My group met with Laura Sewell, the Executive Director at EVCC (The East Village Community Coalition), to talk about her organization’s work on food insecurity. Right from the beginning we talked about EVCCs work on food insecurity. One of the things she told us about was the community fridge that she maintained for many years. She said that they had to move the fridge because people complained about fights or noise due to the fridge but it still exists just not as close to the area. Another thing we talked about were the causes of food insecurity in the East Village. One of the things she highlighted was covid´s effects on people in the area. She talked about how many people became food insecure without even knowing that they were at risk of becoming food insecure.

Another thing we talked about was food waste in the area, especially considering restaurants. Laura told us about how many restaurants do not want to waste food and how local restaurants are actually some of the best resources for community feeding. She also talked about the amount of food that bakeries waste because they have to cook in batches and cannot always predict the amount of food that will not be sold by the end of the day. She also mentioned how originally when she was giving out food she tried to keep it healthy but in the end, realized how special it is for people to get a treat. She also said that people are never too young to start trying to make a difference.

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Me and one other member of my group volunteered with Food not Bombs, an organization made entirely by mutual aid that has existed since the 1970s. We volunteered in Bedford Stuyvesant with a group of people who volunteer weekly. Some of them cook food and others get day-old food from different stores around the city. Many of the people who volunteered took home food with them. This is a form of mutual aid, a system where people help others but they also help themselves. They might be feeding other people but eating at the same time. Food not bombs has existed for over 50 years and has helped many people. One of them being my dad Alex Vitale, in the 1990s he volunteered with food not bombs by cooking and rescuing food but he also did not have a lot of money and so he ate the food as well

When I got to the place that I volunteered at, there was already a line forming of locals who come every week. They would ask for a ticket that would signify the place that they would stand in line and wait for us to set up. You could sometimes see the shame on peoples faces when they asked for food. It was heartbreaking for me to understand how hard it is to ask for help, and the amount of bravery it takes to ask for help. This is why mutual aid is so great because many of the people helping are suffering from the same things and won’t look down on you for needing help.

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My group met with BJ Neal the Director of NYC Program Services at City Relief. We asked him about the work that City Relief does to combat food insecurity. He told us that City Relief has two main things that they do, one being directly offering food, an immediate solution but not a long term solution. He compared this to grabbing buckets to stop the flood. Another one being City Relief uses their connections to connect people with services (employment, shelter, food), and also navigates people with assistants and connects people with where they need to go to really help. BJ says when helping people with food insecurity you have to meet them where they are. He also explained that it takes a long time for people to turn their lives around and that you have to “actually just get in the trenches and join people where they are”. We asked BJ Neal about different reasons for people not being able to turn their lives around and the main reason he gave us was mental health. He talked about how people are not alway prepared to accept help and their pride gets in the way.

In this interview BJ also talked about his personal experience with homelessness, as a child he lived in shelters with his mom and two sisters. He said that that influenced his choice to work with City Relief.

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On Friday, our grade visited the Museum of the City of New York. We had a tour guide who took us through an exhibit of activism in our city. There were about 10 different walls that focused on separate rights movements. For example, there was a disabled rights wall that showed artifacts like microphones that were used during marches and talked all about the steps to get the 504 law passed. Another wall zoomed in on trans rights and many of the hardships trans people face/faced and some of the activists who support the movement. Unfortunately there was no wall that really benefited my group which has the topic of food insecurity, although there were small facts around the room that stood out to me. I watched a video on food desserts in the city and how a group called Harlem Grown is trying to help with the homelessness and hunger issues. The man in the video was walking through Harlem one day and counted 53 fried chicken restaurants within 3 blocks and no healthy food options. He was blown away by this and it encouraged him to start a sustainability garden. He believes that “if a child plants it, they will eat it”, and that they are “planting seeds in the ground but also in kid’s heads”. In NYC there are a total of 35,000 homeless kids and 100% of the kids in the school they were focusing on in this video have families that rely on food stamps.

Later we asked our tour guide about what the city was doing to combat food insecurity and she responded with some facts about the WIC Check which is the governments plan to get groceries to Women, Infants, and Children. They’ve been thinking about urban planning, urban farming, and community gardens, which are also places that would be interesting for us to volunteer or do fieldwork at.
Even though this museum wasn’t exactly specific to our topic, I got some helpful information and truths to our city, and also learned a lot about other activism in NYC.

