From Slow Food USA on Fri, December 05, 2008

One of Slow Food USA’s newest chapters, Slow Food Corvallis in Oregon, is working with a local food bank this year.  Check out their recent news brief:

November 28, 2008

Dear Friends of Slow Food Corvallis,

I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and are surrounded by
family and friends, and enjoying our most precious food traditions.

At a time when we are so focused on sharing food traditions with loved ones,
it’s a natural progression to wonder whether everyone else in our
neighborhood is also blessed with the abundance that the Willamette Valley
has to offer. But one has only to open one’s email or pick up a newspaper to
be confronted with clear evidence to the contrary. In just one example, you
may have seen this news release:

**************************
11-17-08
New Report on Hunger Identifies Oregon as One of the Worst

SALEM, Ore. - The rate of hunger in the state of Oregon has increased again,
making Oregon one of the hungriest states in the country. The U.S.
Department of Agriculture reported on Monday that the current hunger rate in
Oregon is 5.5 percent, among the highest in the nation and comparable to
Mississippi, Maine, South Carolina and Georgia.

“That translates into approximately 78,000 Oregon households that, at some
point during the year, skipped meals, shrunk portions and worried about
making it to the end of the month,” said Mark Edwards, an Oregon State
University sociologist and an expert in hunger issues…among those food
insecure households, Oregon has a larger proportion in the more extreme
circumstances of very low food security, often referred to as “hunger.”

*************************

But wait-it gets worse! Sharon Thornberry, a Slow Food Corvallis leader and
Community Resource Developer for Oregon Food Bank, points out that “this
news is disturbing, but this is actually last year’s data.  The current
story is much more serious.  Food pantries across the state have seen
increases in requests as high as 40%.  Far too many of these requests are
coming from people who have never set foot in a food pantry before.
Financial conditions are tight and food banks are concerned that many donors
will need to cut back or not make cash donations.  More and more of the food
distributed has to be purchased.”

One of the great things about the Slow Food movement is that we focus on
developing food systems that are “good, clean and fair”. We can enjoy our
workshop on cheese making, or learning how to hunt for wild mushrooms, but
we don’t lose sight of the fact that a situation in which hunger continues
to co-exist with plenty in our own neighborhoods is intolerable. I hope that
you feel, as Slow Food Corvallis’s leadership does, compelled to take action
to help fill our food banks in this time of economic downturn and increasing
food insecurity for Oregonian families.

One of the best ways to contribute is to make a cash donation to Linn-Benton
Food Share. This will be used to support food distributions at a variety of
food banks and outlets throughout Linn and Benton counties.

Please visit: http://www.csc.gen.or.us/foodshare.htm to learn more about
hunger and its solutions in Oregon, and to make a tax deductible online
contribution. If donating online is not your cup of tea, contact

Linn Benton Food Share
545 SW 2nd Street
Corvallis, Oregon 97333
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

for information on other ways to contribute. If and when you contribute,
please send an email to me at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), to help us keep
tabs on how effective this campaign has been.

Here are some other suggestions from Sharon, and from the Food Research and
Action Center, of strategies you can use to fight hunger:

1. Look around and see whom you may be able to help individually.  A
lot of people are in trouble who may never seek help, but an anonymous
gesture could feed both their bodies & souls.

2. Go to the Food Research and Action Center’s website,
http://frac.org/obama_vision_america_nov08.htm to share your vision of a
hunger-free America with President-elect Obama
<http://frac.org/obama_vision_america_nov08.htm to share your vision
of a hunger-free America with President-elect Obama>  as he
invites your input.  There, you’ll find instructions about how to
enthusiastically support his commitment to end childhood hunger by 2015 and
to cut poverty in half.

3. Call your Members of Congress (Senators Wyden and Merkley,
Congressmen Wu, Walden, Blumenauer, DeFazio and Schrader) and urge them to
pass a temporary boost in SNAP/Food Stamp benefits as a key step in their
economic stimulus/recovery work.

4. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper highlighting
the recent USDA Food Insecurity data that shows hunger on the rise through
2007, with worse in store for 2008.  For suggestions on how to do this,
visit FRAC’s website
(http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5118/t/1472/letter/?letter_KEY=75)

5. Although hunger may be a focus during this holiday season, remember
it occurs year-round, and peaks during the summer months when regular year
school meals programs stop.  Tell your Members of Congress via e-mail or at
meetings or forums while they are home to expand and improve the federal
child nutrition programs and WIC in the upcoming 2009 reauthorization.

Thank you. As Sharon says, we all suffer when even one among us is hungry.

Ann Shriver
Leader, Slow Food Corvallis
.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

From Jo Lynne Lockley on Tue, December 09, 2008

The sustainable community in San Francisco mourned the sudden loss of Diane Joy Goodman yesterday at Nopa, the Restaurant of her daughter and son in law, Allyson and Larry Jossell.

Diane was an active member of the Acqua terra convivium and a self motivated moving force in the San Francisco farm, fishing, restaurant and marketing world.

Without taking credit for herself, she singlehandedly organized events promoting sustainable agriculture and Terra Madre, farmers markets and restaurant farm connections. Diane was a woman of fierce integrity and a dead on, profound sense of what was right and needed to be done, and stopped at nothing to achieve it.

All of San Francisco’s chefs, food connections and food community will miss her. I know that all those who knew Diane and learn here of her loss will be as shocked and saddened as we are on the West Coast.

From Kate Schubart on Tue, December 09, 2008

Those who are fighting to end hunger are anxious that more eligible people sign up for Food Stamps. While foodbanks/foodshelves are worthy and fill a need, many are straining to meet demand in part because so many people who are eligible do not sign up for food stamps and instead go to the privately run foodbanks.
  So do what you can to guide people to food stamps. Local resources are more than willing to help with the simple paperwork involved; people can often sign up online. The word has to go out that “food stamps” are the first not the last weapon against hunger. The program has been improved in several ways to make it more appealing to users—more variety in the food you can buy, a discreet ‘credit card’ so that it’s not obvious that the shopper is using food stamps as it once was, online sign up.
  So do what you can to demystify and promote food stamps rather than making a “foodshelf” the first and last stop for the hungry.
  Kate Schubart

From Tselani Richmond on Tue, December 23, 2008

I’m a private chef/instructor/food writer here in Portland. This season I was struggling to decide on the perfect gift for my clients. But instead of giving them a cute little basket filled with tasty goodies from around the world, I decided to take the gift one step further. I made $50 donations to the Oregon Food Bank in each client’s name. During the donation process I could choose a program so I selected one that puts fresh produce, meat, and dairy products on the table for thousands of people in Oregon. My clients loved the gesture and some of them are now doing the same for their friends and family. It’s a gift that gives twice - how perfect is that for the holidays?