Poll results reveal starvation levels in Northern NV / Public News Service

A recent survey provides insight into the challenges of hunger that many Nevada families face on a daily basis.

The Food Bank of Northern Nevada’s “Feeding Our Community” survey found that about half of their customers sometimes have to choose between food and transportation. One in three choose between paying for food or medical bills.

Nicole Lamboley, President and CEO of the Food Bank of Northern Nevada, said the year-long study is being conducted in partnership with the University of Nevada, Reno, and underscores the many “impossible choices” that are causing Nevada households to become food insecure.

“65 percent of the people surveyed had a household income of less than $20,000 per year,” Lamboley reported. “This is significant. So that means, you know, they’re making these tough decisions.”

The data showed that 72% of respondents rent or own their own home, with 26% paying for a mortgage. It was collected from March 2021 to March 2022.

Because of the timeframe, survey administrators recognized that it would be important to address whether and how the pandemic played a role. According to Lamboley, nearly 30% of respondents said they started using a pantry as a direct result of the pandemic.

She found that not only has demand for emergency food increased, but half of the participants said they were buying fewer healthy food options due to lower costs.

“When people have to make difficult choices, they choose unhealthy foods,” Lamboley observed. “Often they go with what isn’t the best. Fresh fruit and vegetables are sometimes out of people’s reach.”

Lamboley added that they currently serve more than 130,000 people a month, which is a record for the organization. Its service area includes 90,000 square miles of northern Nevada and the eastern Sierra region of California.

Receive more stories like this by email

A new project is using local food as part of a food aid program for members of the Lummi tribe in northwest Washington.

The Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations is a federal program that provides boxed meals to low-income residents. But the food boxes have failed to include culturally relevant foods for the diversity of reserves across the country, offering options like catfish and buffalo instead.

Lummi Nation is part of a pilot offering a locally caught option: sockeye salmon.

Billy Metteba, Lummi Nation’s food sovereignty project manager, said salmon was a food its ancestors ate and unlike buffalo, members of the tribe knew how to cook it.

“When we shift the frame of mind, the mindset, to food sovereignty, we should be responsible for saying what is appropriate for our people,” Metteba asserted.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded eight tribes, including the Lummi Nation, $3.5 million for a demonstration project to provide local food options for the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations. This fall, sockeye salmon became available to the Northwest Washington tribe.

The food distribution program on Indian reservations is designed to supplement meals for participating households. However, a 2016 study found that the program was the sole or primary source of food for 40% of these households.

Jake Garcia, public policy manager for Northwest Harvest, said many people in Lummi Nation have spoken to his organization about the program’s shortcomings.

“The economic insecurity they are experiencing, certainly the food insecurity; all of these different aspects are indicators of commercial success,” explained Garcia. “You are directly connected to your food, and if this program isn’t doing enough and not meeting the needs of the people on the reservation, that’s a real problem.”

However, Metteba acknowledged that the inclusion of more locally sourced food in the program bodes well.

“When they funded this program, it’s like we go out and harvest our own food, which we’ve always harvested for as long as I can remember, as long as my grandparents can remember,” Metteba pointed out. “It’s important that we pass that on to our children because without that, without fighting for something, eventually it will be lost.”

The original demonstration project was funded by the 2018 Farm Bill. Tribal leaders across the country are hoping lawmakers in Congress will expand the project in the 2023 Farm Bill.

Receive more stories like this by email

San Diego may seem like a prosperous area, but the mountain communities in the eastern part of the county still struggle with hunger and poverty.

Now, a new $100,000 grant from Save the Children’s Innovation Lab will fund the development of a program that will provide mailboxes of non-perishable food to low-income rural families starting next year.

Anahid Brakke, President and CEO of the San Diego Hunger Coalition, said the program has been a great success in other communities.

“The parents said, ‘It’s like Christmas.’ The kids feel like it’s Christmas, you know, they get this lunch box, you know, it’s for them,” explained Brakke. “It really helps to add to the whole household.”

A team from the San Diego Hunger Coalition is at Baylor University in Waco, Texas this week to learn best practices from other communities. Funds will also be used to train community health navigators who can help people enroll in programs like CalFresh and WIC.

Esther Liew of Save the Children says boxes of groceries arriving in the mail give rural communities better access to nutritious food.

“Rural communities have little public transportation, which means they have limited access to grocery stores and places to get fresh and nutritious food,” Liew said. “It makes it really difficult to provide the nutrition they need for their children and their family members.”

Hunger Coalition data shows that about 35% of children in the Mountain Empire region live in poverty, which is almost three times the rate in the rest of San Diego County.

In a recent community grocery survey of local residents, nearly three-quarters said they would run out of groceries at some point in the past 30 days and didn’t have the funds to buy new ones.

Receive more stories like this by email

A North Carolina housing authority in Robeson County has plans to launch a pay-what-you-can mobile food bus loaded with fresh fruit, vegetables and other groceries that will serve families without transportation. The pilot program is one of only a few nationwide to receive a $100,000 grant from Save the Children’s Rural Child Hunger Research and Innovation Lab to help end rural hunger.

Colton Allen Oxendine, resident services director at the City of Lumberton’s housing authority, said many residents have to walk miles to the nearest grocery store because they don’t have transportation.

“So this bus will reach well over 3,000 to 5,000 people,” he said. “The goal is to make this a success.”

He said residents can use debit cards, credit, food stamps and whatever cash they have on hand on the mobile bus, adding he expects the program to be operational by August. According to data from UNC-Chapel Hill, more than 30% of children in Robeson County live in nutritionally insecure households.

Allen Oxendine said many Housing Authority residents largely insist on processed, unhealthy foods.

“A lot of them go to the smaller businesses like Gas Stations, Family Dollar, Dollar General. We all know they don’t carry fresh fruit and veg,” he said.

Esther Liew, senior food security project officer at Save the Children, said solutions to address child hunger must come from rural communities.

“We hope they’ll be able to come up with ways of working that might look a little different than how these similar types of programs would work in urban settings, so we can help them create solutions that are specific to rural ones.” contexts,” said Liew.

A recent survey by Save the Children and the Child Action Network found that 77% of rural parents fear they cannot afford enough food to feed their family.

Receive more stories like this by email