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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 ...

Somehow in thirty some-odd years living on this planet, I managed to be one of the few people on earth not to read (or at least begin, and promptly set aside) Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, one of the great tomes of American Literature. I was able to right this wrong, when my wife presented me with a copy this Christmas, and I quickly dove in (pun intended). As I progressed through the pages of blubber, spermaceti, and coffin-shaped buoys through the New Year I couldn’t help to draw the comparisons every time I looked up from my book at CSPAN, covering the fiscal ...

  I am affiliated as an officer and secretary of Community Service Corps for Archbishop Wood High School. Through my first-hand experience with the Great Food Fight, I had the opportunity to go to the Philabundance warehouse and see what it is like. Members of our Delaware Valley Area are very generous and giving. Philabundance does extraordinary work for the community, and I am proud to be a part of it. As a student, my school has helped efforts through various incentives. One teacher gave students homework passes if they donated a certain number of nonperishable foods. Once a month, Archbishop Wood holds a ...

From holiday gatherings and Christmas dinners to New Year’s Eve parties – I've prepared more than my share of meals from leftovers.  I've made everything from traditional sandwiches and soups to even shepherd’s pie, but my favorite is one of the easiest and surest ways to please everyone in the family: Holiday Pot Pie. Growing up, my Mom made pot pies from scratch often, but nowadays I like to let everyone customize individual pot pies to their own tastes by setting up a mini buffet with lots of choices. The Filling I set out leftover roasted ham, green beans, roasted sweet potatoes, mushrooms, ...

  When my husband, Chip, passed away unexpectedly on May 21, 2009 at the age of 43, I was devastated.  Having spent 26 years together, I felt lost without him. As I was driving to work on December 4, 2009, I was trying to come up with a way to make my children’s first Christmas without their dad a happy one.  I turned on the radio and heard Jon Bon Jovi’s voice.  It was the last day of Preston and Steve’s Campout for Hunger and Jon was offering 4 tickets to an upcoming show, a meet and greet with him and a ...