 the way you define a problem defines your solution to that problem. So when we define the problem of hunger, whether that's here in Hartford, Connecticut, or around the world, when we define it as a lack of food, then our response is very easy, right? We need to collect, distribute, hand out more food. And sadly, I think that has largely been our approach in the United States. And I think globally, as people look to the US as a model, we have built this robust, amazing system of food banks and food pantries, like I said, that are spanning the United States. We've done a really, really good job. We collect and distribute billions with a B, billions of pounds of food. And yet food insecurity is a persistent chronic public health problem. If, however, we define hunger and food insecurity as rooted in poverty, systemic barriers, structural inequalities, structural racism, then our solutions become much more complex. Dr. Katie Martin is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas, brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Katie is a thought leader with 25 years experience in anti-hunger work. She is an executive director of the Food Share Institute for Hunger Research and Solutions. Katie is also the author of a new book, and that's why we're speaking here together today, Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries, New Tools to End Hunger. Dedicating her career to researching food insecurity, talking with individuals who experience food insecurity, visiting food banks and food pantries, and creating programs to provide more long-term solutions to hunger. Her goal is to create a paradigm shift in the charitable food system to move from short-term transactions of food to long-term transformations of lives. She enjoys sharing these learned and learned a lot, and is learning continually from others in her daily activities, and especially now complying this book and publishing it. Katie, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I'm really pleased to be here. I'm so glad that you could find the time to in your busy schedule right at the launch of your book. Congratulations. It's come out. It's come out kind of at the end of the pandemic. I guess some of us are still on lockdown, but I want to go right into the depths of that topic. We're just starting to get vaccines. Some of us are still on strict lockdowns. We've seen some mutations. You've been working with food banks, food pantries. You come from an academic background a little bit, have a lot of experience. How have you weathered this crazy time, the storm, the pandemic, Black Lives Matters, all these things coming down on us at once? How have you been? Have you had some resilience? Tell us a little bit more. It's a great question. I can't imagine anyone who hasn't been personally impacted by COVID in extraordinary ways. I mean, this has been a really historic year. You know, I had been writing the book. I had decided to write the book a few years ago, and I got very serious two years ago to really make the commitment. I'm writing the book, and I sent in a proposal. I had a contract with Island Press who's been fantastic. And last year, exactly this time, I was actively busy, dedicated writing, and I had a deadline of June 5th. And then COVID hit. And initially, that was a gut punch in so, so, so many ways in all of our lives and delayed my writing of the book. And now in hindsight, I'm so grateful that I was able to incorporate some of the early lessons of COVID during the writing process. So for example, you know, it became very clear that food insecurity was going to increase dramatically because of COVID. It really helped to shine a big bright light on the root causes of why we have hunger in a wealthy country like the United States of America. And it's not because we don't have enough food. It's because many, many people were already living paycheck to paycheck before COVID hit. And then a loss of a job, a loss of one job or two jobs impacted not having childcare, having to homeschool children. So many of these stressors really tipped people into be worrying about having enough food for their families. Um, I asked for an extension from Island Press to July 5th. And I also feel so fortunate that I was still writing the book when we all experienced the murder of George Floyd, because I had already incorporated some language about racial injustice, systemic inequalities. But it gave me more reason than ever to really put that out front that if we want to get serious about tackling food insecurity, we have to talk about these, the structural racism systemic inequalities that exist that make it harder for certain groups to be able to afford enough food. So I want to dive even deeper into that because it's a huge topic. It's also a big topic around food insecurity and pantries and food banks and many others. So I want to try to just go a little bit deeper before we move out of such a sad, supposed to sad thing and into maybe some more positive tools that you described in your book. This had to have an impact at the pantries that you work with in Connecticut specifically and in other areas that, you know, the volunteers, the frontline workers that normally are helping in those situations that are providing support were also affected and also on lockdown and also on distancing. So some other, not only new ways of operating maybe had to emerge, but also the huge increase probably because paycheck to paycheck. Can you go into, just at the beginning, what some of the things you were seeing and so, you know, when they came out and says, you know, it's the social distancing, it's kind of locked down, we're going to close down restaurants and gastronomy and other things and just the essential places are going to be open. What kind of things were you seeing, what we're experiencing in the model that you already kind of been working on or have formulated and helping other pantries around the world? Just kind of give us a little bit deeper insight if you don't mind. Sure. So initially with COVID, we, so I work at a food bank and just for listeners, I think it's really, it's important to just differentiate and understand the term. So the food bank is a regional organization that warehouses food and then distributes to smaller programs such as food pantries, community kitchens, meal programs. So at the food bank level, we did some early surveys and