Quoted Text

Holiday dinners planned for needy
Sit-down meals, take-home baskets and boxes a Thanksgiving tradition
Staff reports

   Dave Quillinan grew up in the Hamilton Hill neighborhood of Schenectady, and he remembers Thanksgivings when his family was too poor to buy dinner.
   “We watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade without dinner, and I remember being a kid and that really hurt,” said Quillinan, who is now one of the owners of Falconi’s Delicatessen and Catering Company in Mechanicville. “I just don’t want anyone to feel that.”
   On Thursday, the deli will prepare free Thanksgiving dinners for about 100 families. The Mechanicville deli isn’t alone. Across the Capital Region, charities, organizations and businesses are serving up free Thanksgiving dinners for people in need.
   Sit-down dinners and takehome baskets and boxes of food have become Thanksgiving traditions in the region. Concerned for the Hungry in Schenectady, for example, is today distributing its food baskets to about 2,700 needy families. Preregistration is needed for those baskets.
   In Albany, the 38th annual Equinox Thanksgiving Day Community Dinner is one of the region’s largest and longest running dinners. Approximately 500 meals will be served at a sit-down dinner at the church on Thanksgiving Day. The remaining 7,500 meals are prepared at the Empire State Plaza and delivered by volunteers to individuals who live within 25 miles of downtown Albany.
   In Fulton County, The Gloversville and Johnstown Council of Churches set a record last year with about 100 diners coming to the hall at St. Mary of Mount Carmel Church in Gloversville and a fleet of delivery cars and vans distributing another 1,000 dinners, said organizer Jim Donnelly.
   For this year, Donnelly said Monday he’s got 526 reservations in hand already.
   “We still have two days to go. We’ll hit 1,000,” he said. “My phone’s been ringing off the hook.”
   Another organizer with years of experience is Patricia Bender of Johnstown.
   “We encourage people to come in and eat. It’s not for the poor or rich, it’s for everybody,” Bender said.
   Bender was cooking Monday, with two turkeys in the oven and two more on deck thawing out.
   “There’s turkeys being cooked all over the place,” she said, as volunteers typically cook the birds ahead of time in home kitchens and church kitchens throughout the Glove Cities and reheat them on Thanksgiving.
   In Mechanicville, Quillinan estimated that about 20 volunteers would be working in the kitchen on Thursday morning to prepare the food for takeout.
   His wife, Megan, is also the executive director of the Mechanicville Community Services Center. She gave gift certificates for the free meal to families in need that came to her center. Some were also distributed through churches.
   “We’re a new business and this is what we want our business to be about,” she said. “We really believe Thanksgiving is a time that nobody should be hungry or alone.”
   The menu includes jumbo shrimp cocktail, a large garden salad, light and dark turkey, sausage stuffi ng, and more.
   “I really believe that you have to walk the walk,” Megan Quillinan said. “If you believe in a healthy community and believe in people working together to make a healthy community, you have to do it.”
   Meals will be given out from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the deli on 116 Park Ave., Mechanicville. Dave Quillinan said that some gift certificates may still be available and any families in need should call 664-4107.
   Other free community dinners include:
ALBANY COUNTY
   Albany: Equinox holds its sitdown dinner from noon to 3 p.m. Thursday at the First Presbyterian Church, 362 State St.
