The Maggid portion of the Seder tells of the Israelites’ journey from slavery to freedom.  It begins Ha Lachma Anya: let all who are hungry come and eat.  This year, don’t let these words pass by as a perfunctory beginning to the Passover story.  The rising tide of hunger in Los Angeles behooves us as a people remembering the poor bread we ate in the land of our affliction to not sit idly by while people who are hungry in our community suffer.

Please help turn yourself and your guests into educated advocates for the ending of hunger by taking a moment to read aloud the Fed Up With Hunger Maggid.  Your Seder is an opportunity to spread awareness of the hunger that exists in our community and what can be done about. 

We’ve included a ready-to-print-and-stamp advocacy letter in support of a strong reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act with our Maggid.   Join Michelle Obama and Scarlett Johansson in their campaign against child hunger and call on Representative George Miller, the Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, to make the Child Nutrition Act a fiscal priority even during this challenging time for the federal budget.  Preventing hunger-associated malnutrition is one of the most cost-effective ways we can ensure that disadvantaged children have the opportunity to grow up into healthy, productive adults. 

This Passover, bring your celebration of freedom out of the past and into the present by taking action against the modern day Mitzrayim of hunger!

(excerpted from L.A. Now/LATimes)

More than 1 million low-income California children who receive for free or reduced-price school lunches do not get breakfast at school even though they would qualify, and about a fifth of the schools in the state do not even offer breakfast, according to two reports from the Food Research and Action Center.

California ranked 33rd in low-income-student participation in the School Breakfast Program for 2008-09, the same ranking it received a year earlier. In terms of the number of schools that offer breakfast, California’s ranking fell from 35th to 40th, the Washington-based group said.

In the 2008-09 school year, 8,756 schools that took part in the National School Lunch Program also offered breakfast, compared with 8,922 schools the previous year. Nationally, fewer than half of the eligible children receive breakfast at school, according to the reports released Monday.

In 2008-09, 8.8 million children took part in the breakfast program on an average day; the lunch program served 18.9 million children.

“The program is seriously underutilized,” center president James Weill said Monday.

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By Evangeline Heath

After watching Food Inc. and learning how big Agri-business has consumers by the brussels sprouts, my day spent volunteering with Garden School Foundation was a much needed ray of sunshine.

My husband and I pulled into the 24th Street Elementary School’s parking lot bright and early on Saturday morning not knowing what to expect. Located right alongside the Western Ave. exit on the notoriously traffic-laden 10 freeway in the West Adams district of Los Angeles, it certainly seemed like an unlikely place for a garden.

Walking onto the grounds, however, we soon found ourselves in a lush, green landscape. Classrooms surrounded a charming garden courtyard beneath a giant weeping willow. This was the school’s initial “test garden.” It’s now being used as an inter-curricular learning area. Two large banners boasted “Outdoor Classroom” and “Good Eats”.

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Nina Corbett with final product, canned pears

By Evangeline Heath

As a native Angelino, I’m used to seeing trees sitting in yards pregnant with fruit that is never picked. Many home-owners don’t know what to do with all they produce and don’t have time harvest.  So the fruit dangles, like so many dusty Christmas ornaments, rotting away.

Food Forward is a new organization with a juicy idea to solve this problem. They organize “Fruit Picks” in residential neighborhoods and then donate the bounty to food banks.

They’ve collected over 60,649 pounds of fruit in 2009.  Beyond giving it to those in need, Food Forward is looking at other ways to preserve their produce.  Like canning.

On a Sunday afternoon, my husband and I were lucky enough to participate in Food Forward’s first canning workshop.  Kevin West of the savingtheseason.com and Nina Corbett of putsup.com were generous enough to donate their time and teach about twenty Food Forward volunteers the canning basics in the M.E.N.D Poverty kitchen in Pacoima.

M.E.N.D (Meeting Each Need With Dignity) is one of the largest poverty agencies in the Valley, serving over 368,969 people.

The canning process is straightforward and pleasing in its Zen-like repetition.  First peel the fruit, chop it, poach it, then heat the jars, fill them, seal them, boil them, cool them, and eventually eat them.

With 240 jars, 10 crates of pears, and 7 huge pots to work with, we split into groups and got to work. I grabbed a peeler with the dullest blade I’ve ever used and picked a pear to peel (say that three times fast).

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How innovative markets serve the needs of low-income customers
By Benjamin Fried
(excerpted from Project for Public Spaces)

Toronto, Ontario - One method to make markets more accessible is to bring them closer to customers. That’s what a Toronto organization called FoodShare accomplished by setting up small produce stands called “Good Food Markets” in low-income neighborhoods throughout the city.

“Most of the farmers markets [in Toronto] are based in middle- and upper-income communities,” said Angela ElzingaCheng of FoodShare, adding that the cost of traveling across town to get fresh food is “very expensive for low-income communities.”

To reduce those costs, FoodShare launched the first Good Food Markets in 2005. That summer there were two locations. This year there are twelve.

