Mobilizing Community-Based Action
Millions of volunteers and tens of thousands of community organizations are already working to help hungry people, mainly through charitable assistance. They build awareness of hunger, expand the outreach of national programs, and develop innovative ways to meet local needs. The most comprehensive approach to solving hunger brings together those involved at the federal, state and local levels, assessing the needs of individual communities and developing plans to address the gaps between need and assistance.
Make Hunger History legislation would strengthen the grant programs that help local hunger groups working to make their communities “hunger-free” by giving them the resources to assess, plan and implement community-based enhancements to the nutrition safety-net. It would encourage the creation of state and local anti-hunger coalitions and would direct the administrators of the national nutrition programs to collaborate with these state and local groups.
Federal grants could go to support organizations like the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger, who recognize that hunger and food insecurity are complex issues and require a network of responses. The coalition ensures that the entire community works at several levels: with low-income individuals needing access to the Food Stamp Program; with grassroots volunteers trying to feed the hungry; with service professionals whose organizations offer food and nutrition education; and with elected officials who set policy and control budgets in the state capital and in Washington, DC.
Community-based and statewide organizations can provide this sort of comprehensive program to address the needs that they see locally. But they must be sufficiently funded to undertake these efforts.