questions of our network of food pantries to understand how many of them were staying open, how many of them had to close and initially about a quarter of our food pantry network closed because like you said, there were many volunteers who were senior citizens and at risk for COVID themselves and just really couldn't be out on the front lines doing this type of work. And food chair, our food bank, like many other food banks around the country, stepped in to try to address that gap in services. And we created a drive-thru distribution program where we set up camp at a large football stadium that had a massive parking lot so that we could have people arrive and line up in cars and then have a big tense with volunteers who could then provide the food socially distanced, people would pop their trunk and put the food in the car. And for me, my background is in research and academic background. And I thought it was just a really important time to look at who are these folks that we're serving? Who are the people who are newly impacted by food insecurity? And how can we use that information for our programming at the food bank level? And it was really interesting. About 70% of the people who were coming to get food said they had never used a food pantry program before COVID. So these are folks that are brand new and never really thought they would need to use a charitable program like this. We saw over the course of this past year, we did another survey in August, food insecurity in our area had increased 32%. Just an extraordinary new need for food. I will say, so it exposed some of the weaknesses in our system in terms of some older volunteers, programs that couldn't stay open. It also showed the resilience of our network that there are, and just the good will and the good nature of so many people who look out for other neighbors. So so many people who either were newly unemployed, but financially okay, or on furlough, or who were working from home, stepped up to volunteer who had never volunteered with us before. So it's all of the above, the good, the bad, and the extraordinary. That's beautiful to hear and hearing similar stories around the world. How great people come together, rise and risen to the occasion to volunteer, help out, make sure food is all right, speak with a lot of chefs and a lot of other food authors as well. I have a good friend, Diane Hatz, she runs Change Food and the Boma Change Food in New York and Manhattan and Ted and things. She set up a bunch of fridges, local fridges where people could just go and get food. She's really having trouble getting them stuck. So it's really great to see people saying, you know, there's people going hungry, there's people not with enough food and we need to do something. Let's pull together some methods to get that food out there. And what you just described, there's a couple things I want to go much deeper and you brought it out perfectly. So I understand and I know the difference, but I think it's really important to make a distinguishment of the different types of food services, kitchens, charities, there are out there. So when I was younger, I did meals on wheels and, you know, I worked at soup kitchens and then there's also just regular kitchens. Then there's obviously the bigger banks, the pantries. Then there's even a much different level of, you know, the snap in the United States, the snap where you actually just have a card and you go to the every grocery store pretty much and just buy what you need or specifics towards that card. Charity from Salvation Army or different type of religious or cultural organizations that put together things for their local community. And then on a much bigger level, there's, you know, obviously it's mainly out of the United States. The World Food Program has different things as well, but there's the World Kitchen, there's also DC Kitchen, I believe there's a DC Central Kitchen and World Central Kitchen and Panettica probably has a Central Kitchen as well. Those are all such a different beast in some respect. If you could kind of maybe distinguish that and educate those of us who are maybe ready to come in as volunteers or those of us who are already in the system who still don't quite get the complexity of the system and why they exist, maybe just tell us a little bit more about that. You kind of discuss it between the banks and the pantries in the beginning of your book as well. I was wondering if you could go maybe an extra mile and tell us a little bit more about these others and how they all kind of tie together. Absolutely. And I think it is really important for people who are concerned about the issue of hunger want to get involved to tackle food insecurity, to have an understanding of the differences and hopefully how we can collaborate more and do more coordinated comprehensive services, not working separately. At the beginning of my book I talk about the history of food assistance programs. I think it's really important if we want to know where we're going, it's important to know how we got here. And you mentioned the SNAP program, which is the supplemental nutrition assistance program. What used to be called food stamps is still often called food stamps today. That is what we consider the first line of defense against hunger. This is part of the U.S. social safety net that when you fall on hard times, it is helping to make sure that people have that basic need of food. There are about 12 other federal food assistance programs, namely in addition to SNAP, the WIC program for women, infants and children, national school lunch and school breakfast programs, after school programs, etc. These are fantastic programs. There's a lot of evidence to show that they improve not only food security, but health outcomes, helping families to be self-sufficient for kids to learn in school and to thrive. For a long time, this was seen as the way that our country responds to the issue of hunger. It is the government's responsibility to make sure that there is this underlying safety net. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, this changed. There were some drastic cuts to these federal food assistance programs, stricter eligibility criteria, and it made it harder for people to enroll in these programs that we knew worked. Starting in the 1980s, there was really this shift in emphasis away from a government response towards a charitable response. Because of the cuts in these programs, many people who had lost their job, who weren't eligible for federal food assistance, that were going to community organizations or particularly faith-based organizations and saying, I'm having a hard time feeding my family. So many people stepped in to fill that gap by providing, creating food pantry models often in a closet, in the basement, in a side office of a church, a mosque, a synagogue, and then food banks that were created to then warehouse that food and distribute it. It's important to know this because it really changes our perspective of who's most responsible for this work and who should be involved. And that charitable food model has grown and expanded in scopes, size, and scale for 40 years. And we now have these institutional pillars of food banks that are very well respected in our communities that have become massive. They're non-profit organizations, but they are multi-million dollar organizations that have large staff, board of directors, a huge network of food pantries. And as you mentioned, there are these other programs of salvation armies, Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels programs. If we really want to have a more holistic solution to hunger, I would argue we need all of us involved and more coordination so that we're not working in silos, but rather helping enroll people in federal food assistance programs, connecting to other social service programs so that we have a more coordinated response. We can't do this alone. That boy, I really appreciate that because that is such a nice, it's not only the history, which is exactly how you start out, but it's even a little bit more depth because it can be a very complicated web of understanding on whether there's so many people that weren't food insecure before the COVID began. And then I believe you even said this in the 70% it went up and it was like quite a bit that were affected, maybe not always immediately, but over the time it's even gotten worse and relying on all sorts of help out there, that now something like this would be very important for them, not just as a volunteer, but as somebody who would also need the food or help as well. There are two more little things in that that I'd like to touch on before I move forward just for clarity. My understanding for many, many years is that there was a huge issue around children in the United States getting food at home, all was that many of them were waiting to get to school to get some breakfast and lunch and things are there's some definitely some food issues with with children at home during the COVID obviously we had a lot of children not in school and so that's also probably why the numbers were drastically affected and those children don't have cars to go to the food bank and you know maybe their parents don't as well. Did you see anything specific in those areas that you could kind of tell us what you saw and the problems actually exist the way before COVID it's just the food problem in general you know children that are are going to public schools but they're not eating at home they're not studying they don't have internet they don't not don't have all the tools but then also they're they're going to school so that they can have one or two good meals a day at all. Yeah I think just as you said it's so important to know many of these issues existed before COVID and they've become worse that gap has widened the inequality there. What we've seen is that the people who were most at risk for food insecurity before COVID that that risk has deepened it's gotten harder we know it was already hard for people of color and that has become clear with COVID that people of color have kind of the triple threat as I think see it is they are the most at risk for food insecurity they were the most at risk for losing their job they're more likely to be employed in the service industry in some of these low wage jobs and they're more likely to contract COVID so it's you know that's become it's important to understand those issues again that it's not just about not having food it's all these other economic factors that go into it and the most at risk group even before COVID and then it's become worse since COVID is single moms households headed by a single woman and particularly black and Latina single moms right and so you think you layer in there that maybe you've lost your job and now you're expect or you're still maintaining a job but you're expected to be homeschooling your children or your childcare has closed but you're now supposed to be working and taking care of children I mean it's it's just it's too much to ask and I think that schools and the US Department of Agriculture that coordinates and runs the school lunch and school breakfast programs I think tried really hard to make those meals available doing some distributions where people could come to the school and pick up meals to go it was very challenging we heard from a lot of families just that coordination of knowing how deep when you're relying on school breakfast and school lunch as some of your main meals for your household and those are no longer available and you're trying to make ends meet is it was very challenging so in some ways that's where the food banks have stepped in to say we know you're not getting those meals how do we help work with you other food banks had creative ways of trying to partner with school meals so when families would come to pick up their school breakfast and lunch meals to go providing additional food for the family so a lot of efforts being taken place but there's also just an extraordinary need yeah that's that's good good to hear and it's also kind of it's good that we talk about it because some people just don't think about us not part of their daily thought and what I really liked about your book is as throughout it you kind of not only give food banks and pantries the the new wording in the kind of vocabulary literature around how to speak about food insecurity and some of the things that people are dealing with not only on their websites but just in generally as support and and help not only to make that transition but just pick up everyone at the point where they're at and help them on that journey which is difficult as it is but when I read it I saw this different aspect of it where I saw that some people might have gotten into food insecurity