23 years and still smiling

"I've just seen so many people come and go, and I just keep on doing what I do. I don't really stop to think about my job very much."

That's Sharlene, who very well may be the longest-serving member of Bread for the City's family. Sharlene started as a volunteer in our food pantry way back in 1986, when BFC was just a little basement office on 14th Street NW.

"I was working at Roy Rogers, and was also on public assistance," she says. "Once I got the job at Bread for the City, I was able to get off public assistance. And now I can survive on what I make and I love what I do. I'm grateful for what BFC has given me.

"In typical Bread for the City fashion, Sharlene moved around within the organization -- working at reception, coordinating the clothing room, helping out in the medical clinic.

"Bread for the City is always dibbling and dabbling," she says, "trying new things, putting you over here and you over there. Looking for the combination that just works."

And clearly something worked, because 23 years is quite an impressive feat. Jeannine Sanford, BFC's Deputy Director, shares that "Sharlene is a hard worker who always pitches in to do whatever needs to be done. And she has a smile that can light up a room. I can't tell you how many times we've had clients comment that her welcoming smile brightened their day."

Since it's November when we celebrate Sharlene's tenure and November is also the month that kicks off our biggest special event each year, Holiday Helpings, I asked for her thoughts on Holiday Helpings.

"It's a blessing that we can do this for people. To be able to give a holiday meal to someone who maybe wouldn't get one otherwise, that's really a blessing.... Do some people take it for granted? Sure. But we don't do it for them. We do it for those people who cannot do it for themselves and who really appreciate it. I can think of a few people I've handed turkeys to in the last few weeks, who lived with my grandmother in the shelter, and now they are living on their own with very little. To them a turkey basket from us is a gift."

"In an ideal world, no one would need our services," says Sharlene. "But some people have barriers. They don't have the education or the skills or the path out. Everyone who comes to Bread for the City needs something, whether it's one of our 5 services or not. And usually we can give them something, whether it's a bag of food, a referral or even a chance to talk or just a smile. It's amazing how far a smile can go, can change someone's outlook on their day, can make them see that the world isn't quite as bad as they thought. It's great to see the relief when someone leaves having had weight taken off their shoulders. It starts a domino effect - that hope spreads to other areas of their day and life."

Happy Thanksgiving!

We're approaching the half-way point for Holiday Helpings 2009. And we've already distributed over 5,000 holiday meals — a turkey with all the trimmings — to DC's most vulnerable residents, offering these families the opportunity to enjoy their celebratory meal in the dignity of their own homes.

We had the pleasure of hosting both Leon Harris (ABC-7) and Cokie Roberts (NPR) at our Northwest center. Enjoy the highlight video developed by Bread for the City's own Amy Johnson!



It is important to remember that Holiday Helpings extends beyond the Thanksgiving holiday through December 24. So although 5,000 healthful, holiday meals is impressive, we still have another 3,500 to go to reach our goal. The best part is that it's not too late to get involved! Just $28 will bring Holiday Helpings to a family of four. This Thanksgiving, show your gratitude for all that you have by giving back to those who need it most.

Gettin' Dirty: The Final Glean

The forecast was ominous for Glean for the City's final Gleaning (on Saturday, November 14th). Rain had been pounding Parker Farms for days. It stopped only hours before we planned to hit the fields.

According to procedure, I emailed our volunteers (from law firms Booz Allen, Dickstein Shapiro, and Coviello and Associates), and informed them of the high likelihood that we'd be gleaning in a swamp. I expected people to want to reschedule. Instead, I received a unanimous “Bring it on!”

A swamp it was. Volunteers leaped puddles, walked down dry rows like a tightrope, and trudged through the mud in search of perfect heads of broccoli. As I wrote last time, gleaning broccoli isn't easy -- you have to really get down to the ground and slash it out.

One of our volunteers got a little too far down to the ground. Her foot sunk 2 feet into the mud, and even with Vince's help she was struggling to get up. After considerable tugging (and laughing), she eventually pulled her foot out -- but without a shoe! It seemed to get eaten by the muck. But rather than take it easy after that, she kicked off her other shoe (which just looked like a chunk of mud anyway) and proceeding to glean barefoot for over an hour.

By the end, despite the mud, we'd hauled up 35 bins bulging with broccoli. We took the time to admire our work, and then the volunteers began to depart in their respective vehicles. But nature had one last attempt to spoil our fun.

Vince and I heard the spinning wheels first. We looked over at a volunteer's sedan, which was now stuck in a newly formed river, and simultaneously said, “UH OH”. We tried to help push--to no avail.

Predictably, Rod Parker came to the rescue. Using the front end of his 4x4, he gently nudged the vehicle to solid ground. Our volunteer drove away, waiving out of the car with a loud, “Thank youuuu!” It was the perfect exclamation point on an improbably perfect day.

A special thanks to Barrett Jones for taking video of the event. Of course, also a very special thanks to Rod Parker for taking the time to spend the day with us. Rod has been an essential component of our first year at Glean for the City.

Last but not least, a HUGE thanks to everyone who voted for us (especially those of you who voted every day!) in the Tom's of Maine '50 States for Good' contest. I am pleased to report that Bread for the City won!

We'll have more thoughts here soon about what that means for the future of Glean for the City. In the meantime, thousands of thank yous from us to those of you who made it happen. This one's for you:

A healthful Thanksgiving

Cross-posted from the DC Food For All.

Everywhere we turn, we're reminded that Thanksgiving is here. Most conversations focus on setting a beautiful table, cooking a moist turkey, making side dishes that could stop conversation, and baking pies to match.

