“Hunger. It just ain’t right.”

Galindo Elementary Leadership Council students held a food drive during Souper Bowl of Caring. Watch the video –

Thanks to everyone who supported this year’s Souper Bowl of Caring. Because of the great turnout, we’re still picking up donations from the stores! Stay tuned to see if your donations reached our goal of providing 750,000 meals.

Did you do something fun for Souper Bowl of Caring? Share your story with us in the comments section below. We love hearing from you!

Click here for more opportunities to get involved through our community events.

Hunger in America 2010: Central Texas report reveals 79 percent increase in need since last study in 2006.

Today, we released our local report of a nationwide study on the state of food security and hunger in America. Behind these numbers, and really, the crux of what this report reveals is a convergence of economic problems, public policy and social/moral priorities in Central Texas.

As President and CEO, David Davenport revealed the highlights from the study in this morning’s press conference, he emphasized the importance of our Food Bank’s role and responsibility in providing solutions and leadership. The purpose of the study is not to just say “shame on Central Texas”, but to share with the community the unique challenges we have in Central Texas for ensuring we achieve food security. Our opportunities are clear and we have a three-part solution. Here is our pledge to you, Central Texas:

1. CAFB will help ensure those who are eligible for feeding programs access them to the fullest extent.
2. CAFB will expand services, distribute more food, and use innovative technology to optimize our operations.
3. CAFB will lead the community to elevate the issue of hunger and the belief that hunger, especially in the life of a child, is socially and morally unacceptable.

Get the facts and stay involved with our progress at HungerisUNacceptable.com.

A special thank you to Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell for hosting the event at City Hall, Texas Agriculture Deputy Commissioner Drew DeBerry, our Partner Agencies, and our guests for attending and watching on U-stream.

CAFB volunteers are the best.

We want to take this opportunity to give a shout-out to our volunteers — you guys rock!

Each month, our volunteers contribute more than 5,000 hours combined to support our mission through sorting food in Product Recovery, at special events, teaching classes, as ambassadors, and a variety of other opportunities.

Watch the video –

Thank you for all your time and energy in helping us nourish hungry Central Texans. Like what you see? Click here to volunteer.

The Indignity of Poverty

This story was submitted through our online Hunger Stories.

By Pamela U. Wilson

Have you ever had to ask for help, knowing your children will suffer unless you get it?  Welfare offices call to tell you they have a job for you, but there is no money to get you to work. Questions run through your head: how long will I see my children living in poverty? How long will the cycle of welfare continue?

I was a child living on welfare in the projects with my mom, brothers and sisters. I remember days of no food, clothes and old shoes. I used to see my mom going to trucks for powdered food so that we could eat. To clean our clothes, we had to bend over a tub and wash them by hand, without laundry soap. Our family was often sick with sores, and flies were on us.

The lifestyle of a poor person often comes with loss of pride and of dignity as a human. Poverty is a lifestyle where shame and low self-esteem become a norm. I can remember the terrible conditions families like mine experienced when times were hard.

Imagine if your family lived in extreme poverty: no money for clothes, shoes, medicine, hot water, soap, heat, transportation, hospital visits, or furniture. The beds smell terrible since there are no sheets for the mattresses. The house has a stench of rotten food, milk and old urine. Most of the time food is cooked with old grease. It’s possible that you cannot wash the dishes because the water is cold. The refrigerator doesn’t work and has been broken for weeks. Clothes must be washed out by hand, without warm water.

Perhaps your children go to school wearing smelly, dirty clothes, old shoes, and without school supplies. Your babies have runny noses, open sores, pink eyes, worms, and suffer from malnutrition. The gnats cover the rotten food and trash that you cannot get rid of, since there is nowhere to take it. To see kids living in such poverty, makes me angry.

Now, imagine trying your best to climb out of poverty by begging for help from office-to-office. You circle a few blocks trying to figure out what you will say, until you find out this was the wrong office, and then you have to do it all over again. The county, state or government welfare offices will maybe allocate to your family $75-$250 a month for rent, food and bills. Getting the other necessities for your family is out of the question. Many food banks and clinics are there to help, but there is no way to get there since you don’t have enough money to ride the bus.

Years later, when I started a family of my own, my husband lost his job and we went to the welfare office for help. The state gave our family $259 for the month. This money did not pay all the bills. We had no way to pay for things we needed. We couldn’t use our cars because there was no money for gas. 

Without a steady source of income, food is hard to come by. Sometimes I go home with a can of green beans and old bread, and that is all I can feed my kids. Sometimes our income is so little that we have to ask for help. There are other times I have given my food away to help someone else.

It is still hard waiting for food between pay checks. We have to save money in order to buy gas and get to work. As a diabetic adult, I must take care of what food I can eat being mindful of fats and sugars. When times are tight, I am very grateful for all the food I have received from the Food Bank.