that there could be shame or embarrassment or something around it where that just that that simple wording on a food bank website or or in in the public eye that that might keep them from asking or or approaching or how you know and things and so I liked how you discussed upon that but I told you there was two things I really wanted to ask you and the last one around kind of a little bit tied to the covid was I believe it was 38 million food insecure in the US or what was around that number you tell me if I'm wrong what was it yeah around 37 million americans food insecure before covid before covid and another number that I and I want to see how it relates and that's why I ask 21 million people without an ID card so that they can't be in vote for the inauguration now you know there's there's a section in your book that kind of talks if you can't measure it you can't manage it if what gets measured gets done as well and so how many of those 21 million that don't have an ID to go vote are also don't have an ID to get on snap or wick or any of those food programs from the from the US but also in that same food insecure area I don't want to make any assumptions but I think that those numbers are probably overlapping many respects and wanted to see if maybe you had anything that you could express towards that or what you're seeing yeah it's a really it's a really great point and I think that's where when we talk about structural barriers right so what does it mean to be living in poverty what does it mean to be food insecure we often think at the individual level it's an individual's plight it's either their poor decisions or their behavior or their choices have put them in a position where they're not able to afford enough food or not able to provide for their families when we look upstream at the systems and the policies that make it more challenging for people to thrive then it becomes more clear that you know we look at different solutions so to your point when and there's a lot of push right now unfortunately to make it more challenging for people to be able to vote you know talk about you know the premise of our democracy and what that can look like when we make it harder for people to enroll in programs to make sure that they have the basic requirements that we know are just you know to get by when we when we set up more barriers more structural barriers for certain groups over other groups then that's more upstream solutions that are needed as opposed to downstream working with an individual we need both well I could get into many personal things I mean sometimes it's easier to to apply to get a gun but I mean in the United States than it is to get on wick or some food service uh some of those systems that we've created that humanity government has created for one another just sometimes very crazy hard to understand I I appreciate it that was that was pretty much all I had for the COVID and the kind of negative that but it's it's important to see that people stepped up to the plate there were some there still are many learning lessons where the microscope really got shown in on where the problems are what needs to be fixed what what was bubbling to the surface and really needs to be measured and the last one you just touched upon was you know was the was the voting system and when it's really not making it harder for people to vote it's about fixing the voting system it's about fixing the food systems to make it easier to do it but also have it be one that's secure for all one that you can't fall through the cracks and the votes can't fall through the cracks they go hand in hand both of those things really in my opinion um so you perfectly answered all those and and really brings me to my first question I know we're going to mainly be talking about the United States and and what what you do there for that but I often speak about do you feel like you're a global citizen and how would you feel about a world without nations borders divisions of one person from another and specifically even in the US you could look at it as a quality of of race and and a people of other other states and other cultures and nations who are actually our distant cousins how would you feel about a world without with the removal of all borders divisions of humanity one from another you know it's interesting at the beginning of my book I uh I use a lot of metaphors of imagining imagining how we might reinvent the way that we tackle the issue of hunger and I and I quote briefly in John Lennon's you know idea of imagining and that was his vision too right what imagine if we didn't have these divisions imagine if uh we saw all of our our actions as being more inclusive and how how might we behave differently when we saw that you know my action here in Connecticut in the United States might impact somebody on the other side of the globe and vice versa right then how might we view so many of the things that we do differently um yes it's a beautiful it's a beautiful idea I am hoping that we might be joining more in the global citizenry um than we have been in the recent past that's great um that that's why I ask you I I love that you use John Lennon's quote I use it a lot when I speak as well and I I there was another kind of a hidden agenda why I asked that as well and during this time we were social distance one from another where we're on lockdown and things like that things that were global citizens were air water food um species could cross border borders um and you know really the the thing is this food traveled around like a global citizen from uh countries all over the world and also within the United States during a period where the rest of us were on lockdown and so some of these uh shifts in thinking about how we view the world and how we're closely connected with uh not only our food and our biome of our earth but but with others as a as a big shift on how we also manage and um food insecurity and food in general and how we change those systems um so I you know there's kind of a ulterior motive in that as well you not only talk about you know how do we talk differently about hunger and food insecurity and kind of um turn it into a dignity of choice and and uh uh promote different ways about speaking about it so um it's not scary it's not something negative it's not them or us it's kind of we're we're understanding of people's basics right um but what