   Albany: Thanksgiving dinner will be served from noon to 2 p.m. at the Capital City Rescue Mission, 259 S. Pearl St. where more than 1,000 are expected to be served a sit-down meal and take-home meals. A service at 11 a.m. will precede the meal. From noon to 2:30 p.m., flu shots will be administered during a Healthy Heart Fair.
FULTON COUNTY
   Gloversville: The Gloversville and Johnstown Council of Churches will deliver and serve a free Thanksgiving turkey dinner with all the trimmings for area residents.
   Reservations are a must; call 773-3302 to request a delivery or make a reservation to sit down to dinner at the St. Mary of Mount Carmel Church hall.
   Organizer Jim Donnelly said anyone who wants to help out as a volunteer can call him for more information. Bender said anyone who wants to make a donation can write a check to the Council of Churches and mail it to her at 10 Bloomingdale Ave., Johnstown, 12095.
   Takeout deliveries will start at 11 a.m. Thursday and continue through 1 p.m. The church hall will be open for diners between 11:30 and 1 p.m.
SARATOGA COUNTY
   Ballston Spa: The Union Fire Co. on Milton Avenue will host the village’s 15th annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner. The free meal will be served from noon to 4 p.m. For a ride or home delivery, call the firehouse at 885-7121 on Thursday. Organizer Karen Bryant is looking for volunteers to serve. She can be reached at 885-1808. The firehouse is also accepting donations of desserts which can be dropped off anytime Wednesday.
   Clifton Park: The Clifton Park Volunteer Fire Department will hold a free Thanksgiving dinner from 2 to 5 p.m. Thanksgiving Day for people who live in Clifton Park and Halfmoon.
   The meals are available to any person or families in need who looking for a place to go and have a Thanksgiving meal.
   The meal will include turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, dinner rolls, dessert and beverage. The firehouse is located at 38 Old Route 146, which is between Route 9 and Route 146.
   Anyone planning to attend the meals should call 441-4578 and leave a message on the voice mail noting the number of people in the party and their preferred meal time, or e-mail the same information to: turkey@cpfd.org.
   Halfmoon: The Twin Bridges Rotary Club is sponsoring its second annuals free Spirit of Thanksgiving Dinner from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. Thursday at Salty’s Pub & Bistro on Guideboard Road.
   Seating is limited and by reservation only. There is limited homedelivery available for people unable to leave home. Reservations may be made by contacting Chuck Chera at 383-3097 or by visiting http://www. spiritofthanks
   Saratoga Springs: The Economic Opportunity Council of Saratoga County will host a free Thanksgiving dinner at its Soup Kitchen from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday at the New England Congregational-Presbyterian Church at 24 Circular St.
   Those who are unable to leave their homes and are in need of a turkey dinner can call the Soup Kitchen (581-8233) or the EOC office (587-315 to schedule a delivery on Thursday.
SCHENECTADY COUNTY
   Schenectady: The City Mission of Schenectady’s dinner will be at 12:30 p.m. Thursday at the mission’s dining center, 512 Smith St. The dinner will be preceded by a noontime Thanksgiving chapel service.
SCHOHARIE COUNTY
   Cobleskill: A free Thanksgiving dinner begins at 1 p.m. Thursday at Champlin Hall dining room on the main campus of the State University of New York at Cobleskill.
   The 19th annual Community Thanksgiving Dinner is supported by a variety of local contributions and volunteers and offered to area residents who might otherwise be alone on the holiday, or would like to share companionship with others.
   Arrangements for delivery of dinners to home-bound people, as well as transportation to the dinner site, may be made by calling 295-2001 before 5 p.m. today.
   Reservations to attend the dinner are requested, but not required.

