Recently reported figures on the rise in poverty in our city are yet another wake-up call for our community regarding the pervasive, serious and, unfortunately, growing problem of hunger in Winston-Salem and across our state and nation. Overall, one in four Winston-Salem residents are living in poverty. The situation is worse for children, with more than one in three children now living in poverty, including nearly half of those under age 5. This is disappointing but not surprising, since North Carolina was also recently ranked fourth worst in the nation regarding unemployment. Our city has the worst poverty record of the state’s five largest cities.
We see the fallout of these circumstances daily at Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC. Since 2008, requests for food assistance have increased a staggering 100 percent across our 18-county service area, which includes Forsyth County. Our network of partner agencies now serves more than 300,000 people, up from 135,000. One third of these are children.
High levels of unemployment and very significant underemployment are a driving force behind the immense increased need for food assistance. People who previously had jobs and could take care of themselves and their families now find themselves having to ask for help. A focus on high-tech jobs in the computer and medical-technology fields is generating new jobs; however, we’re importing lots of people to fill them. Unfortunately, we’re not providing enough opportunities for the victims of manufacturing-job losses seeking a livable wage. Until this occurs, the need for food assistance will continue to rise.
It can be tough to ask for help. I can’t think of anything more difficult than the decisions many parents are now facing as they struggle to feed their children. We hear about their strategies for making ends meet. Parents are skipping meals and deciding which of their children will eat on given days. My heart broke the day a child looked me in the eye and told me that it was not his day to eat. Hungry children live in our midst, even as we tout our position as the breadbasket to the world. It’s totally unacceptable.
Helping to ensure that children, families and seniors have the food they need to survive and thrive is at the core of our mission, but we cannot do it on our own. Yet, in the face of a growing need for food assistance, ongoing reductions in food allocations from the federal government and recent cuts in state funding have significantly reduced the amount of food available for people in need in our community.
This region’s allocation of The Federal Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) has been cut by 65 percent. This reduction will continue in the future unless the Farm Bill is strengthened to provide more support for people in our communities struggling to put food on their tables — 55 million Americans, including nearly 1.5 million North Carolinians.
The N.C. General Assembly’s budget appropriation to Second Harvest Food Bank and the state’s five other Feeding America Food Banks, used to purchase staple food products to supplement food donations, was cut nearly 50 percent, effective July 1.
The combined impact of these two reductions is about 22 percent of all the food distributed by Second Harvest during its last fiscal year. The effect is immediate and very adverse for those needing food assistance.
There is something you can do to help, and I am asking you to act now! Please don’t just say “somebody ought to do something about this.” You are the “somebody” who can change this picture. You can tell others that local hunger is a serious problem and that our whole community must take action. You can encourage and engage your colleagues, friends and neighbors in supporting Second Harvest Food Bank and the many fine organizations that are providing food and other services to those in need. You can contact your local, state and federal elected officials and urge them to protect programs that help to put food on the table of struggling Americans.
Yes, there is a need to balance the budget, but we must do it in a way that reflects our values as a nation. Asking hungry families to bear the burden of reducing the deficit does not reflect those values.
Hunger is a solvable problem. We just need more people to speak out for hunger-free communities in ways that are meaningful to them. Please join in this effort. It’s the right thing to do.
Clyde Fitzgerald is the executive director of Second Harvest Food bank of Northwest North Carolina. The Journal welcomes original submissions for guest columns on local, regional and statewide topics. Essay length should not exceed 750 words. The writer should have some authority for writing about his or her subject. Our e-mail address is: Letters@wsjournal.com. Essays may also be mailed to: The Readers’ Forum, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27102. Please include your name and address and a daytime telephone number.