I really like is that the the tools and tips and tricks that you have in the book you kind of help people in a transitional way to not only promote healthy food healthier food choices as well as um a different way of dealing with the food banks and the pantries so that it becomes more like a shopping experience where they have more choice and and uh yeah that's what that's what you call the dignity of choice uh as well in that what what are some of these before I go any further before that I really want to say is that for for our listeners what most of you might not know is Katie's book is unbelievable because it's really one of the rare books out there that specific will go into food banks and food pantries and food insecurities in the respects to uh on a country level speaking about what can we do what are some different choices giving us a deeper insight on to what what this looks like I I don't know many my listeners probably have been driven by a food bank or a pantry or charity or community where they've seen people passing out food and that and wonder you know what is this and what are those people and it's always kind of it's not almost always the most wonderful experience or you're kind of like what are they they're different than me almost type of a feeling which is creating a whole stigma around it as well and I see that in the tools that you give in the book you really want to change that so the question goes back to not not only congrats that you we finally got the book and uh which is a great tool for our toolbox to start fixing some of these systemic problems we have but in the dignity of choice in this uh change of pushing healthy food so that we can avoid the huge diabetes and huge health issues that are also found in people who have food insecurities because they're eating cheap crappy food what have you seen what are some of the tools can you tell us a little bit more about that without giving away all the fabulous uh tools in your book yeah thank you and you know I I am really I am thrilled that the book is now available and I can't wait for folks to pick it up and read it and to hear what folks think to me there was a gap in the literature in this niche that I think in the U.S. we have food banks that serve every county in the United States and we have food pantries and meal programs in nearly every community and most Americans have been involved in one way, shape, or form either by you know mostly by donating food at some point you know through their church their scout organization their you know community organization all of us have touched this massive food piece of our food system and yet many people really have no notion of what happens to that food once I donated what happens to the family once they receive that food there are also just a huge number of people who volunteer and work in these food pantries and food banks and serve on boards of directors so it's a really really massive network of people and am I one of the themes in the book is that we're doing very good work in this massive system of providing food but we can do better and what I argue is you know there are a lot of big and small steps that individuals can take to make this a more dignified more holistic empowering experience and you touched upon the words that we use I spend a whole chapter just talking about the way we describe these words so just you know like even the difference between a food bank of food pantry what does food insecurity mean how is that different than hunger and then the words that we use to describe the charitable food system and I suggest language of moving from kind of an old school language to an alternative view one example for me is feeding the idea that we are feeding the hungry we are feeding our neighbors we are feeding millions of people and to me when you think about being the recipient on the other end of that I don't know that many of us would be super excited to be fed you know to me and I even really put it out there that you know we feed our pets I personally don't want to be fed by somebody else right so how do we flip that around we're not feeding individuals they don't want to be fed we're increasing access we're providing access to hopefully healthy nutritious food so that's one example another example of the language we use is emergency when the charitable food system was started as I mentioned primarily in the early 1980s the idea was this is an emergency folks are newly out of work and we need to respond and it was never intended to be long term no one who started food pantries and food banks would have any notion that we would be doing this in 2021 it's clearly a chronic response and it is a chronic problem there's plenty of research showing that people who go to food pantries and meal programs go routinely throughout the year so but it's shocking how on many websites in academic journal articles we still refer to emergency food programs the emergency response to hunger this past year in the pandemic we know what an emergency looks like we had a public health pandemic we still do and we have to respond differently with an emergency than we do with something routine and these words are are powerful because they impact the way that we provide our programs and then the way that folks respond to it in terms of receiving help so if you're if you're thinking of your program as an emergency response then typically the idea is like when I think of an emergency we think about natural disasters a hurricane a flood an earthquake that's an emergency and we just keep our heads down and we're providing blankets water food as quickly as possible to as many people as we can we don't plan we don't measure our impact because this is an emergency sadly we do that still today with many of our food programs the idea is there's people in need and we just need to serve them as quickly as possible so we don't necessarily look at the long-term strategies of how do we address the root causes of why people are coming consistently to the same food pantry how do we measure which programs are more affected at other ones we don't tend to do that with an emergency response and then thinking of it again from the person who's going to seek help one of the things that we find in terms of that humiliation that shame is the reluctance to most of us don't really like to ask for help I think that's kind of human nature and if we