Month: March 2024

You Can’t Solve Hunger with an “Us” vs. “Them” Attitude

At one of my previous food pantries, we had a volunteer who was perpetually cheerful, eternally welcoming to clients, and one of the most compassionate individuals I could have chosen for our team. This individual was also a client who regularly used our services.

They always made a special effort to greet the clients waiting in line two full hours before we opened. When I expressed my appreciation, this volunteer explained that as a shopper they loved our team’s welcoming habit of checking on those waiting in line.  They wanted all our visitors to feel the same way: like an equal, appreciated, and respected.  This client-volunteer’s efforts transformed our shoppers’ food pantry visits from a degrading and shameful experience into a moment of feeling dignified and respected.

Unfortunately, even in 2024, judgement, bias and “otherization” still permeate the policies and practices of many anti-hunger and community support organizations in the United States. 


 As an example, some anti-hunger leaders and organizations still discourage volunteering by their own clients.  Allowing clients to be insiders, they argue, increases the risk of conflict of interest, abuse of power, and manipulation of the food supply. 

In my years managing food pantries, I’ve seen all these unfortunate behaviors.  However, I’ve never once witnessed this type of behavior from client volunteers. I have regularly witnessed it from advantaged and entitled volunteers or non-profit supporters with no lived experience.  And too often, I’ve been instructed by leadership to ignore these negative behaviors, especially if confronting them risked alienating donors or friends of the “inner circle,” while also being responsible for ensuring my clients don’t violate the same rules. Despite all evidence to the contrary, these policies reinforce the attitude that people facing food insecurity can’t be trusted, and should depend on the wisdom and leadership of others.

This baseless concern about client volunteers is just one way that we project our biases and assumptions about hunger onto clients without any real basis in reality.  We are long overdue to abandon these assumptions about food insecurity.

As Americans, we’ve been conditioned to assume that people who use welfare or need food assistance are untrustworthy, unreliable, and make poor choices.

As a result, most elements of food pantry and emergency food assistance policy are based on this assumption- that we must protect these programs from abuse and corruption, instead of ensuring families have the food they need to thrive.  Turning away volunteers with lived experience deprives organizations of essential insights and perpetuates the stigma and discrimination that accompany hunger.


Having clients serve as volunteers can be uncomfortable because their presence and input requires us to check our biases and pay closer attention to the experience of being a food pantry client. Clients serving as volunteers gives food pantries an opportunity to learn their weaknesses and strive to do better, if we can foster the humility for this lesson.

But it’s also essential to make sure that we are not using these clients as our primary sounding board for educating on dignity. In the same misguided way that too many people called on their friends of color to educate them in racial justice issues in 2020, it’s important we do the work to research and learn the reality of hunger without exploiting our community.

As someone without lived experience of hunger, I try to provide services that I have never myself depended on.

As a result, it’s easy for me and my colleagues to fall victim to the assumptions and biases that abound surrounding food insecurity and food assistance.

This is why building spaces for those with lived experience to safely speak up is essential, and why it’s important to evaluate whether your organization is a safe space for that vulnerability.

If we can transform our anti-hunger institutions into centers of humility and compassion for continual growth, we can amplify our impact by moving beyond assumption to ensure we’re addressing the problems our neighbors face, and not the ones we think they do.

Major appreciation to Kern Herron for his input on the writing of this post.

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

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Building a Food Justice Career

My Mom wanted me to be a lawyer. I like to write, and she says I’m good at developing arguments… However, I always knew I was looking for something else. Following college, I was interested in sustainability, but wasn’t sure what a career might look like. Then I attended a sustainability networking event and upon hearing my story, a fellow attendee pointed out, “You grew up on a farm. You should do sustainable agriculture.” From there, it was a quick journey from nutrition and gardening education to building food access and alternative food systems.

Over the past several months, multiple people have reached out to me seeking wisdom and advice about entering the field of food justice. Working in nonprofits is hard, and anti-hunger opportunities can be few and far between as well as competitive. However, there is also lots of opportunity and energy in this area right now, and we certainly need all the most skilled, ambitious, and creative minds on the job.