A big key to FoodShare’s success has been community partnerships. The markets are located in neighborhood institutions like health clinics and community centers. FoodShare staff shows how to set up the stands and sell the produce, and the neighborhood partners organize the rest. It’s been a winning strategy for everyone involved.

St. Margaret’s-in-the-Pines Church hosts the East Scarborough Community Market, which includes a Good Food Market and stalls run by several neighborhood organizations.

“People are extremely excited to have this market atmosphere, and the market organizers are building relationships with people,” said ElzingaCheng. “The markets are doorways to other things. People start accessing other resources.”

The markets serve as vehicles for Placemaking in these community institutions, sparking new activity that draws people together. At St. Margaret’s-in-the-Pines Church, for instance, five community organizations have combined a Good Food Market with craft vendors, music, children’s activities, and booths for local organizations, creating a vibrant public space. Another partner, the Flemingdon Community Health Center, has used a Good Food Market as a venue to support five women embarking on prepared food and catering businesses, who sell their products at the market site.

ElzingaCheng believes the emphasis on public space at each market site is integral to its success. When FoodShare sets up a new Good Food Market, she shares Placemaking principles and expertise with the partner organizations that host it.

“When you look at the issue of food access,” she said, “the best way to address it is through culturally appropriate food, lower transportation costs, and vibrant public spaces.”

Read the rest of the article>>

We’re beset by fast food, plagued by food deserts, and our waistlines are growing nearly as fast as the Federal debt- but don’t despair, folks!  We can fix these problems with a little ingenuity and a lot of communal elbow grease.  In fact, one exciting solution is already sweeping the nation: urban farming. 

Urban farms offer a number of benefits.  They provide a ready supply of fresh fruits and vegetables to inner city communities which all too often have a dearth of nutritious, healthful food.  This locally grown produce is more earth friendly than typical supermarket fare, which must be shipped from distant rural areas.  Urban farms also help to make a community out of otherwise anonymous inner city neighborhoods.  If you’ve ever lived in a big city (like Los Angeles), you’ve had the experience of your neighbors being strangers.  You pass by people on the street and you rarely say hello.  There’s really nothing like a good democratic effort to make a community out of anonymity. Read more »

Community Services Unlimited Inc. (CSU) runs a Community Supported Agriculture produce program.  Every Thursday, subscribers of the Farm Fresh Produce Bag program receive a bag filled with seasonal fruits and vegetables from CSU’s urban mini-farms and local farmers. The bag includes a news sheet with easy recipes using items in the bag.

Today, Farm Fresh subscribers got a special treat. They received their goods in Fed Up With Hunger reusable shopping bags. A big thanks goes out to CSU for helping us get the word out about the community effort to end hunger in LA!

Teen venture philanthropy: who would have thought something like that existed?  Temple Emanuel’s Money and Teens Creating Hope (MATCH) program is proving cynics wrong by educating and encouraging teenage congregants to participate in charitable giving.  This year, in solidarity up with Fed Up With Hunger, MATCH decided to support the fight against hunger in Los Angeles.

MATCH invited some of us on the Fed Up With Hunger team to  talk with teens about the issue and help guide their giving.  We wanted to do more than just talk, so we devised a hands-on, interactive workshop called “Who’s Hungry in LA?”  The workshop confronts participants with six different situations in which an individual or family cannot afford their weekly groceries.  The challenge is to figure out how to leverage a limited income and available support services  to get enough to eat. 

The workshop showed the teens how difficult it to secure a week’s worth of food on a shoestring budget.   I knew we had hit home when several of them stuck around after the workshop to find out about how they could become personally involved with Fed Up With Hunger.   Perhaps they were “fed up” themselves after seeing how maddeningly difficult it can be just to get enough nutritious food for a week.  As Sartre was wont to say, “Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”  Good thing is, hunger is just the sort of existential plight that we can do something about.

If you’re interested in using our “Who’s Hungry in LA?” workshop materials for a class, event, or meeting, please contact us at FedUpWithHunger@JewishLA.org.

Last night’s Ghostbusters screening at the Hollywood Forever cemetery was a (slime) blast! Thanks to everyone who helped plan it over @EILI and to all who came out with cans of food. Pat yourselves on the back; you really stepped up to the plate, folks and we couldn’t be more thrilled. Check out the photos below, and be sure to click through here to see some short vids we took. Also: Check back soon for a little doc we’re cutting now about the evening.

David McNew/Getty Images

I have a good friend who works in a “food desert,” which is a community that lacks access to healthy food.  She interns at a mental health clinic in Boyle Heights.  At lunchtime, she faces a deluge of fast food options: Burger King, Little Caesar’s, Subway, Popeye’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Drug dealers and gang members loiter outside the only market in the area.  Given that her lunch break doesn’t afford her enough time to commute for lunch, she’s forced to choose from this surfeit of unhealthy food.  Fortunately for her, it’s only a lunchtime dilemma.  The residents of Boyle Heights are not so lucky.

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