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A large part of my childhood was spent battling hunger, food insecurity, poverty and sometimes homelessness. When people ask me how growing up in those circumstances impacted my life, I tell them that it made me someone I would not have otherwise been. I spent many days hungry, scared and not knowing where my next meal would come from or where I might be living on a particular day.  When I was young I didn't understand what was happening to my family but I knew that it wasn't how people were supposed to live. It felt like sometimes the world had ...

Over the past year, Philabundance was very fortunate to have six AmeriCorps VISTAs working in several departments.  I sat down to speak with my fellow VISTAs to ask them, “what impact do you feel you made on the community during your AmeriCorps service with Philabundance?” I sat down with Jennifer Wright, our former Policy and Planning VISTA in the Government Relations Department. During her VISTA year at Philabundance, she assisted those working on local, state, and national levels in the fight against hunger. She also worked with the National CSFP Association to create a nationwide report on seniors’ access to federal ...

With summer fun and barbecues in full swing, it can be easy to forget about a key issue we continue to battle in the Philadelphia region – hunger. More than 325,000 children in the Delaware Valley rely on free and reduced meals during the school year. These families need our help to ensure there is food on the table during the summer months. And, Philabundance needs our assistance more than ever, as the Delaware Valley faces a continual increase of families who can’t afford to cover the additional meals.  There are so many ways that you can contribute, whether it’s ...

Gleaning is the practice of gathering leftover crops from a farmer’s field after their first harvest. The term dates back to the Bible, which instructed farmers to leave the corners of their fields unharvested to let “widows and peasants” come through to pick their own crops. Gleaning might be one of the earliest forms of hunger relief!  This ancient practice has been coming back into style lately, as recent studies have shown that 40% of food produced in the US goes to waste. Not all of this waste happens at the farm, but consumers’ demand for perfect- looking produce does mean that ...

By Janine Erato The image some of us conjure up of someone who is food insecure, or in need of food, may be in the form of a homeless person, or someone who takes advantage of government programs when they really don’t need to. A few individuals may fit this stereotype, but most food insecure people in our country do not. They look just like you and me A food insecure person looks like the guy with whom you used to work or the man that used to coach your child’s little league team. She was your teacher, who grew too old ...

In the first Spider-Man story ever written, Uncle Ben warns his nephew, Peter Parker (read: Spider-Man’s alter-ego) that as he grows from a boy into a man, he will both acquire the strength to harm and the choice to become a force for good. Although Peter initially rejects Uncle Ben’s advice, as he realizes the gravity of his superpowers, Peter adopts Uncle Ben’s parental direction as his guiding maxim. Hunger relief organizations like Philabundance work to ensure that our communities have access to the foods they need but we are unable to do so without strong federal policies supporting our fight ...

Have you ever looked around your kitchen cupboards and said, “There’s nothing good to eat!”?  As frustrating as the feeling can be, the harsh reality is that many people in the Delaware Valley actually don’t have enough to eat and struggle to put food on the table. When you think of it that way, you quickly realize that you just need to get a little more creative with the food you DO have in your kitchen cupboards. One of my favorite breakfasts on a lazy Sunday morning is making French toast.  This dish was originally created as a way to use ...

All of us have important women in our lives—mothers, spouses, partners, grandmothers and wonderful female friends. This year, the Ceres Society is spearheading a Mother’s Day campaign to honor these special women and also help to end hunger in our community. As Ceres Co-Chair, I hope that you will join me in this initiative. According to a recent study by Feeding America, there are more than 210,000 children in the Delaware Valley that are food insecure. As a mother myself (of both a son and a daughter), the thought that there are mothers in    the Philadelphia area who have to let their children ...

In September of 2012 Philabundance officially launched a Children’s Initiative, Kids Bites.  Now six months into the pilot program, a partnership with Target’s Meals for Minds, hungry kids and families of Lowell Elementary are getting much needed nutritious foods to take home. Each month families receive about 25 pounds of food, double that if they have three or more students enrolled at the school. The menu rotates, but 30% of the items are always seasonal fresh produce.  Milk and 100% juice are always available, and the remaining non-perishable products vary with things like peanut butter and jelly, pasta, brown rice, cereal, ...

  Spread The Love is here, and in honor of this drive for jars of peanut butter and jelly, I’m sharing my favorite PB recipes. Peanuts have been valued for their addition to a healthy diet since the Aztecs, hundreds of years ago.  They have a high level of monounsaturated fats and reservatrol. Peanut butter (and peanuts) provide protein, vitamins, fiber and high levels of the antioxidant p-coumaric acid.  As a kid, I grew up eating PB&J sandwiches all the time as well as my Mom’s fresh baked peanut butter cookies.  But it wasn’t until a trip to Colonial Williamsburg, when I ...