describe it as an emergency what I have found especially recently is people will say there must be other people who need it more than me people who are really in an emergency this isn't an emergency for me this is more my chronic concern about having enough food I think we turn people away from wanting help because they say well somebody probably needs it more than me or that must be like really extreme to need to go get help how do we break down those barriers and the limitations so people see this as a more welcoming dignified this is a place that any of our neighbors you you go when you need help and then when you don't need help you get back that's so beautiful and and it's so true this it's almost a paradigm shift in a lot of ways to kind of really um understand how that works and in in your book you you outline many wonderful tools and tips and tricks so to say um I don't know what can be done and different levels and how we see that and understand that the you have a nice quote in here you say food insecurity is a matter of access and power not a lack of food and um in the United States you know we have 40% food waste in the US which is crazy because even just one one-third of that 40% food waste was enough to feed everybody you know let alone four times over if we if we change that whole food waste paradigm as well but there is a director that I'll have on on the podcast next week is Sanjay Rawal he did a movie documentary called Gather and really about indigenous and Native Americans and the great deals of food insecurities but with what what you mentioned about food insecurity is a matter of access and power not a lack of food this is this is probably a horrible bad example but I mean if you if you want to have power over anybody any any country any city you just take weather food that's the usually the first way to do it you do something to ruin the food you take it away you kill it off you contaminate it you know and then then they're relying upon you whether it's war or whether it's any any other movement we've seen it's as horrific that that falls into the same categories as what we're talking about civilized United States right well and when we think globally um you know you go back to the Irish potato famine when and I'm I'm Irish and it's it's almost St Patrick's Day here so you know we can start to wear our green um during the Irish potato famine when you know so many Irish farm households you know their their crops just were blighted and they couldn't they didn't have enough food at the same time in Ireland they were exporting wheat and in other famine situations countries in Africa that have experienced like horrific famines in the same time frames countries exporting food sources to other global citizens as you mentioned in the United States you know we waste 40 percent of our food you don't have to look further than farmers you know that are growing our crops or migrant farm workers who are working tolling in the fields and picking harvesting the food for us and citizens around the world to eat and yet do not have access to enough food for their families it's not about it's not about the amount of food it's about who has access who can afford that food and that's not just unique to the United States that's a global issue in your book you really highlight so many dozens creative examples new ways that organizations can address hunger you describe all sorts of innovative solutions and really I see it as a a wonderful toolkit that can be used to inspire um many people all over the world you have an example um from Ellie's Center for Hunger Relief in El Paso and El Paso Texas sorry um that is really uh kind of the beginning of your book as well just looking for new ways to help people so that they wouldn't need to rely on the pantry long term throughout the book you kind of and that's why I've used the term a couple of times this transition you're there's other things it's not just giving out handing food or give us it's much more of an interaction it's more of helping transition to empowering people that's probably the best word empowering people and giving them the help they need to to get into a different system um and so I really like that the book the best practices in the books and those type of things would there be any other stories that you would say are really ones that you would like to kind of tickle and tease our our listeners with that uh are unique on these transitions life changing things that you've seen over your years yeah thank you and let me be clear I don't have all the solutions there's no one silver bullet for ending hunger um but I knew that I didn't want to just write about the problem you know it's so sad that people are you know experiencing food insecurity there's so much wrong about our system I'm an optimist and I think there is there's so many there's so many great examples of good work that's happening in communities around the country and easy steps that people can take I wanted to make this an easy to you know like let's get started don't get intimidated just get started take one step another great example that I highlight in the book is around healthy food and um when I think of traditional food pantry models the idea is a focus on non-perishable foods cans of food and the emphasis of you know people are hungry so we just want to fill hungry bellies calories or calories um we just have too much evidence and data showing the link between hunger and health and the people that we serve who are food insecure are at the highest risk for chronic diseases that are related to our food and to me it's a matter of food justice of how do we make it easier for people who we know are interested in eating healthy food how do we make it easier for them to have access to healthy nutritious beautiful food um there's a lot of great examples in Vermont they have the Vermont food bank has a program called Vermont Fresh and they work with food pantries they provide small grants to help food pantries to retrofit their food pantry so they look more like a farmers market it looks more like a whole foods grocery store than you know a closet with just cans of food um what I love about those types of programs is while it's focused on physical health and nutrition it's also about mental health it's the way you feel when you walk into a food pantry how we can pay attention to what that must feel if you're walking