I can understand why people live in shame and despair while living in poverty. Living in this condition has a way to make or break families. Families must get help when they need it, but not lose their dignity as a human beings. My husband and I were fortunately aware that our dignity was the most precious thing we had besides our kids, and our pride remains strong.

Thank you, Pamela, for sharing your story.

“They said they now know the face of hunger — it’s like looking in a mirror; it could be anyone.”

Karla Cantu
Senior Director, Agency Relations

I spend a lot of time in food pantries all across our 21 county service area.  In the more than nine years I’ve worked at the Food Bank, the lines, faces and volunteers never cease to amaze me. I am grateful to have a job that allows me to connect with so many people, on so many levels. Whether I am speaking with a volunteer or providing food to a client, I am always receiving more than I give.  Here’s an inside look at my day at CAFB’s Reaching Out Center in Pflugerville:

Reaching Out Center Clients

I start my day with volunteer orientation and training, stressing the importance of talking and connecting with those who they are helping, not just “doing a job.” Even though distribution starts at 2 p.m., it’s not unusual for clients to begin filling the waiting area early, and many show up hours before the scheduled distribution time. This gives me a chance to do what I love – getting to know the families. On this particular day, the volunteers and I met a six-year-old girl, Chloe, her dad and grandmother.  As Chloe grinned, she showed me where she lost her tooth. She says she’s hoping the tooth fairy will visit her.  Two other clients, Anne and Martha, both retired and on fixed incomes, car-pool monthly to the food pantry. 

I watched a volunteer look a young man in the eye, welcome him with a friendly voice and touch on the shoulder.  The young man, who had been staring at the floor, looked-up, relaxed his shoulders and followed the volunteer to make his food selections. He later shared that he had been laid-off from his job, and is working as a day laborer until he finds something better. I watch this similar scene throughout the day — volunteers smiling, client heads rising from the “floor stare,” and children smiling and hugging boxes of cereal.

Reaching Out Center Volunteer

This was a record setting day, serving 276 families; 1,287 people in those families.  After we finish serving the clients, clean-up time gives me an opportunity to reconnect with the volunteers and share experiences of the day. The volunteers said they were shocked by the amount of people they served, and had no idea the need was so great in their community.  Others said they couldn’t believe the number of children needing assistance or that these families looked like the families they see at school. They said they now know the face of hunger — it’s like looking in a mirror; it could be anyone. 

This is my hunger story.

Click here to sign-up for your own volunteer experience at the Reaching Out Center. Looking for food assistance? Click here.

“It isn’t food until someone eats it.”

Sunshine Cantu
Operations Support Specialist

When I arrived at the Food bank in 2007, I was given a mission: convince retail meat market managers why their leftovers should become another’s treasure. As a devout vegetarian, I found the task to be quite ironic. As a sustainability enthusiast, I found the concept to be quite innovative — feed the hungry, while helping to keep Austin beautiful at the same time.

Joe Salazar, H-E-B Market Manager, and Sunshine Cantu

Instead of throwing their extra product away, market managers can freeze it (day of expiration) and donate it to the Food Bank’s Central Texas Food Rescue (CTFR) program. Along with highly sought after meats, stores can also donate out-of-date breads, dairy products and packaged produce that would ordinarily end up in the trash. Donated food is picked up by our refrigerated fleet and brought back for quality control, before being provided to more than 300,000 people who rely on our services each year.

Imagine that — more than 300,000 people in need of food, while our landfills continue to pile up with unopened packages of what should have been someone’s sustenance. Food is a resource specifically designed for one purpose: to nourish the body.

And it isn’t food until someone eats it.

For 19 years, CAFB has been doing its part to keep food out of landfills, and into the hands of those who cannot afford to buy it, but need it most.  Working with approximately 100 retail stores throughout our 21-county service territory, CTFR expanded its fleet to keep up with the growth of the program to include Marble Falls, Lampasas, Waco, Bastrop and Elgin.   In 2009, CTFR recovered more than 3.3 million pounds of highly nutritious foods, including produce and dairy, providing nearly 2.6 million meals.  

Click here for more information on CTFR.

Guest Blogger, Ed Nicholson from Tyson Foods: A Souper Reason to Get Involved in Hunger

As written by Ed Nicholson

In August of 2008, we did our first social media engagement donation with the Capital Area Food Bank in Austin.  There weren’t many such efforts going on at that time (a lot since). It’s been cited as a case study several times, and since then, we’ve considered CAFB a great partner. As I’ve said many times, they are definitely among the best food banks at using social networking channels in reaching their stakeholders with the crystal-clear message, “HUNGER IS UNNACEPTABLE.”

Today we’re announcing a new effort!

For the next couple of weeks CAFB will be holding their Souper Bowl of Caring drive,  in conjunction with the largest youth-led food and fund  raising effort in the country.  In support of this event, for every comment you make to this blog post telling us you think hunger is unacceptable (if you want to add why, that would be even better), we’ll donate 100 pounds of food.   We’ll do the same if you post it to your own blog or if you send a Tweet with the hashtag #SBOCAustin.  We’ll keep donating up to a 35,000 pound truckload.

