What Sesame Street, my son and others have taught me about “food insecurity”

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Jennifer Bosk

In my day it was known as plain old ‘hunger’. What’s up with “dressing up” the issue by calling it ‘food insecurity’? It seems like now I’m hearing that term all the time. So I started thinking that maybe I didn’t fully understand ‘food insecurity’ and it turns out it is much more than just hunger.

I started learning about food insecurity from my son who is an elementary school principal at a Title I school where the majority of children live in families with little to no income. While he knew that most of the children would qualify for free lunches, he was apalled at how hungry they were. When it dawned on him the children would only eat that one meal each day at lunchtime at school, he implemented free breakfasts for the students as well as provided backpacks filled with food for the weekends from his local Backpack Buddies program.

Another time I learned about the ‘food insecurity’ issue was in a Sesame Street special featuring the new muppet, Lily, who comes from a food insecure home. She’s a pink muppet in a blue dress and she is hungry. She goes to a community garden for food where she meets Elmo and Grover and shares a bit of her story on how her rumbling tummy is about much more than hunger. Continue reading →

Why is Ben Affleck Eating on $1.50 a Day?

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Jennifer Bosk

(Photo credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

So Ben Affleck is going to eat on just $1.50 a day. So are Sophia Bush, Josh Groban, Debi Mazar, “The Avengers” star Tom Hiddleston and Hunter Biden (that’s Vice President Joe Biden’s son). Each one will spend just $1.50 total each day for their three meals for one solid week. Each ‘star’ is doing this to raise money for their charity and, more importantly,to call attention to the vast number of people living in poverty who must live on just $1.50 worth of food a day.

This week, April 29 through May 3, is the Live Below the Line campaign that’s changing the way people think about poverty—and making a huge difference—by challenging everyday people to live on the equivalent of the extreme poverty line for 5 days. – See more at: https://www.livebelowtheline.com/#sthash.OsrQyEfd.dpuf

Gimmicky? Maybe. But at least you’ve read this far and maybe if I throw in something profound about hunger and poverty you’ll learn something like …In the United States, more than one out of five children lives in a household with food insecurity, which means they do not always know where they will find their next meal.

Did you catch that the above statistic is about the UNITED STATES? Not Africa, not South America but right here in the good ole U.S. of A.! Shocking!

So sometimes we nonprofits need to find ‘different’ ways of drawing attention to issues we hope you’ll care about and want to do something about. While Live Below the Line does the $1.50 day for food challenge, United Way of the Greater Triangle does poverty simulations and the CEO Sleepout. Playing at being poor? Camping out to pretend to be homeless? Nope – not what we want to achieve at all. What we want is for you to participate or hear about the events and maybe it will be enough to get you thinking about how, on any given night in the Triangle, nearly 2,000 people are homeless and sleeping on the streets of Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Smithfield. Oh…and by the way, 40 of them will die this year.

But thinking about it is just the first step. Are you ready to take the next step and join in with other community leaders to work on finding solutions instead of bandaid-fixes? Drop me at note at jbosk@unitedwaytriangle.org and I’ll tell you how to get involved.

Kick in the gut…

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Jennifer Bosk

If you’ve been there – then you know it is a kick in the gut. If you haven’t been there – then it’s a lesson in deep frustration and extremely educational. No matter how you come to be at one of our Poverty Simulations, you will NOT leave untouched!

A participant in one of our Poverty Simulations.

The Poverty Simulation is a unique tool that educates everyone about the day to day realities of life with a shortage of money and an abundance of stress. The participants role-play the lives of low-income families, from single parents trying to care for their children to senior citizens trying to maintain their self-sufficiency on Social Security.

The task of each family is to provide food, shelter and other basic necessities during the simulation while interacting with various community resources staffed by volunteers. These resources include social workers, loan officers, employers, grocers, utility collectors, police officers, teachers and more.

It is a powerful way to help citizens understand what it is like for people who live in poverty. It opens people’s eyes and provides insight into the state of chronic crisis that consumes so many working poor families.

During the simulation, participants are seated in family clusters with community resources located at tables around the perimeter of the room. To start the exercise, each family is given a card explaining its unique circumstances and a small amount of money. Although it uses play money and other props, fictional scenarios, and time limits, the Poverty Simulation is not a game. It is a simulation tool that enables participants to view poverty from different angles in an experiential setting.

Interested in having a Poverty Simulation at your workplace, warehouse, place of worship? Fantastic! Contact Stan at (919) 463-5023 to arrange for one today!

Impact the Triangle for Good…Join Us?

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Jennifer Bosk

This morning we announced our first ever Community Impact Plan…a list of goals and outcomes we plan to achieve, with agency partner help and your help, to impact our Triangle for good!

Early last year, volunteers and corporate, community and nonprofit agency partners worked with United Way to shape a focused Community Impact Plan with accountability for specific goals. Together we developed a new approach and new plan for our community based on:

Assessment of our communities’ needs and identification of the priorities to be addressed.
An open invitation to all Triangle nonprofits to apply for funding and undergo our rigorous certification process.
A successful 2012 campaign that raised $5.3 million of donor designated funds and $5.3 million of Community Impact Funds, the first increase in several years.
The allocation of Community Impact Funds to selected agency programs to achieve specific goals.

We are putting $1,889,676 towards Education/Youth Development programs in 2013 and some things we plan to achieve as a result include: Continue reading →

Rich Blocks, Poor Blocks

Posted on February 19, 2013 by Jennifer Bosk

Those interactive maps are addicting – at least to me. So when this one popped up, I had to take a look. I suggest you do, too, by clicking here.

It’s a map of income and rent in every neighborhood in every city in America. I’m guessing that, just like me, you went right to your neighborhood.

But I hope you’ll take the time to zoom back out and look at not just your neighborhood but also at surrounding neighborhoods, your city, your county and your state.

What do you see? Are you surprised by what you see?

The reason I ask is I’m wondering if we’ve come to just accept there are huge pockets of extreme poverty right near our own backyards?

What do you think?

Image from blog.reillypainting.com