in to receive help um I provide different examples of um thinking about hospitality and customer service and I have a colleague who works at the Worcester County Food Bank in Massachusetts he used to work at Starbucks and he describes how you know when you get hired as a barista they don't just train you on how to make a nice latte and how to work the register they spend a lot of time talking about the customer experience and he does trainings with their food pantry staff on how does it feel like think of the flow of how it would be for someone who's coming in to get help just it's not rocket science but when you think about these things I think there's often that light bulb that goes off of I never thought about it like that and we need to think about that we need to put the people we serve at the heart of what we do from the quality of the food that we provide making sure that's culturally appropriate that is in you know people have the choice to select the food that they want to the design and the setup so we can have space for people um not only to feel comfortable going but hopefully that it's a community space where they can talk about community concerns and become advocates not just in their own lives but to transform the neighborhood and the policies that impact folks in their community that is so true that is a neat experience and there's this term that I use quite a bit if you cheapen food you cheapen life yeah and you know whether you're you know we've heard this before if you're dumpster diving for food or clothes or shelter whatever or if you're waiting for a handout there's just a whole shift or a nudge in your feeling in your being if you have the same experience as anybody else to go and pick out your food the dignity of choice to be able to to get that food and then to prepare it and just be creative that then also helps you change your life and change your situation and and and supports you it empowers you that's you know I really I really love love that as well I um have probably this is the hardest question I have for you today it's it's really the burning question WTF and I know it's what we've all been asking each other and pulling out our hair uh for a while but no it's not the swear word it's it's what's the future I want to know from you what's the future for you not for governments not for anyone else just in your world and what you're dealing with in your book what's the future um well like I said I'm an optimist so I think the future is bright I think there are millions of Americans who are hungry but they're hungry for more than just food they're hungry for connection they're hungry for community and justice and there are more and more food pantry and food bank directors who are looking for change there are looking for new solutions beyond three days worth of food and my hope is that this book is coming out at just the right moment where we can none of us can say this is how we've always done things right because this year made it very clear that we've had to pivot we've had to change our own personal lives and and the way that we work the way that we function my hope is as we're emerging from COVID getting vaccinated getting back to a new normal that we can really reinvent the way that we do this work and what I mean by that is I think the future of charitable food is going to be instead of many diverse pantries that are open one time a month two times a month where people have to wait in line is a more coordinated comprehensive network of anchor organizations that serve as what I call community food hubs so that it's you know all of the good practices that I kind of leave lead the reader chapter by chapter they culminate in this model of a more one-stop shopping scenario where you have not just a food pantry as the charitable food program but involvement from government agencies to help support people and enrolling in federal food assistance but also advocating for livable wages with benefits and involvement from the private sector we need corporate business engagement as well so kind of as we talked at the beginning of the interview right that instead of having these silos of different approaches working together so when someone falls on hard time we don't just provide them a little bit of food but we provide wraparound services to help them get ahead and thrive that's what I'm envisioning for the future yeah you and your book you really followed a safety net and I love that it is it is a great safety safety net it's a systems approach really to have those things so nobody's falling through the cracks but also that they can quickly have what they need to pull themselves back up and get where they need to be and are empowered along the way or my international audience a lot of them look towards the United States for different models around all different types of things what would you have anything that you would suggest where they look besides getting the book and reading it would you have anything that you would say you know that's what you're already seeing or these are some models that you would suggest for them as your international audience even in asian and even the United Nations World Food programs where they have some of those models emerging that you know kind of give that same experience and this ties to maybe one question that I forgot that I'd like to throw in if you if you don't mind the world food program has a statistic once you become a refugee and get into the refugee system it's usually 25 years till you get out I don't know if there's a similar thing like that with food insecurity food banks if the if you if you have any data like that once somebody goes on to welfare or wick or snap or or something like that that how long is it till they get out do they ever get out as a something that there's a transition and that's why I like your book so much is because it gives tools and it's showing this transition of a model that you and I and many others are already living and doing and so why don't we just get them on that same model it's a nice transition of empowerment so hopefully there's a question in there for you yeah no it's it's a good setup I think one of the things that I describe in the book you know I frame it as the way you define a problem defines your solution to that problem so when we define the problem of hunger whether that's here in Hartford, Connecticut or around