Most people who have read my writing in the last decade primarily know me for my political, cultural, and social justice writing and work. However, before I became the executive director of a grassroots anti-racism organization in 2014, I served as the executive director of a now-defunct youth development organization that offered free afterschool and summer programming to youth aged 5-17 in Biddeford, Maine. I spent five years in that position, from late 2008 until the end of 2013, I started the position right before Barack Obama was elected, when the U.S. economy was on the skids and most people were struggling financially.
My first year in that position was a trial by fire as I quickly learned that many kids who attended our programs were food insecure. In the first few years, kids often dropped by for one reason: to get a snack and to ask if there was food they could take home. Despite having grown up working-class in good years and poor in the bad years and having seen some lean times at points in my youth, what I saw at that organization rocked me to my core.
My parents were Black hippies; idealistic dreamers who danced to their own tune. In the late 1970s, my dad went into law enforcement, thinking he could do some good and perhaps enter the Black middle class—only to leave five years later disillusioned, because he couldn’t handle locking up people who looked like him. His decision had huge implications for our family that led to six months of living in a homeless shelter when I was in 4th grade. While my parents were able to regroup and get back on their feet, the time we spent homeless left an indelible mark on me around certain things.
While we never struggled with housing again, there were times when our meals left little to be desired, which as an adult led to my tendency to overstock food—because, while I technically never missed a meal, we were absolutely food insecure. One of my most painful memories of the meager meal days, was when my mother took a part-time caregiving position and her employer gave her some food to take home. One of the items she brought home was a can of chocolate syrup. My parents decided to scrape some change and get a little container of ice cream so we could have sundaes. A rare treat which suddenly turned to horror when after scooping the ice cream into the bowls and opening the can of syrup over the ice cream, we smelled an awful smell as the chocolate syrup came out. It was rancid and it seemed the syrup had long since expired. At least we did still have a little ice cream to eat plain.
The long-dormant and mostly suppressed memories of the food insecurity I experienced as a child rose to the surface in 2008 when I became the executive director of Joyful Harvest and saw staff and volunteers rationing out the afterschool snacks—and then me watching kids only eating half of their snack so they would have something to eat later.
If you have ever been chronically hungry or just not had quite enough or only had very limited food options because of lack of money, you tend to have a visceral response to watching people struggle with food. For me, it became my mission to ensure we could have enough food for kids to eat there and take home. As a result, we became the first program at the time in Biddeford to participate in the government’s summer food program. Previously, we had relied on donations from area residents and the local food pantry for snacks, but given the state of economy in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown, some weeks all the food pantry could give us was stale sheet cakes and a few odds and ends. Absolutely nothing appropriate for kids who were food insecure, which is why the government’s program was a godsend. It allowed us to provide nutritious meals to a community in need. During my tenure, we brought in a cooking program that was also the result of government funding—as well as a community garden and volunteers—and we really were able to make a difference in the lives of the youth that we served.
Which is why I have been intently following the Trump administration’s programming cuts as our economy becomes less secure. The cuts he has proposed hit programs like the one I used to run hard, but the cruelty has intensified as news dropped today that unless the government shutdown ends like yesterday, 42 million Americans who rely on SNAP benefits to eat will not be receiving their benefits in November.
For those unaware, SNAP replaced the old food stamp program and stands for Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program, and it provide a monthly benefit on a debit card to help low-income Americans buy food. Many folks who are eligible for SNAP benefits do work; they just work at jobs that don’t pay enough to purchase groceries and with the rising cost of groceries, these are people who are already teetering on the edge of complete food insecurity—unlike those of us who gripe about the prices but still have enough to buy food.
The government shutting off food for 42 million Americans in November is unconscionable, especially as construction has begun on Trump’s ballroom. Trump has gloated about the shutdown impacting Democratic programs, but food is not a partisan issue. It’s food. We all need it (poor Republicans as well as Democratic ones) and if we can start construction on a ballroom and buy Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem not one but two planes while making sure the goons of ICE are still paid despite the shutdown, we can feed people. It’s a choice not to feed people. It is a cruel and deliberate choice to starve one’s own people.
