Alex Towne
Period 6
April 13th, 2011
Community Service Paper
Part 1
World hunger is one of the biggest problems we are facing in the 21st century. From the year 2007 to 2008, food prices spiked around the world causing millions of family’s to go into debt and struggle to put dinner on the table. With over 2 billion people around the world living on less than $2 a day and over 880 million living on less than $1 a day, the rise in prices has contributed to a lot of economic hardship for many people. This is a very important issue to me because I care about others. I am a democrat and I think that everyone should have the right to eat good and healthy food. If there’s anything the world should not have to worry about it should be nutrition. Eating right is essential to life and should therefore be at the top of our list of problems to deal with. (Clemmit, 1)
Although there are many root causes to the problem, many believe that the rise in oil prices is one of the main factors. From growing the food to transporting it, all of the machines need oil to run. With the increase in oil prices over the past decade, this has made the cost of food go up as well. President of the Asian Development Bank, Haruhiko Kuroda says, “The era of cheap food may be over.” As the world economy changes and becomes more globalized, many countries produce a large amount of just a few crops for export and import others for their own food supply. This means that transportation is becoming even more important to countries food supply and the increase in oil prices has had a very influential effect. (Clemmit, 1)
Another reason why there are so many people struggling is because of poverty. Poverty goes hand in hand with hunger, because if you don’t have money, you are going to struggle to buy food. According to the National Poverty Center, in 2009 over 14.3% of Americans lived in poverty. (National Poverty Center) The recent economic downfall has rendered millions to be below the poverty line. As more and more people fall below the poverty line it will be important for the government to step up and provide a way of getting cheap food to them.
The government has taken a few steps to help. As of December 2, 2010 Congress passed the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act, which enabled more kids to have access to meal plans in their schools and also raised the health regulations on meals in schools. Under this act 21 million more meals will be given out each year to struggling children. (Hunger Free Kids Act) The government is definitely aware of the problem and is somewhat doing their part to help. Although it is very hard to pass legislation at this time in Congress, world hunger is an issue that both Democrats and Republicans can agree on. I still think that the US government needs to pass more legislation so that no person in or great country has to struggle to find food.
Part II
Although the United States government has taken some initiative in helping fight hunger across America, the new budget deficit would eliminate some programs that help feed people. The proposed budget would eliminate the program called WIC that provides over 18 million meals to women, infants, and children. Although our deficit is huge in the United States, this cut would hardly make a dent and is not a good option. (Bittman, 1) Personally, I think we should cut military programs to get out of debt. Our people’s health is far more important than our weapons production, in my opinion. The federal government needs to protect the people’s health with food and medicine rather than guns and bombs.
My community service at the Contra Costa Food Bank related to what we studied this year with supply and demand. We learned that as supply goes up, demand goes down and thus, so do prices. It appears we have a low supply of food in the world, or at least an unequal distribution. This is why food prices are so high. People in the Bay Area need help to get food because food prices are so high, so the food bank serves as a great way for them to get cheap food. As the supply of food is lower, the price goes up. Just like the classic example we saw earlier this year of guns and butter, the United States has decided to spend more of its funding on guns rather than butter. I don’t think the United States should be as concerned with military as they should with health. Also, the United States is one of only 3 well-developed countries in the world not to have a system of national healthcare. (OECD Report) We currently rank 37th in the world in healthcare according to the World Health Organization. (World Health Organization Rankings) I think that the United States spends far too little funding on its own people. After watching Sicko this year in class, I felt like the insurance companies were screwing over the people. It is our duty and is stated in the 14th Amendment that everyone deserves equal protection under the law. If everyone deserves equal protection then why should people be denied the right to get treatment at a hospital because they can’t pay for it? Why should people be denied meals from the government if they can’t pay for them? It’s the same idea, and something needs to be done.