the world when we define it as a lack of food then our response is very easy right we need to collect distribute hand out more food and sadly I think that has largely been our approach in the United States and I think globally as people look to the US as a model we have built this robust amazing system of food banks and food pantries like I said that are spanning the United States we've done a really really good job we collect and distribute billions with a B billions of pounds of food and yet food insecurity is a persistent chronic public health problem if however we define hunger and food insecurity as rooted in poverty systemic barriers structural inequalities structural racism then our solutions become much more complex and that's exactly the kind of work that you're doing mark it's highlighting this is a complex problem and so I would suggest you know for other countries that are looking to the US you know that the short-term supply of food is a short-term solution if we really want to help people whether those are refugees you know like yes we should absolutely provide safe water food housing you know for the situations that they're fleeing from absolutely and we should look upstream to figure out why are they fleeing their country in the first place why are they in this scenario how do we help tackle those problems to make it easier for people to move ahead a lot of the work that I talk about in the book in terms of the transformational change is building relationships with individuals to understand what are the root causes that are making it hard for them to have enough food and those causes are different person to person for one person it might be access to affordable child care for another it might be mental health issues for another it might be transportation legal issues education employment you name it identifying what are those root causes and then helping to connect them to resources that are going to address their own individual situation so that's at the individual level and then more broadly hopefully advocating for policies that can make it easier to address those root causes I have three last questions for you and they're really just for my listeners as pretty much all of them have been but if you had one message that you could depart to my listeners as a sustainable takeaway that has the power to change their life what would it be your message for an individual that is like any reader any listener any listener yeah yeah um hunger is a preventable problem we can and must do better to make sure that people have access to enough food what should young innovators or academics in your field looking to work with whether it's a world food program food banks food pantries be thinking about if they're looking for ways to make a real impact and see the changes that you're discussing in your book yeah oh we need you we need your expertise we need your uh innovation your creativity absolutely um I am encouraged by young adults these days have been grounded in social justice you know a framework of looking at social justice how might we apply that work in our anti-hunger work um there are food pantry and food bank directors that are retiring and we're going to need new leaders to step in and I I am hopeful that as we have new leaders that you can come in with fresh ideas and question the status quo and put an emphasis on on social justice within our work so that it's not just a band-aid approach so yes please what have you experienced or learned in your professional journey so far that you would have loved to know from the start a lot of people say you know nothing because the journey and the self was a big teacher but I have had some that come back and say you know it's it's this at the beginning of my journey and the food banks their pantries and that can't believe that's the way we did it that was insane it was wasteful or very inefficient or demeaning or just a crazy way of doing it is there anything like that along the way that you would say that you wish you would have known from the start or started right my my thing is I wish I would have started earlier on doing what I did and a bit reach more people yeah I think it's a great question um I think one thing I wish that I knew and for young adults out there that I often encourage folks is um network more like if there's someone that inspires you don't be intimidated to reach out to them and say I want to learn more I want to I want to partner with you or learn from you I wish I had done that more there are many many people who've inspired me over the years but I think I was reluctant to reach out and and um now in my career I love collaborating with others learning from others and and especially cross-disciplinary collaborations where you know you partner with somebody who's who sees it from a different angle than you and therefore you can find different solutions to it I wish I had done that earlier in my career well I really truly thank you for letting us inside of your ideas and I've learned tons uh just through our discussion and especially through reading your book that I know others will enjoy we'll put in the show descriptions the links to all that where they can get the book and they can find out more about you and what your work is that is really all I have but it really ends with with how you also end the book as you you leave people with a sustainable take away and that is really um simple to reinvent the way that you provide charitable food the reinvention that you're talking about as small steps taken by many people and most importantly that they will act that they will take one action step in their own community start writing the area where they are going whether they're in a home or neighborhood or an apartment just start seeing who in your area needs that help or or you can be of service to I thank you very much for your time okay it's been absolutely wonderful thank you so much for raising awareness um and for all the great work you do thank you very much is there anything else you'd like to depart before I tell you goodbye anything that we didn't get a touch upon that you would like to tell the listeners I would say uh if you can if you know of someone who volunteers or works at a food bank a food pantry tell them about the book um and uh and just get started I thank you yeah that's perfect thank you so much and have a wonderful day thank you very much