take cuttings from my fruit trees and give them away as gifts to help do my part in adding food to the planet and try to minimize the amount taken by those around me, hopefully leaving a little more for everyone else.
Think of it as becoming a bit of a Johnny Apple Seed with fruits and vegetables. Why not do the same?To change the world, ONE only need change themselves!
Love, Peace and Understanding
Ziggy
C.E.O. (Concerned Environmental Officer)
H.E.A.L. (Heal Earth and Life)
www.healchile.com
http://directory.ic.org/20831/HEAL
H.E.A.L. http://www.lulu.com/content/737497
For a free copy of H.E.A.L. ziggy@healchile.com
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:39 am
After WWII a food train was commissioned to travel from the west coast of the U.S. to the east coast; and at different stops along the way food was donated by ordinary citizens and companies or corporations for the purpose of helping to feed the people’s of Europe that were suffering from food shortages. Why can’t a similar project be instituted for the benefit of those that are finding it difficult to meet their food needs? And, why not get other major industrial country’s started on similar projects?
Taken from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_Train
The 1947 U.S.-to-Europe or American Friendship Train collected foodstuffs from American donors for transport to the people of France and Italy. Contemporaneous with the Marshall Plan, it provided desperately needed assistance in the aftermath of World War II, but was primarily a token gesture of goodwill, with stops across the U.S. ending at New York City, where it was received with a ticker tape parade prior to shipment to Europe.
Contents
The idea of the train was proposed by Washington journalist Drew Pearson in his daily column “The Merry-Go-Round”, and the cause was taken up by other newspapers around the U.S.
The train began from Los Angeles on November 7, 1947, and proceeded through Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced, Stockton, Oakland, Sacramento (California), Reno (Nevada), Ogden (Utah), Green River, Rawlins, Laramie, Cheyenne (Wyoming), Sidney, North Platte, Kearney, Grand Island, Fremont, Omaha (Nebraska), Council Bluffs Boone, Ames, Cedar Rapids (Iowa), Clinton, Sterling, and Chicago (Illinois). From Chicago the main route passed through Fort Wayne (Indiana), Mansfield (Ohio), Pittsburgh, Altoona, Lancaster, and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), and Trenton (New Jersey) before reaching New York City in 11 days. A northern branch assembled cars of aid as it passed through South Bend and Elkhart (Indiana), Toledo, Cleveland, and Ashtabula (Ohio), Buffalo, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany (New York) before joining the train at New York City.
Originally hoping to collect 80 train car loads of food, the train ultimately collected over 700 cars ($40 million value) of food, clothing, and fuel, paid in part by monetary donations. Many of the donations were made by individuals, such as individual cans of evaporated milk collected from junior high students.
Described at the time as a “token gift”, the aid was symbolic of the Marshall Plan effort. The train was described at the time not only as effective propaganda for the ideological conflict with the Soviet Union, and its proposal as a characteristically Quaker act by Drew Pearson. Roscoe Drummond of the Christian Science Monitor called it “One of the greatest projects ever born of American journalism”
The Friendship Train was reciprocated by the Merci Train, a group of 49 French train cars (Forty-and-eights) loaded with gifts for the U.S. which arrived in New York Harbor on February 2, 1949. Many of the gifts remain on display at local museums throughout the U.S.
April 23rd, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I think that it was Pete Seager or the Marianists who started the slogan “Think Globally, Act Locally”. I truly believe that our help overseas is of vital importance. However, let us not forget the hungry in our own community. ‘Plant a Row for the Hungry’ is something my local food bank is doing. It encourages home gardeners, container gardeners & farmers to plant an extra row/pot of vegetables or herbs and donate the surplus to their local food bank.
Local food banks are cutting back on the quality and quantity of the food they are providing to the hungry; many who are the working hungry.
I would encourage people to keep up the legislative and financial support as well as the social justice initiatives that they are involved in but to consider also helping out those who are locally suffering.
What an amazing blessing, to actually grow the food to satisfy the hunger of another. Check out your local food bank or google “Plant a Row for the Hungry”.
April 24th, 2008 at 7:04 am
To All you Special People:
I live in a senior housing residence. I don’t have a garden. All I really have left is my “voice”. However! (I had a wonderful garden once and if we had a bumper crop of something we gave some away or bartered for cucumbers for pickles. Thank you for that memory.) I can use that voice in prayer.
Today I will pray that all your endeavors have supreme success. I will pray for a warm meal in every hungry belly. I will pray for kindness and goodness to spread throughout the world. I will pray for blessed rain and sunshine and bumper crops in your gardens. I will say a special prayer of success for all who endeavor to improve the advancement of humanity.
I was just a girl when the Marshall Plan was in effect in Europe. We helped a lot of war torn countries. The United States pledged to help the starving peoples of Russia for 9 months and that stretched into 18 months. We were a patriotic and generous nation. (A bit of trivia: Many countries made loans from us, Finland was the only one to pay us back.)
I remember when there was a big campaign all over the US to eradicate poverty and then the government declared that the war on poverty (so allied with hunger) was over! A bit premature I’d say. In those days, before the ‘information age’, one pocket of poverty was helped, but somewhere else, another was forming. Today we can know what happened yesterday and where.
It is time for the people to return to the land. It is time to grow our own food and be a friend to all our neighbor’s. (Imagine that globally!) We never should have strayed from that. We were a happier and healthier nation. We were sold a bill of goods by big corporations and hence the industrial age began. People left their homes for jobs in factories in the big cities. Farmers could not longer compete, with huge corporation mass producing food. They were paid subsidies not to grow almost everything. That inflated prices because of short supply and big demand. It has all been downhill from there.
I believe that the great continent of Africa will rise like the Phoenix from it’s ashes of the horrors being comitted there today. I believe that the Lord will reign blessings on those who are helping to stem hunger all over this world. But………….
Perhaps you think I am preaching to the choir here, but it is difficult to fix a problem if you don’t know what is causing it. The issues of hunger all stem from greed, an illness that too many peoples in
power suffer from. It has brought this great nation to it’s knees.
I wil pray fervently for your noble endeavors. Just promise that you will remember that this is not history I read from a book, much of it is history that I have lived, and there is great value in that.