This week I’m sharing my recommendations on embarking on a career in anti-hunger and food justice. In reality, though, this is all applicable to any field.  

  • Informational interviews. Asking someone to share career advice is daunting and intimidating, but this is my favorite method for learning what the work really looks like! At the start of my career, I did most of my networking via personal recommendation and word of mouth, but social media makes things significantly easier now. Identify professionals that you admire and reach out to see if they’re available for a quick conversation.

I like to ask how they ended up in their current role and the skills they think are necessary for success there. My favorite question to end on after explaining my own career trajectory is, “what would you do next if you were me?” I also ask for recommendations of other people to speak to, and if they can offer an introduction.

Informational interviews have helped me land several jobs because when opportunities arose, I was fresh on the mind of my acquaintance. Although scheduling in today’s hectic world can be exhausting, many people like giving interviews. It’s flattering and fun to offer guidance that leads someone towards success!

  • Volunteering. Although I recognize that having the time and capacity to volunteer is a significant privilege, you should lean into it if it’s an option. Sign up for a shift at your favorite nonprofit to learn how they operate, get to know their community, and maybe even anticipate their future needs. I’ve seen many nonprofits hire their best volunteers when they need more staff.
  • Education. I experience my best learning from reading physical books, but there is an abundance of online articles, webinars, podcasts, or documentaries to suit your learning style. Familiarize yourself with the discussions that are currently taking place in the field and who is hosting them. After a while, you’ll start to recognize trends and opportunities for further engagement. You might also discover new areas of interest for yourself!

The books I consider foundational for my own anti-hunger education (that I regularly revisit when I need inspiration) are: The Stop by Nick Saul, Big Hunger by Andrew Fisher, and Reinventing Food Banks and Pantries by Katie Martin. But there are many incredible options on hunger, food justice and sustainability that are worth exploring.

It is important to remember that you don’t have to be a food security expert to thrive in this field. We need people with strong writing skills, creative marketing expertise, thoughtful fundraising strategies, in-depth data analysis, and many others. Many organizations are excited to hire people with these hard skills and teach them their application in food justice. No one starts out as an expert, and we all know that it takes a large and diverse community to solve hunger and build food justice.

Finally, I have to call out the importance of seeking out a workplace that honors and supports you. Although we’re making great progress, there are still plenty of nonprofits out there who do not support their staff the way they deserve to be treated. It’s important to recognize this reality, and assess your tolerance level for this treatment (in a perfect world it should be zero, but I know plenty of people don’t have the luxury of picking and choosing their ideal employer). Pressuring anti-hunger organizations to treat their staff with dignity and respect is an essential step for achieving the same toward treatment towards clients.

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

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We Can’t End Hunger By Improving Production

Hunger has always been a part of the human experience, and we are largely conditioned to assume it is unavoidable. But as technology improves, networks grow, and our understanding of the world evolves, it becomes increasingly apparent that it is not a foregone inevitability.

Trending solutions for fighting hunger often focus on improving agricultural production and reducing food waste. Considering the growing impacts of climate change, the issues of production and conservation certainly deserve attention, but these solutions fail to address the real barriers to ending hunger.

Hunger is a distribution problem, which means we need to address food access rather than food supply.

We are failing in the distribution of resources. Baring a major disaster, people with wealth always have the means to purchase the food they need. The cost of food may rise astronomically, or it may drop to more accessible levels, but wealth insulates against scarcity.

Individuals and communities living in poverty don’t have the resources to overcome these barriers. If they had the resources to access food, then they would no longer be food insecure.

Hunger isn’t a food problem.

Some people face greater barriers than others in accessing food, such as higher transportation costs, greater storage challenges, or culturally specific needs, but all these barriers can be overcome with money. None of these obstacles result directly from a food shortage or high rates of food waste. We lack systems that facilitate food access for everyone, both nationally and globally.

Food distribution is complicated, because food is perishable and there is a limited amount of time that it can be stored, shipped, and distributed before it spoils.  Some parts of the country (and world) are in close proximity to agricultural production which fosters affordable prices and culturally appropriate foods. This makes it simple to get the food people need. Other regions experience greater scarcity, which means residents depend on food traveling greater distances. This increases the cost and makes it more vulnerable to disturbances.