ANA N. ZANGRONIZ/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER
Rite of the season
From left, Carolyn Williams, Jeremiah Horn, 2½, and Horn’s mother, Maria, admire the newly lighted holiday tree in front of the Schenectady County Office Building on Monday. The tree was lighted to celebrate National Adoption Month, and honor all of the children who have been adopted in Schenectady County the past year. Williams works for the county Social Services Department unit that locates foster homes for children.

ANA N. ZANGRONIZ/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER
In this 2006 photo file, Kevin Neary, Richmondville mayor and organizer, spoons gravy over a meal at the Office For the Aging’s Thanksgiving dinner festivities held at SUNY Cobleskill’s Champlain Dining Hall.

Quoted Text

Volunteers prepare, serve holiday meals
Traditions ensure thousands get fed Thanksgiving dinners
BY JOE MAHER Gazette Reporter

   Hundreds of volunteers came together to provide free Thanksgiving dinners to thousands of Capital Region residents Thursday.
   The Thanksgiving dinners are as much a tradition as they are a staple.
   In Gloversville, organizer Jim Donnelly missed his first dinner in 20 years because of an injury. But Greg Gottung stepped up.
   “The people in the kitchen do all the hard work,” he said Thursday morning at the St. Mary of Mount Carmel Church hall.
   “It can’t be done without the many people that come in and volunteer their time on Thanksgiving,” Gottung said as 20 people prepared takeout dinners, working in assembly-line fashion behind him.
   “We’re going to do 1,200 dinners this year. Most of them are delivered. For one reason or another, they’re in the house. Every year it gets bigger and bigger,” he said of the Gloversville-Johnstown Council of Churches event.
   In Amsterdam, the Calvary Assembly of God prepared dinner for about 500 at the Amsterdam Hous- ing Authority’s community room and for takeout.
   Pastor Siegfried Ignecia said it’s important to help others, especially those who are alone on the holiday.
   “Sometimes people tell us either their family didn’t contact them, they’re alone, or they’re sick. When we deliver they’re very happy to see us. They cry, they share their life stories,” he said.
   “The whole church, we’re very happy to have the opportunity to reach out to shut-ins and make a difference, and, like I say, bring a smile to their face,” Ignecia added.
   Volunteer Ruth Zostant said the Amsterdam dinner was started by Erma Canale in the 1980s. Canale’s son, Paul, a chef, volunteers his services these days.
   “It’s just a tradition,” he said.
   Another volunteer, Willie Gizara, said Canale has made the operation more efficient, which allows them to spend more time with people at the dinner.
   Zostant said the first dinner catered to 15 to 20 people.
   “It just warms your heart to see where we started and how it’s grown,” she said.
500 AT MISSION
   Schenectady City Mission Director Michael Saccocio echoed that sentiment as volunteers served 500 hungry people at the year-old Wallace M. Campbell Dining Center.
   “It’s all about people caring for others. We like to say a day like this is a testament to a caring community, and the caring community is the Capital Region,” he said.
   “It’s a celebration to give thanks, and that’s what we try to do here. I’m astounded by how much people care,” Saccocio said.
   Diners were also encouraged to pack a container with leftovers before they went home.
   “In my opinion, leftovers are one of the most important things about Thanksgiving,” Saccocio quipped.
   In Albany, hundreds of people sat down to dinner at the First Presbyterian Church, and about 7,000 takeout meals were delivered to people within a 25-mile radius of downtown. The dinner, sponsored by Equinox community service agency, is now in its 38th year.
   And more than 1,000 people were expected to visit the Capital City Rescue Mission in Albany for dinner and prayers.
A BIGGER TURNOUT
   More people seemed to be eating in at Ballston Spa's 15th annual Community Thanksgiving dinner than in past years.
   “Our deliveries, our takeouts seem to be in the same range,” said coordinator Karen Bryant. But sitdown meals seemed to number more than last year with two hours left to serve Thursday afternoon, she said.
   Between 150 and 200 volunteers prepared, served and delivered the dinners to 300 people by 2 p.m.
   “It’s been perfect,” Bryant said of the number of volunteers.
   The dinner also moved back to Union Fire Co. on Milton Avenue this year from the Eagle-Matt Lee station on Washington Street.
   Children in the middle school youth group at Ballston Spa United Methodist Church made candy bags to distribute with each meal.
   And the Police Benevolent Association donated 35 turkeys for the annual event, Bryant said.
   More people ordered deliveries this year from the Economic Opportunity Council of Saratoga County’s Thanksgiving dinner at Presbyterian-New England Congregational Church in Saratoga Springs, organizers said.
   Just before they stopped serving meals at 1 p.m., 244 meals had been delivered and 160 served at the church.
   Organizers speculated that local senior housing units like Stonequist and Raymond Watkins Apartments did a better job this year of getting the word out about the available meals.
   Cobleskill’s annual community Thanksgiving dinner also was expected to draw scores of people, with volunteers preparing and serving the meals and businesses and organizations providing the sponsorship.

BRUCE SQUIERS/ GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER
Three-year-old Samantha Blowers enjoys the annual Thanksgiving feast at the Schenectady City Mission, which hosted a full house on Thursday.

MARC SCHULTZ/GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHER
After volunteering on meal deliveries, Elijah Willett, 9, enjoys his Thanksgiving Day dinner at the Amsterdam Housing Authority Community Room. Members of the Calvary Assembly of God congregation staffed a Thanksgiving Day dinner at the Amsterdam Housing Authority Community Room kitchen. About 500 meals were to be served or delivered.

