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People Are Hungry: At Home and Abroad
Hunger was certainly a problem, both in New York City and
internationally, before September 11; the events of that day
served to make the problem worse. While the charitable response
from New Yorkers, Americans and people around the world has
been phenomenal-the Red Cross alone has received $35,024,196
in donations as of late October-the hunger panorama appears
likely to worsen still further before it improves. Two hunger-related
charitable organizations affiliated with the Institute-City
Harvest and Action Against Hunger-took the time to speak with
The Main Course about the impact of this tragedy and how their
activities have evolved to deal with it.
Since 1982, City Harvest has worked to
redistribute food to the needy. It is the nation's oldest
and largest relief agency. The New York City organization
has 12 refrigerated trucks that are on the road almost 24
hours a day collecting uneaten food from restaurants, bakeries,
take-out shops, corporate cafeterias, special events and elsewhere
and then delivering it to soup kitchens, homeless shelters,
AIDS care providers, senior centers and day care centers.
City Harvest rescues approximately 13 million pounds of food
annually.
City Harvest's response to the collapse of the World Trade
Center has been quick and ongoing, but people need to see
the big picture, says executive director Julia Erickson. "We
continue to support the Red Cross and the efforts of several
downtown chefs, but Ground Zero isn't really where the need
is," she explains. "Calls to our hunger hotline
increased by 50% and have stayed at that level. There are
so many people out of work between restaurant, hotel and airline
workers and people whose businesses were in the World Trade
Center and have been destroyed or have relocated." To
make things even worse, Erickson notes, as a result of the
collapse, the city's electronic benefit transfer system went
down, which meant that participants were unable to access
their food stamp benefits.
The Institute's president, Rick Smilow, is a member of City
Harvest's Food Advisory Council, and he thinks that local
hunger is, to a large extent, a hidden problem. Says Smilow,
"City Harvest tells me that a March 2000 survey showed
that emergency food providers were providing more than five
million meals a month to anywhere from 500,000 to 600,000
individuals in New York City."
Donations to City Harvest have been generous and steady, but
again, many checks are earmarked for Ground Zero relief, at
a time when the organization needs a general cash infusion.
"We played a very large role and incurred about $150,000
of expenses over and above our budget," says Erickson.
"Our regular budget is $8.9 million, and that wasn't
going to be enough to meet the needs. We already had a waiting
list of 100-plus agencies. Now there are two to three hundred
other agencies and centers needing to get food."
Finally, due to the unique nature of City Harvest-meaning
that the organization redistributes unused food rather than
simply raising funds-the hit to New York restaurants (with
at least 30 restaurants closing their doors since September
11 and almost all of them suffering a strong decrease in business)
is affecting the amount of aid they can offer. "In September,
donations from corporate cafeterias, restaurants and food
shops were down about 30%," says Erickson. "We had
30 or 40 food donors in the World Trade Center complex, but
aside from those, places like Tom Cat that supply bread to
restaurants will be baking less and therefore have less to
give to us. Restaurants downtown either don't have anything
extra or they've closed. It's really the worst possible scenario.
At the time we need to do more than ever, we have less than
ever to do it with."
Action Against Hunger is an international hunger organization
that combats hunger in 40 countries worldwide, such as Somalia
and El Salvador. The group is non-profit, non-religious and
non-governmental, and it uses a four-prong approach (nutrition,
water/sanitation, health and food security) to ensure both
short-term relief and long-term local autonomy. Action Against
Hunger has been providing aid to Afghan refugees in Pakistan
since 1979 and was present in Afghanistan itself from 1995
until the recent forced evacuation of foreign aid workers
there.
The exceptional circumstances of September 11 caused Action
Against Hunger to act closer to home as well. The gala the
group had previously scheduled to kick off the October 16-19
Restaurants Against Hunger Campaign (an annual event during
which 80 or so participating restaurants donate a part of
their proceeds) went ahead as planned, but a portion of the
funds raised there was donated to the Lower Manhattan Residents
Relief Coalition, marking the first time Action Against Hunger
has provided aid within the United Sates. "We felt as
a disaster relief organization we should pitch in and try
to help the very vulnerable families," says Anna Kar,
director of development and communications.
Action Against Hunger has seen a recent outpouring of help
for Afghanistan as well. "Before this, we had almost
nothing in private donations for Afghanistan," Kar recalls.
"Right now, 80% of donations on-line and through the
mail are designated for Afghanistan. There are a lot of really
good people out there who do their thing quietly."
To donate or learn more:
www.cityharvest.org
www.aah-usa.org
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