Friends, this is where we must activate.
For months, people have asked what they can do, and folks like me have said take care of your community. Well, the time has come to take care of your community. Food pantries and food banks can’t absorb the influx of people who will be seeking their services because the government cuts are hitting them too, and the requests for assistance have been rising as the labor market slowly crashes (of course, we don’t even know how bad the labor market is because the government no longer is collecting that data). Reports across the country from front-line groups are that they are seeing former donors become clients. These organizations can’t feed people unless you assist.
As someone who used to be the house manager at a shelter in Chicago and who has worked with food-insecure youth in Maine, the best thing you can do is give money. These folks can take your money and stretch it further than you can. Also, they can use cash to plan meals that are nutrient dense and lasting in a way that our random cans of broth and evaporated milk can’t.
In my five years managing Joyful Harvest Neighborhood Center, as kind as it was when people dropped off bags of food, rarely was it something that was useful. Dropping off ingredients that don’t make complete meals isn’t helpful, and a box of cake mix without the eggs and oil isn’t useful, nor are fresh vegetables that require seasoning or good knives to cut them. I once received a shipment of fresh squash and realized that I had families that couldn’t use them. Same with canned goods that require a can opener to open; you can’t assume people have a full kitchen with seasonings and cooking utensils. Some people are living in motels and increasingly in makeshift homes in vans and cars.
If money isn’t something you can offer much (or any) of, you can volunteer. I came across a recent piece that said food banks and pantries are struggling to get volunteers, and not just to staff the location. They need people to organize and distribute food. In some communities, food pantries offer delivery to those who lack transportation. Got a car and can afford gas? Maybe you can deliver food to people in need.
If you don’t want to just give money but want to do something, you can also call your local pantry and ask what they need specifically. Maybe you can host a drive in your community to bring in specific foods in sufficient amounts or baby formula and Ensure and the like, depending on what is in high demand at the pantry. Or even hygiene items.
Just a small tidbit: you can’t buy tampons, soap, shampoo, and lotion with SNAP benefits even when you get those benefits, so it’s not just food insecurity we’re talking about. I think we can all agree that for most of us, soap and shampoo and the ability to cleanse our bodies is something we take for granted. For food-insecure people these items can be harder to come by.
Here in Maine, 12.5% of the state population receives SNAP benefits. That comes out to almost 170,000 people who, come November 1, may not have the ability to eat. That’s a lot of hungry people and the impact stretches beyond the recipients. What about the stores that rely on people spending those benefits? What happens to them if less people are buying food? We are all connected here and while we may feel hopeless, we aren’t. If we can’t ensure that people in our community don’t go hungry, are we really capable of stopping an administration hell-bent on our destruction?
The work of taking care of community doesn’t have to be big sweeping gestures; it can start with looking at your budget and seeing what you can afford. Can you do $20 a month? A week? Today, I made a $25 donation to Wayside Food Programs in Portland, Maine. Yesterday, I made a $20 gift to Good Shepherd Food Bank here in Maine.
Despite my own finances being less stable than they used to be due to the administration’s impact on my consulting practice, I have decided that from now until November 1, I will donate 20% from all new Substack and Patreon subscriptions to the Good Shepherd Food Bank and Presente! Maine. Presente provides door-to-door food delivery in Portland. Even though I have discounted the price of Substack subscriptions to $35 for a full year this month, down from $50, it only makes sense that I still do something because we are all in this together.
Given that the readership of my work spans across the United States, I won’t offer resources for you to tap into in your communities, but if you don’t know where to start, I will say that Feeding America is a good resource and they have a database that can help you find organizations within your community.
Friends, we can’t let people go hungry because of these chuckleheads. What are you going to do?
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