Quoted Text

Food pantries being stretched thin
Major problem facing charities: fewer supplies to go around
BY SARA FOSS Gazette Reporter

   A growing number of people are visiting food pantries, at a time when there’s less food available for the needy.
   “It’s been challenging for us,” said Mark Quandt, executive director of the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, which provides pantries in 23 counties, including the Capital Region, with food. “We have to work harder to find sources of food. . . . Budgets aren’t limitless. We have to be a little tighter.”
   It’s a problem food pantries everywhere are facing.
   Since 2006, the number of people visiting the Scotia-Glenville Food Pantry has jumped at least 34 percent. “We used to serve 200 people a month,” said Janice Cooper, who coordinates the pantry, which is run by the First Reformed Church of Glenville. “Now it’s almost 300 a month.”
   The increase is forcing the pantry to do something it would rather not: halve the number of times people can get food from the pantry. Starting in January, people will be allowed to visit the pantry six times a year, not 12. “I don’t want to do that,” Cooper said. “But our food is not keeping up with the need.”
   The increasing demand has food pantries, particularly smaller ones that rely more heavily on donations and volunteers, scrambling to fi nd the food they need. It’s a problem, they said, that actually gets a little easier during the holidays, when there’s more awareness of the needy. “This is always a better time of year, because of all the food drives,” Cooper said. During other times of year, “we don’t get a lot of donations, and we have to purchase food.”
   “People are generous during the holidays,” said Ann Black, deputy executive director of the Fulmont Community Action Agency. “There’s an abundance of donations. Our donations tend to run low during the summer.”
‘NEW FACES’
   Food pantries say soaring gas and food prices account for much of the increase in clientele that they’re seeing.
   “Food prices have gone up quite a bit in the past year, much more than the rate of inflation,” said Mark Dunlea, associate director of the Hunger Action Network of New York State. “For a working family, maybe their paycheck used to get them through six days, and now it only gets them through four or five days.” About 40 percent of the people who visit food pantries are working families, he said.
   Earlier this fall, the food pantry run by the Mechanicville Area Community Services Center experienced a record high: 52 people in one day. In the past, the pantry, which is open from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday, has averaged between 10 to 20 people on a busy day, and about 150 people a month. But since the summer it’s been closer to 200 people a month, according to Megan Quillinan, executive director of the MACSC. “Our numbers have gone through the roof,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s the gas prices, if people are looking for ways to save a little bit of money. We ask people to come in monthly, but if they’re in a spot we’ll help them out. We’re seeing a lot of new faces.”
   The Scotia-Glenville Food Pantry reports a similar trend. “We have a lot of new families moving into Scotia who don’t have a lot of money,” Cooper said. “They’re usually working families. We also have a lot of retired people who are not making it. There are also people who are losing their jobs.”
   Quillinan said the pantry at MACSC has plenty of food for Thanksgiving — “the community came together” — but that for the most part things have been a bit tighter. The pantry receives a grant to purchase food, but that grant, currently about $1,500 a year, has been cut in half during the past six years. “It’s because funding at the federal level has been cut,” she said. “But at more food pantries there’s higher need.”
FOOD AID DROPS
   The Mechanicville Area Community Services Center looks to local farmers for fresh produce during the summer, Quillinan said. “We do outreach for that,” she said. “It’s increased a lot.” She said she’d like to do even more with local farmers, but that the pantry relies on volunteers, and it’s difficult to fi nd staff to do everything that needs to be done.
   Fulmont Community Action Agency runs five food pantries, in Amsterdam, Fort Plain, Fonda, Gloversville and Northville. In Fort Plain, people facing a food emergency can visit the pantry once a month, because it’s the only food pantry in the community. In other towns, where residents have more options, people are allowed to visit the food pantry every other month. “We do manage to meet demand, but it is harder,” Black said.
