Hunger Action Month in 2020 has taken on new urgency
Our country finds itself divided in many ways this September. Beyond widespread political divisions, there are other rifts widening across our nation. There are students in households with the resources to support continued learning, while others in underfunded districts and under-resourced families will be left further behind by the pandemic. There are working professionals who will continue to climb the ladders of success, while other workers — mostly female — have been forced to carry extra burdens of child care, athome education and career setbacks.
There are shareholders earning record profits on the stock market while unemployment remains at Great Depression-era levels.
But perhaps most urgently, there is a gaping divide in basic household security. Approximately 20% of the nation’s renters — 22 million people — could face eviction by the end of this month. Meanwhile, nearly 30 million Americans didn’t have enough food to eat during just one week in late July — before federal Pandemic Unemployment Benefits ended.
Ohio utility companies are planning to resume service disconnections this month, likely driving scores of homeowners and renters to the edge of homelessness. These concurrent crises will disproportionately impact Black and Hispanic families and immigrant populations that were already much more likely to live in poverty and suffer from a widening wealth gap driven by generations of inequity and discrimination.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Ohio’s food banks have been coordinating emergency responses and working collaboratively with state and federal officials to address the hunger crisis. Members of Ohio’s congressional delegation listened, drafted legislation and ultimately voted in support of modest relief measures that largely helped to stave off widespread hunger and homelessness, for a time.
Gov. Mike Dewine, like his peers, must walk a difficult tightrope to balance the demands of an ongoing pandemic with the threats of widespread household economic hardship, all while maintaining a balanced budget amid sharply declining revenues. His executive order provided early emergency assistance to help keep food on food banks’ shelves when federal help was slow to arrive. He deployed the remarkable resources of hundreds of Ohio National Guard soldiers and airmen to help us respond to a surge in need.
His administration, especially the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, has taken on massive amounts of additional work to roll out relief programs and process high volumes of applications for assistance. While we continue to appeal to Dewine to utilize some of the remaining federal CARES Act funding to keep families safely housed and adequately fed, we recognize that he’s been dealt what feels like an impossible hand.
As my colleague, Graham Bowman with the Ohio Poverty Law Center, aptly put it, “Controlling the virus isn’t possible amid a homeless crisis.” Individuals frantic to hold off eviction notices or electricity shutoffs choose paying the bill collectors over buying food every time. That’s why our food banks saw an immediate uptick in demand when the $600 federal unemployment benefit expired in July.
That’s why the current lack of an increase to the maximum SNAP household benefit and unwillingness to extend the federal Pandemic-ebt program for the 2020-21 school year is so shocking. That’s why Congress, and particularly level-headed Republican members of the Senate, like Sen. Rob Portman, must act now.
September is Hunger Action Month and, in 2020, it arrives with unparalleled urgency. For families facing the threat of hunger, the debilitating reality that they might not be able to put adequate, nutritious food on the table because the money isn’t there and the rent is due — every day is a matter of urgency.
Our elected officials must act with the urgency of the countless constituents they serve who now stand at a precipice. It must be now, and it must include funding for nutrition and housing assistance and protections for displaced workers, because October will be too late.
Lisa Hamler-fugitt is executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks. Lisa@ohiofoodbanks.org
The most difficult times can often bring out the best in humanity. Even during the trauma of the 1918 influenza pandemic, students did not forget the world's hungry. They took part in World Relief Week to help fight the famine that existed in dozens of wartorn nations.
The First World War had led to massive food shortages overseas and millions would have starved to death without help from America.
Today’s students also are inspiring the fight against global hunger, which has dramatically worsened during the coronavirus pandemic. They are doing it using technology, an online education game called Freerice.
When you play Freerice, you answer questions in vocabulary, science, math, literature, languages and art. Every correct answer leads to 10 grains of rice donated to the United Nations World Food Program. The donations are paid for by advertisers.
With global hunger fast escalating during the coronavirus pandemic, the WFP needs all the support it can get. The U.N. food agency is on the front lines of hunger in war-torn Yemen, Syria, Burkina Faso, South Sudan and many other countries in need.
Playing Freerice is one way to support WFP and advocate for world hunger relief.
Students I spoke to at Mount St. Joseph University even started their own Freerice team. The University of Cincinnati also started its own and the two schools held a Freerice match during quarantine earlier this year. UC prevailed.
Cal Poly, University of Illinois, Ithaca College and Auburn University also have started Freerice teams. A summer challenge match was just held among the schools with Mount St. Joseph answering the most questions correctly.
The schools are now getting ready to start their fall schedule of matches. There is room for more schools too. Ohio State University, Dayton, Miami and others, please join.
It's urgent to raise donations for WFP to fight hunger. It's also vital to