Get Involved
You can make a difference by getting involved in supporting policy or education efforts about hunger and how to prevent hunger through sustained food security.
Action at the Community Level:
· Increase public awareness of the impact of hunger on health, family structure, and the ability of children to achieve academic success.
· Increase public awareness about the complexities of problems, including hunger, that result from poverty, low wages, and rising costs.
· Advocate for policies that bring sustainable, long-term solutions to hunger.
· Work with state agencies to support and promote access to public programs at the local level.
· Seek opportunities to educate low-income, hungry people about the benefits of public food programs for the children and adults in their families.
· Work with local government and other nonprofit groups to start and expand community gardens, food co-ops and the creation of CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) that benefit hungry people through increased access to healthy, locally grown food.
· Strengthen charitable food distribution through local and faith-based food banks and pantries.
· Make sure information about food programs is available at grocery stores.
· Identify “out-of-school” food needs in your community and work with local schools and non-profit organizations to increase access to food when school is out.
· Pursue options to increase access to healthy, affordable food.
· Provide incentives to convenience stores to carry healthy food at affordable prices.
· Organize transportation to larger stores for low-income people.
Actions for the Health Community:
· Assess physical growth in relation to inadequate or poor quality diets using height, weight, Body Mass Index and other measures.
· Monitor critical clinical indicators.
· Screen for developmental and mental health.
· Provide food program resources to parents.
· Recommend referrals to other services.
· Ask clients if there is enough food in their house.
Actions for Businesses:
· Make ending hunger a business project in the community.
· Promote food programs with envelope stuffers in monthly mailings or bills.
· Assure safe, private and sanitary space for breast-feeding mothers to save their milk while at work.
· Provide food program information to your own employees.
· Provide wages that allow for healthy food purchases and other basic needs.
Actions for Individuals:
· Urge Federal and State policy makers to create long-term solutions to hunger by improving and expanding the Federal Food and Nutrition Programs. Many long term solutions are listed in the recommendations at the Federal and State level on the previous page.
· Raise local awareness through connections with community organizations, churches and schools about the status of hunger in the community and its impact on the health and well-being of people of all ages.
· Help others understand that poverty and hunger are not choices that people willingly make. Solutions lie in raising wages, helping people living on a fixed income, increasing participation in public food programs, and increasing access to affordable locally grown food.