   A major problem is that there’s less food to go around. There are several reasons for this.
   During the past three years, the Regional Food Bank of Northeastern New York, based in Latham, has seen the amount of food, called commodities, that it receives from the federal government decrease by about 1 million pounds, according to Quandt. This is because strong agricultural markets have led to drastic reductions in the amount of food purchased and distributed by the federal government.
   In addition, the Regional Food Bank has always relied on food companies to provide food that is edible, but not up to store standards. But the industry has become more efficient, and is discarding less food. The agency’s third source of food is the food it purchases and resells to local food pantries; as other sources of food have diminished, the Regional Food Bank has been forced to use more of its budget to purchase food. And federal food aid has dropped about 70 percent in recent years, according to America’s Second Harvest, a nationwide network of food banks.
ALTERNATIVE SOURCES
   These trends have food banks and pantries starting to look to alternative sources of food, such as local farms, although Dunlea estimates that only 5 to 10 percent of food pantries are doing this. The Regional Food Bank, for instance, is making an effort to get local farmers to bring in fresh produce, and two years ago the agency began managing a farm in the Albany County town of Knox for the Patroon Land Foundation; that project has generated 100,000 pounds of produce.
   This year, the food pantry run by FOCUS Churches of Albany, at Emmanuel Baptist Church, sponsored a program called Gardening in a Bucket, to encourage people to grow their own food. People getting food from the pantry could also take a bucket containing soil and green pepper and tomato seeds. Hundreds of people took the buckets, and the FOCUS Churches plan to run the program again next year, according to the Rev. Debra Jameson, director of the FOCUS Churches of Albany, a consortium of 10 faith communities in downtown Albany. She said the FOCUS Churches also encourage members to plant an extra row in their gardens and donate the food to the pantry.
   “We’re very proud of our fresh produce table,” Jameson said. “Low-income folks cannot afford fresh produce. It’s expensive.”
   Two pantries that have expanded in the past year have also seen big increases. The pantry sponsored by the FOCUS Churches became a full-time pantry, and is now open every day, rather than 10 days a month. The number of families visiting each month runs between 240 and 275. “The need was obviously there,” Jameson said.
   In May, the Schenectady Inner City Ministry’s food pantry moved into a larger facility at 839 Albany St.; since then, the number of people visiting the pantry has jumped 42 percent. Gail VanValkenburgh, who directs the food pantry, said the pantry used to see between 600 and 700 families a month, but that those numbers have steadily climbed. Last month, the pantry established a new record: 1,278 families in a month.
SUBSIDIES URGED
   “We have over 200 people waiting for food this morning,” Van-Valkenburgh said.
   Meanwhile, Quandt predicted a tough winter.
   “Food pantries are really being stretched right now,” he said. He noted that he recently purchased two loaves of bread for $2.59; recently, not too long ago, those two loaves sold for $2.09. “That’s a 25 percent increase in a food that’s a staple,” he said. “I can handle it. But when you’re poor or you live in near poverty, you don’t have that flexibility. You just run out of money.”
   Dunlea suggested that the government, which is in the process of reworking the federal Farm Bill, should pay subsidies to farmers who grow fresh fruits and vegetables, rather than crops such as soy, rice and cotton. “Right now we’re paying farmers to grow things we don’t consume or need,” he said.
   “The solution to hunger is not handing out bags of food in pantries and soup kitchens,” Dunlea said. “Charity cannot be a substitute for government action.”
   Last week. Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced that he would provide an extra $5 million for emergency food programs. State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance Commissioner David Hansell also announced steps to make it easier for people to enroll in the federal food stamp program. In January, OTDA plans to simplify the application process for eligible working families, expand the online application process and remove other barriers to enrollment. The goal is enrolling an additional 100,000 low-income households in the program.

