Volunteering with NYCCAH and Interview with Executive Director, Joel Berg,11/18/15

On Wednesday, November 18th, our group traveled to Union Square Park, where we met with NYCCAH’s (New York City Coalition Against Hunger) volunteer coordinator, Andrea Shapiro. At the park, Andrea Shapiro taught us a lot about how NYCCAH is trying to solve hunger in the U.S.. We talked about how charities, food drives and soup kitchens can help hungry people, but they are not sustainable solutions to end hunger. We also learned about how NYCCAH is trying to increase the availability of food by helping people who qualify, get food stamps. We also learned that there are many other programs that exist besides food stamps that are helping people receive food such as WIC checks (Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children) and the free summer food program in NYC for kids. After our conversation, we volunteered with Andrea by passing out flyers in the Union Square Farmers Market. These flyers informed people on food stamps, WIC checks and Healthy bucks, which are all types of programs that can help hungry people receive food. In total, Layne, Tibeau and I passed out around 40 flyers. After volunteering in the park, we traveled downtown to NYCCAH’s offices. At the offices, we interviewed the NYCCAH’s executive director, Joel Berg. We asked numerous questions, including questions about food deserts, how hunger is impacting our society we asked Joel Berg how he became involved with trying to end hunger. As we interviewed Joel, we took several notes. Joel made it especially clear that many people have false beliefs on who is hungry in America. He said that many people and families that have jobs, are still are hungry every day because of the low income rate that they have. He also explained that a sustainable solution to ending hunger is to talk to elected officials and try to raise the minimum wage and create more jobs. I learned that different parts of NYC such as Harlem and parts of eastern/central Brooklyn, are the most greatly hunger impacted parts of New York City. I also learned that hunger can be embarrassing, can cause people to be emotional and many children who suffer from hunger have problems with focusing/doing well in school. Overall, this fieldwork was extremely successful and I feel like we learned a lot from NYCCAH.

 

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