America has a system in place that allows people of low-income status to receive food at low prices. This system of food stamps, although a valid option, is not perfect by any means. People who apply for food stamps must meet certain requirements (be legal citizens, have a social security number, have less than $2000 worth of property in their households, etc.). (Social Security Fact Sheet) Many people who have food stamps aren’t getting enough food. Stacy Dean, the director of food assistance for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities remarked in 2008, “We know food stamps are falling short $34 a month” (Kaufman, 1) This equates to about 2 fewer bags of groceries every week for poor families. This is a huge amount of food considering the people we are talking about. The steady rise in prices has led to people not being able to buy as much food, even the people on food stamps.
I think Obama could really get people on his side if he tried to hammer out a bill that helped Americans have better access to food and health. He pushed through the healthcare bill, but that was a tender subject and had to be toned down because of all of the greedy insurance companies. Especially with the recent natural disasters occurring in Japan and other places, people are willing to help. World hunger is a huge problem, but a fixable problem. Every little bit helps.
This brings up a big question. Is it the government’s fault that food prices are rising? As the US is in trillions of dollars of debt, it cannot just be the food prices. This is a bigger problem. The national debt is so large that the government theoretically can’t do anything. This is a larger problem than just food supply and food prices, this is a fundamental problem of our government. This is why every little part we can do in our communities counts. Volunteering just a little bit of your time can really go a long way. If the government isn’t going to get the job done then we can.
Part III
A filmmaker from Portland, Oregon says, “Feeding 6 billion people is really hard. I don’t think we’ve figured out the right way to do it.” (Clemmit, 1) Although we may not have figured it out, there are things we can do to help. This is where organizations like the Contra Costa Food Bank come in. I worked the majority of my hours at the Contra Costa Food Bank in Concord. There, we helped package a wide range of foods and categorize them so they could be distributed to people of low-income status. Even in a well-developed country like the United States, there are still a lot of people who are struggling to put food on the plate. In the bay area alone are hundreds of thousands in poverty. Because of this, there are many people who need help putting food on the table. The Contra Costa Food Bank’s goal is to give everyone at least 1 nutritious meal per day. (CCFB Website) While working there, I saw how much I could make an impact. By just volunteering a few hours a week of my time, I helped other people receive that one meal they needed.
Last year alone the Contra Costa Food bank distributed 12.6 million pounds of food. With our help, they can distribute even more and make a larger impact. The Hunger in America Study reported a 46% increase in the number of people in need of food since 2006. More and more people are in need of food in our nations economic crisis. The Contra Costa Food Bank and many other organizations are doing everything they can to make that number go down. (CCFB Website)
A few of the people who I worked with were actually volunteer’s there full time. It’s amazing to me to think that someone would basically devote their life to helping others. It gives me a sense of hope in the world that people are willing to help others without a cent of money earned. I knew there were people like this, but to actually meet them so close to us was great. There are so many less fortunate people in the world that need help, and its nice to know there are people willing to help them out.
Overall I learned a lot after doing my community service at the food bank. It felt good to know that I was helping people who are less fortunate than I am. We live in such a privileged area in Lamorinda, it’s easy to forget that not everyone can live like we do. There are tons of people around us that are not as fortunate who need help, and doing community service is a great way to help them out. We live in a very culturally diverse are with all different kinds of people, and it’s nice to know that we can help them out.
This experience definitely made me want to volunteer more. I felt a great sense of accomplishment and fulfillment once I finished my time at the food bank. Whenever I help out other people for community service, I’ll be honest I don’t normally look forward to it. I always just want to get it over with and move on to whatever else it is I am going to do that day. But this time was different. Maybe it’s because I’m older now, or because I’m more mature, but I didn’t get that feeling this time. I actually got the opposite. I liked doing community service and helping out others. You don’t always have to be paid to lend a hand. Sometimes its good to work out of the good of your own heart and not for a paycheck. The community service I did at the food bank was humbling. It was good to be reminded that not everyone has it as good as me. Driving to the warehouse, listening to my iPod, in my car that my parents paid for, my clothes that my parents paid for. This experience really put it in perspective how good I have it. I hope to continue the fight to end global hunger and fight for the cause. All it takes is a little bit of help and anyone can make a huge difference.
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