MIKE GROLL/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Robert Boyd fills grocery bags for waiting guests at the Emmanuel Baptist Chuch food pantry in Albany on Monday. Many food pantries in the region are struggling to provide food to needy families.

Quoted Text

Holiday handouts don’t solve the hunger problem
BY MARK WINNE Special to The Washington Post

   How can anyone not get caught up in the annual Thanksgiving turkey frenzy? At the food bank I co-founded in Hartford, Conn., November always meant cheering the caravans of fowl-laden trucks that roared into our parking lot.
   Like pompom girls leading a high school pep rally, we revved up the community’s charitable impulse to a fever pitch with radio interviews, newspaper stories and dramatic television footage to extract the last gobbler from the stingiest citizen. After all, our nation’s one great day of social equity was upon us. In skid row soup kitchens and the gated communities of hedgefund billionaires alike, everyone was entitled, indeed expected, to sit down to a meal of turkey with all the fixings.
   But with the holiday behind us, 35 million Americans will take their place in line again at soup kitchens, food banks and food stamp offi ces nationwide. The good souls who staff America’s tens of thousands of emergency food sites will renew their pleas to donors fatigued by their burst of holiday philanthropy. Food stamp workers will return to their desks and try to convince mothers that they can feed their families on the $3 per person per day that the government allots them. The cycle of need — always present, rarely sated, never resolved — will continue.
VICIOUS CYCLE ESTABLISHED
   Unless we rethink our devotion to food donation.
   America’s far-flung network of emergency food programs — from Second Harvest to tens of thousands of neighborhood food pantries — constitutes one of the largest charitable institutions in the nation. Its vast base of volunteers and donors and its ever-expanding distribution infrastructure have made it a powerful force in shaping popular perceptions of domestic hunger and other forms of need. But in the end, one of its most lasting effects has been to sidetrack efforts to eradicate hunger and its root cause, poverty.
   As sociologist Janet Poppendieck made clear in her book “Sweet Charity,” there is something in the food-banking culture and its relationship with donors that dampens the desire to empower the poor and take a more muscular, public stand against hunger.
   It used to be my job to scour every nook and cranny of Hartford for food resources, and I’ve known the desperation of workers who saw the lines of the poor grow longer while the food bank’s inventory shrank. The cutback in federal support for social welfare programs triggered by the Reagan administration in the 1980s unleashed a wave of charitable innovation and growth not seen since the Great Depression. As demand for food rose unabated — as it does to this day — our food bank’s staff became increasingly adept at securing sustenance from previously unimaginable sources. No food donation was too small, too strange or too nutritionally un- sound to be refused.
   We did our job well, and everything grew: Over 25 years, the food bank leapfrogged five times from warehouse to ever-vaster warehouse, finally landing in a state-ofthe-art facility that’s the equal of most commercial food distribution centers in the country. The volunteers multiplied to 3,000 because the donations of food, much of it unfit for human consumption, required many hands for sorting and discarding. The number of food distribution sites skyrocketed from five in 1982 to 360 today.
   But despite all the outward signs of progress, more than 275,000 Connecticut residents — slightly less than 7 percent of the state’s residents — remain hungry or what we call “food insecure.” The Department of Agriculture puts 11 percent of the U.S. population in this category.
CO-DEPENDENCY OF SORTS
   The overall futility of the effort became evident to me one summer day in 2003 when I observed a food bank truck pull up to a low-income housing project in Hartford. The residents had known when and where the truck would arrive, and they were already lined up at the edge of the parking lot to receive handouts. Staff members and volunteers set up folding tables and proceeded to stack them with produce, boxed cereal and other food items. People stood quietly in line until it was their turn to receive a bag of pre-selected food.
   No one made any attempt to determine whether the recipients actually needed the food, nor to encourage the recipients to seek other forms of assistance, such as food stamps. The food distribution was an unequivocal act of faith based on generally accepted knowledge that this was a known area of need. The recipients seemed reasonably grateful, but the staff members and volunteers seemed even happier, having been fortified by the belief that their act of benevolence was at least mildly appreciated.
   As word spread, the lines got longer until finally the truck was empty. The following week, it returned at the same time, and once again the people were waiting. Only this time there were more of them. It may have been that a donor-recipient co-dependency had developed. Both parties were trapped in an ever-expanding web of immediate gratification that offered the recipients no long-term hope of eventually achieving independence and self-reliance.
   My experience of 25 years in food banking has led me to conclude that co-dependency within the system is multifaceted and troubling. As a system that depends on donated goods, it must curry favor with the nation’s food industry, which often regards food banks as a waste-management tool. As an operation that must sort through billions of pounds of damaged and partially salvageable food, it requires an army of volunteers who themselves are dependent on the carefully nurtured belief that they are doing good by feeding the hungry. And as a charity that lives from one multimilliondollar capital campaign to the next (most recently, the Hartford food bank raised $4.5 million), it must maintain a ready supply of wellheeled philanthropists and captains of industry to raise the dollars and public awareness necessary to make the next warehouse expansion possible.
   The ability of food banks to attract volunteers and to raise money approaches that of major hospitals and universities. While none of this is inherently wrong, it does distract the public and policymakers from the task of harnessing the political will needed to end hunger in the United States.
   The risk is that the multibilliondollar system of food banking has become such a pervasive force in the anti-hunger world, and so tied to its donors and its volunteers, that it cannot step back and ask if this is the best way to end hunger, food insecurity and their root cause, poverty.
ENDING HUNGER INSTEAD
   During my tenure in Hartford, I often wondered what would happen if the collective energy that went into soliciting and distributing food were put into ending hunger and poverty instead. Put all the emergency food volunteers and staff and board members from across the country on buses to Washington, to tell Congress to mandate a living wage, health care for all and adequate employment and child-care programs, and you would have a convoy that might stretch from New York City to our nation’s capital.
   But what we have done instead is to continue down a road that never comes to an end. Like transportation planners who add more lanes to already clogged highways, we add more space to our food banks in the futile hope of relieving the congestion.
   We know hunger’s cause — poverty. We know its solution — end poverty. Let this holiday season remind us of that task.