Hunger Coalition of Bucks reports on food insecurity

While a majority of Bucks County adults reported having enough food support, according to the Hunger Coalition of Bucks County’s recently released biennial survey, nearly a third reported worrying about running out of food at least once in the last 30 days.
This and much more was discussed during the coalition’s virtual Hunger and Nutrition Forum, which included elected officials, community leaders and others concerned about hunger and food insecurity across the county.
Among the survey’s other findings were 70 percent of seniors and 66 percent of adults reported they could access quality foods. Among households reporting they were financially impacted by the pandemic, almost 72 percent said they haven’t recovered at all, or only recovered a little.
Overall, the survey found Bucks County residents are less likely to worry about running out of food and less likely to skip a meal, compared to 2019. Another positive finding was that although there are those who report being food-insecure, they feel more strongly that they can access both the quantity and quality of food needed for their families.
The forum’s keynote speaker Katie Martin, PhD., applauded HNCs efforts to reduce the number of Bucks County’s food-insecure and provide healthy, nutritious food for everyone. But, she added, “you can do better.”
As the executive director of the Foodshare Institute for Hunger Research & Solutions in Connecticut, Martin is a leader in the anti-hunger community and recognized for her more than 25 years of experience in the field.
In her book, “Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries: New Tools to End Hunger,” Martin stresses the need to reform the country’s charitable food system, a view she shared during her presentation last week.

“We need a paradigm shift,” Martin told the group. “We need longer term solutions to end hunger.”
After seeing long lines of people in the 1990s filing through a basement food pantry to be given a bag of food, and seeing much the same scene during the COVID-19 pandemic, Martin said she kept thinking, “there must be a better way…we can do better.”
She said, the way we think of ending-hunger work today needs to “shift from charity to food justice; from measuring pounds of food to focusing on quality.”
By, understandably, having a “scarcity mentality,” where agencies worry “is there enough food, enough money, enough space, enough equipment, enough volunteers,” organizations get stuck, Martin said.
“It keeps us from thinking forward, planning and evaluating,” she explained. COVID-19, Martin said, has taught hunger and food insecurity professionals to do things differently, “to think differently about what we do.”
From creating a welcoming environment at food pantries, to reducing the stigma around needing support, to providing wrap-around services, providing food for those in need must improve, Martin said.
“It takes more than food to end hunger,” she added.

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