So come on. Support the fabulous work of the Capital Area Food Bank. Tell the world HUNGER IS UNACCEPTABLE.

“This is why I believe hunger is unacceptable: because a loaf of bread or a bag of apples is a small cost for giving someone hope.”

Alese Colehour
Communications VISTA

Why is Hunger Unacceptable?

Everyone has a story. Every month, I speak with dozens of clients face-to-face who receive food assistance from a CAFB supported food pantry. With each new person I meet, I’m more and more awed by the incredible strength of the human spirit. Some live in unimaginable hardship, and yet I see glimmers of optimism and hope in their eyes. Even people who must sacrifice dignity and pride in order to feed their children, still dream about a brighter future. This is why I believe hunger is unacceptable: because a loaf of bread or a bag of apples is a small cost for giving someone hope.

Listen to what the CAFB community says about hunger:

Tell us: Why is hunger unacceptable to YOU?

“…help get all these children fed.” – Daysy, 18

Daysy Padilla and her daughter, Yarali

On Daysy Padilla’s 18th birthday, she was at St. Ignatius Food Pantry for food assistance to nourish her two daughters.

“It’s hard when we run out of food. It’s all about the kids,” she said, gesturing toward 2-year-old Yarali, “They’re hungry!” Daysy lives with her mom, who works and helps support the girls.

Daysy is enrolled in an online school program, which allows her the flexibility she needs to finish high school at her own pace.

“I don’t like leaving the kids in daycare, and that stops me from doing a lot of things,” she says. “I would go to school, but I don’t want to leave them in daycare. I’s expensive.”

“Right now, we’re having some hard times,” said Daysy. “There aren’t any jobs; people don’t have money to buy food.” When we asked her what people should do, she said “I think the community should come together and help get all these children fed.”

Can you relate? Do you have a story to share? Tell us in the comments section below.

Listen to our podcasts for more personal experiences and struggles with hunger.

Looking back – briefly – and moving forward: What’s ahead in 2010

David Davenport
President and CEO

This time last year, I was in Washington, D.C. for the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States. The night before the historic ceremony, I had the opportunity to participate in an interfaith celebration where Methodist Bishop Gregory V. Palmer shared his thoughts on the upcoming event. He said “Our eyes burn. Our American eyes, from the bright light of possibilities.”

Few Americans have been immune to the impact of the economic crisis that so aggressively hit our nation just prior to the inauguration, and continues with little relief on the horizon. Press reports and pundits have indicated that Texas (and specifically Central Texas) has been spared the brunt of the economic challenges. A deeper, more realistic look at 2009 in Central Texas indicates that more families, seniors and children found themselves clients of the Capital Area Food Bank.

Mobile Food Pantry distribution, San Saba, TX, 2009

Even before the severe economic decline, Texas had the country’s highest percentage of children at risk of hunger. As more and more Texans found themselves in need of food assistance, the SNAP (Food Stamp) enrollment system began to fail, and the Food Bank-led hunger-relief system became overwhelmed with new clients as the hunger line grew by 60 percent.

In response, CAFB deployed new assets and programs such as the Mobile Food Pantry and Central Texas Food Rescue, and opened direct distribution service centers in East Austin and Pflugerville. The Food Bank also invested in two new full-sized tractor trailers to increase delivery, opened a satellite warehouse facility and provided more than 23 million pounds of nutritious food to those desperately in need (up from an average 15.7 million pounds 2006-2008).  

As we begin 2010, we find ourselves in the challenging position of rapidly growing our organization to meet the challenges of a struggling economy and its impact on our more than 300,000 clients, and strategically positioning ourselves to shrink the hunger line and ultimately provide a long-term solution for hunger in the communities we serve.

Over the next 12 months, the Food Bank will deploy our second Mobile Food Pantry, expand direct service to clients, and develop systems to assist our organization in tracking the impact of the critical supplies distributed. With our collaborative partners, we will expand Partner Agency capacity, and we will continue to meet the demand and shrink the hunger line.

Dell and others volunteering in Product Recovery, 2009

I am confident we will have success as we continue to evolve. I am sold on the Capital Area Food Bank because I am sold on YOU. From the 27,000 members of our community who made financial contributions, to the 13,000 volunteers who gave more than 77,000 hours of service, and to those who gave their voice to the public policy issues impacting so many of our neighbors in need, YOU were there for the children, families and seniors in need of physical and emotional nourishment. YOU are the ones who believe hunger, in a community as resourced as ours, is economically, socially and morally unacceptable. YOU believe, YOU acted on your belief, and YOU placed food in front of those in need – food that would otherwise not have been there.

 Thank you. We celebrate our outstanding work together.

 Now, it’s back to work.