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A couple weeks ago my partners and I watched the CBS 1968 documentary called “Hunger In America”. It was an old film but we learned a lot about food insecurity back then and got many sad but intriguing facts. One statistic really stood out to us and it stated that 10 million people were suffering from hunger in our country at the time. We then googled how many people hunger strikes now and there came to be a total of 47 million which is a crazy increase and shows that there needs to be a change soon or else the number will keep going up. Another sad fact was that many young girls and women became prostitutes to earn money to buy foods. This wasn’t unusual either.

There were a lot of clips on how babies are also greatly impacted by hunger and that many infants are constantly admitted to the hospital due to starvation and end up dying. They noted that babies with malnutrition are sometimes so weak that they can barely move or cry at all. Many people look 20 years older than their actual age because skin wrinkles when their bodies can’t produce fat from not eating. Several children live miles away from school with walking as their form of transportation and have to go at lengths with an empty stomach because the lunch price of 35 cents was too high for kids to afford. It’s hard for kids to concentrate in school from being so hungry which affects their grades and behavior and makes a dent in their long term future. A lot of these issues are big loopholes that people can’t seem to get out of without support since it’s hard to recover without money or food.

This film was very helpful for our project and gave us visuals that were partly upsetting to see but eye-opening to the topic.

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On Friday my group and I zoomed with BJ Neal, the director of guest services at City Relief. BJ shares the two main ways his organization helps with food insecurity: Number 1 – by directly offering food which is the immediate solution but not long term. He compared this to grabbing buckets to scoop water out of a house during a flood, it’s your first instinct but it won’t fix the problem. Number 2 – by connecting people with services like employment or shelters that will help them long term. He explains that City Relief is a safe space for people to come and get help but their main job is to help navigate and connect guests to get back on their feet.

We also asked BJ about the main reasons guests haven’t been able to turn their lives around after interacting with City Relief and he responded with the following in our notes:

-People aren’t willing to try the whole time
-Quitting halfway through
-Mental health problems
-When people struggle, they find out how they handling diversity
-We live in a society where we teach people to be successful before human
-Going through hard things is the time when you find out your abilities to survive
-They don’t know how to navigate trauma and hardship
-Most people aren’t equipped for hardship
-So much to work through that it’s hard to process all the aspects
-#1 issue is mental health
-Trying to solve mental health is getting more counselors
-System that is therapeutic
-It is very difficult to even get to clinics when somebody is extremely traumatized

BJ is so devoted and willing to help with hunger partly from his own experiences, too. BJ openly spoke about his childhood and how he grew up homeless with his two sisters and mom. He said that at the time he came from a background where not enough help was given and that is what drove him to be the support of those struggling today. His personal memories helped him form acceptance and see everyone as humans regardless of what they are going through.

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On Thursday, we went to the East Village to interview the executive director of EVCC (East Village Community Coalition), Laura Sewell. We met in her apartment building, which also happened to be Caroline Walker’s home and the person who connected us. Laura was very helpful and helped us learn all about her organization’s work in the neighborhood, other volunteer work she’s collaborated with, and some of the effects and outcomes of hunger in NYC.

Laura specifically talked about the community fridge that her organization put in across the street during COVID when so many individuals and families were struggling. She said that the pandemic was one of the lowest points and struck multiple people who would never expect to be insecure about when their next meal would be, due to loss of jobs and low access to food. This interview also opened my eyes to all the good people contributing in their free time towards this issue. It was amazing to hear about all the food scraps from restaurants and bakeries that get donated to the fridge and how churches open their doors to serve a warm space on cold days. I love this strong community and how they all came together during this hard time to help out fellow neighbors. Hearing about all this mutual aid work made me feel so grateful for my meals and encouraged me to give back more.

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Before break, my group met with the 5th grade humanities teacher Caroline Walker. We came to the library prepared with questions we had about where food insecurity is the worst in New York City, how food deserts result in unhealthy eating outcomes, and hunger’s effect on children. Here’s how parts of our interview went with Caroline’s answers:

Can you explain more about how food insecurity specifically affects children in education and how they learn?
– A lot of anxiety about when the next meal is
– Impacts the child’s life to wonder when they will eat
– Many children are food insecure and rely on school meals to be fed
– Ashamed of living in a country where people can’t feel secure

How do food deserts result in unhealthy eating outcomes?
– Delis are the next best option
– One banana is more expensive than a bundle which you would get at a grocery store
– Parts of town that don’t have access to a grocery store with fresh veggies or produce are food deserts

Why do you think prices of food have changed drastically and why is packaged food becoming the alternative?
– Big business taken over the food industry
– Hard for small farms and businesses to stay alive
– Hard to make profit

What NYC/what neighborhoods do you know to be struggling the most?
– In the Bronx
– Low income meaning poverty

I’m looking forward into digging into this topic more. This interview was a good start.

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