This is why the food justice movement places so much importance on food sovereignty- on empowering people to have ownership over their food system to ensure it meets their needs best and minimizes the risk of external disruption.

Food sovereignty does not demand increasing agricultural production. Instead, it recognizes that empowering people with ownership over their food choices is the best way to build individual and communal health.

Food is an intensely personal choice, and expression of individuality. Every individual, family, community, and culture have their own preferences when it comes to culinary traditions, nutritional needs, and celebration. We are our healthiest and most empowered when we have access to the foods that are a part of our identity.

This is another reason why increasing agricultural production does not solve hunger; mass-produced crops are not often the ones that a community craves. Bringing more corn or wheat to a community may briefly alleviate starvation, but does little to empower health, celebrate cultural traditions, or build food autonomy. When a community has influence and power over its food choices, it can ensure its options are right for everyone.

Increasing the food supply is an easy go-to answer to ending hunger, but the reality is that it completely ignores the root causes of food insecurity.  Without addressing the inaccessibility of our food supply, increasing it only ensures that those who have food will have more, and those who don’t have access will continue to go hungry.

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

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Can You Find Fun in the Kitchen When You’re Food Insecure?

One of my regular food pantry clients once came up to me the moment she walked in the door and shouted, “I LOVE BRUSSELS SPROUTS!”

She told me that she had never had them before but we had an abundance the last time she came to the pantry, so she decided to give them a try. It turned out she was a big fan; she had just never had the opportunity to taste them. Every time since, she would load up on these oft-maligned veggies.  

Our society is eager to condemn people experiencing hunger for eating unhealthy foods. With the prevalent assumption that people experience hunger because of poor judgement, it’s easy to assume that this applies to their food choices as well. This motivates many anti-hunger programs to focus on making decisions for people experiencing food insecurity, like what foods they should and shouldn’t have access to.

We see this attitude perpetuated in regular proposals to increase restrictions on foods purchased with SNAP dollars, in a misguided attempt to force people to eat healthier. SNAP is already inadequate, so this restriction reduces available options without addressing any of the limitations that already exist, like high costs of healthy foods.

The reality is, the only way we can empower people to eat better quality food and to try new things is to give them the capacity to experiment and take risks. (On another day we will also examine the need for time to cook, which means not having to work three jobs; and having a functional kitchen, which means safe and affordable housing.)

We can fight hunger by giving everyone room in their food budget for failure.

Even the most accomplished cooks occasionally make meals that aren’t winners, and every parent knows that their kids will sometimes refuse even the most perfectly prepared meal.

There is security in buying the foods that you know your family enjoys. With a too-tight food budget, it is an unnecessary risk to buy something that your family might not eat. When money is short, it can’t be wasted.

The client who loved Brussels sprouts had four hungry teenagers at home, so she had to maximize her food budget to ensure everyone had enough to eat. Why would she risk spending money on Brussels sprouts that those kids might refuse, or that she might not like, when she already was struggling to keep everyone fed?

But offering Brussels sprouts at the food pantry gave her room to take risks. There were no trade-offs if her family didn’t want to eat them- only a lesson learned.

If we really want to empower people experiencing food insecurity to eat healthier and try new foods, then we need to facilitate the conditions that allow risk-taking.

Children, and people of all ages, often need several exposures to a new food before they start to like it. That requires the capacity to serve it, and have it rejected multiple times before it is accepted. For someone who struggles to afford every bite, this is a nearly impossible risk.

Although food pantries are an inadequate response to hunger, this is one area where they offer opportunity. When clients are empowered to shop for themselves with as few restrictions as possible, there’s room to try something new. There’s no risk if their child refuses to eat the new vegetable, or it turns out the whole family hates that flavor of sauce. They can experiment with tofu just to say they tried it and see for themselves whether Brussels sprouts really deserve their reputation.

While health should absolutely be a priority in anti-hunger work, it’s important that we not lose sight of all the nuances that go into creating an environment where people can eat what’s right for their bodies, and not just what fits within their budget.

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

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