2. The Face of Hunger
YOU’RE BACK!
Couldn’t stay away? Thanks for joining me in Round 2 of my blog. I decided to start with food insecurity for two reasons:
I work for a very cool non-profit dedicated to the vision of a hunger-free world, so this issue is near and dear to my heart.
This is a problem everyone wants to see solved and it’s very solvable.
MEET JOSIE
Josie is a single mother of three beautiful, bright-eyed girls. They live in a one-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood that charges a bit more for rent, because Josie wants her girls to go to a good school. Between her full time job as an Office Manager at a medical office and nursing school, she sometimes wonders how she is going to make it to the end of the month. “It’s like having a dark cloud over your head, all the time,” she says.
As hurdle after hurdle came her way, Josie stressed over finding ways to stretch her family’s tight budget. Things like rent and daycare were unavoidable expenses that drained her paychecks to almost nothing. She tried to go to the food pantry, but with their limited hours she would have to take time off of work just to get there before they closed. Because she didn’t qualify for food stamps, there seemed to be no other way to make sure her children were getting the nutrition they needed.
THE FACE OF HUNGER
When you hear the words “food insecurity” or “hunger,” a very specific image comes to mind. It looks like the man on the corner holding a cardboard sign asking for spare change. While homelessness is a real issue (one that warrants a separate post), it’s not the only population facing food insecurity. In fact, it’s not even the most underserved community facing food insecurity.
Josie’s story is far from rare. In America over 40 million people come from food insecure households. Families like Josie’s struggle to make ends meet for one very simple reason: the rising cost of living. Between housing, healthcare, education and food costs, families are finding it hard to make ends meet. While the answers to these issues aren’t as simple as stating the problem, there are programs out there offering real solutions.
FULL CART IS ONE OF THESE PROGRAMS
Full Cart addresses the rising cost of food by offering a package of groceries delivered straight to your front door. But unlike most delivery programs…it doesn’t charge for food. Full Cart is a program of Feeding Children Everywhere, the very cool non-profit I mentioned earlier. FCE donates the meals we package at service projects to Full Cart. We also work with consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies to get donated or discounted products. We even offer some CPG companies the opportunity to include coupons in our packages, as a way to incentivize their participation in the program. We get creative in finding new ways to add variety to our packages. The only cost to the recipients is the cost of shipping. And thanks to a great partnership with FedEx, we are able to provide discounted rates.
Full Cart charges for shipping. And that’s the key to why this program is the first real sustainable solution to ending hunger. Families using Full Cart don’t want their groceries to be free, they just want them to be affordable. No more taking PTO during the food pantry’s crazy hours every other Tuesday from 2:00-4:00, driving 15 miles away, and applying for assistance. By offering affordable and accessible groceries, Full Cart allows families to stop worrying about what they are going to put on the table, and focus on who’s around it.
WHY THIS MATTERS
Good food should not be a sacrifice for any family. Full Cart was made with families like Josie’s in mind to help ease the daily struggle of serving quality food with a limited budget. In an age where we can order anything online, why should healthy food be any different? This program is changing the way we address food insecurity and creating new, exciting ways for families to access nutritious food.
In many ways, this program is showing us the future of food equality. It’s an area I spend my days thinking about a lot, and one hope to share insights about here over time!
Thank you for reading!