And these things do matter. It also matters that the holidays, like all days, are healthful.

So at a recent cooking workshop here at Bread for the City, I participated in a conversation with our clients about how to make Thanksgiving healthful, without compromising flavor or tradition.

To get started, we talked about our various Thanksgiving table traditions, and came up with a list of what the clients called "Thanksgiving must-haves." It included: turkey, ham, brisket, and/or a roast; gravy; green beans; macaroni and cheese; stuffing; sweet potatoes; corn; mashed potatoes; rice; cooked greens (collards, kale, spinach, mustard greens, etc.); bread; cranberry sauce; and of course dessert.

Now, as part of our Nutrition Initiative, we are working with our clients to identify other ways to eat healthfully even with limited resources. For example, last year Bread for the City scrapped canned gravy from our holiday menu (as it not only has super-high sodium, but it's also expensive!), and instead passed out recipes for how to make your own gravy from the turkey's drippings.

This time around, we sorted many of the Thanksgiving must-haves into two categories: non-starchy vegetables (e.g., lettuce, tomatoes, cooked greens, garlic, asparagus) and starchy vegetables and grains (e.g., sweet potatoes, corn, rice, and bread). Having had quite a few cooking classes under their belts by now, the people in my class noted that, ideally, the non-starchy vegetables on one’s plate would take up more space than the starchy vegetables and grains. But when we looked at the list of Thanksgiving must-haves, the starches/grains appear to have overtaken the non-starchy vegetables.

Our solution to this problem? Add vegetables wherever possible. After I offered some suggestions, the class participants really ran with the exercise, and came up with the following suggestions themselves:

• For the green beans: Cook with onions, garlic, and/or broccoli.
• For the macaroni and cheese: Add spinach, cauliflower, and/or tomatoes.
• For the stuffing: Include plenty of celery, garlic, onions, pepper, and/or carrots
• For the mashed potatoes: Mash in garlic, celery root, rutabaga, and/or cauliflower.
• For the rice: Add plenty of fresh herbs, like parsley and mint.
• For the greens: Don’t forget the onions and garlic.
• And make a salad, as well!

Bread for the City client Gail prepares Thanksgiving dinner in her home.

We then made a healthier macaroni and cheese with low-fat cheese and milk, loads of chopped spinach, and whole wheat pasta. The clients couldn’t believe how good it was. Then they were wowed by our fresh cranberry relish, an addition or alternative to highly sweetened cranberry sauce.

And it’s easy to make. Here’s the recipe:

2 ½ cups of fresh cranberries
1 ½ cups of walnuts
1 apple
2 cans of pineapple rings in their own juice
3 stalks of celery

Directions:

Finely chop cranberries and walnuts.
Mix them together in a large bowl. Then pour in the pineapple juice from the cans.
Chop apples, celery, and pineapple rings and add to bowl.
Mix well.
Feel free to adjust the proportions to taste.  (I make mine a little different each time.) Enjoy!

Meanwhile, by the end of today, more than 5,000 DC families will have received Bread for the City's Holiday Helpings feasts (including a turkey and all the trimmings; low-sodium stuffing; pasta; and fresh produce from our Glean for the City program). Few, if any, of these families could otherwise have afforded such a feast. For readers who would like to support our Holiday Helpings campaign -- just $28 for a family of four -- please visit www.breadforthecity.org/holidayhelpings

Happy Thanksgiving! 

A Holiday Helpings visit from Delegate Norton

We received a special visit today from Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton!

Our beloved delegate helped stuff some of our special holiday feast packages, and also passed out frozen turkeys to our clients (who were thrilled to see her).

Afterwards, Executive Director George A. Jones gave Congresswoman Norton a tour through our facility. As they walked through the medical clinic (see below), Norton and Jones discussed our expansion plans, which will more than double our capacity.

(See the entire set here.)

Have you joined in with Holiday Helpings yet? At this point we've distributed around five thousand complete turkey to families who would not otherwise be able to afford to share a holiday feast in the dignity of their own homes. Just $28 will bring Holiday Helpings to a family of four. Give today at:

www.breadforthecity.org/holidayhelpings

Swine Flu Frenzy?

This post is authored by Aviva Bellman, Bread for the City's medical clinic coordinator.

Media reports about the H1N1 vaccination have painted a scary picture. For instance, a recent Washington Post article quoted a doctor describing "an unprecedented amount of verbal abuse" at medical clinics; another indicated that supplies are being underutilized in some parts of the city. Confusion abounds.

Some people are over-eager to get vaccinated, fearful that there isn’t enough to go around. Other people fear that the vaccine may actually be harmful. It isn't. But this makes for a very stressful and confusing time for both patients and health-care providers.

And yet, I am happy to report that at Bread for the City, things are proceeding relatively well!

To be sure, this season is challenging: we are much busier than usual. H1N1 vaccination has significantly increased the number of walk-in visits, at times with entire families walking in mid-clinic. Vaccinations are eating up break time and sometimes keep the staff working late.

At the same time, we do not have limitless amounts of the vaccine - and according to CDC guidelines, we can only vaccinate people who fit into key vulnerable groups (including young people, ages 6 months to 24 years old; people who have certain chronic illnesses including asthma, diabetes, and HIV; pregnant women; caregivers to infants; and healthcare workers ourselves).

But I have yet to see a patient be upset when informed that he or she cannot get the vaccine. And, though some qualifying patients do end up opting out of the vaccine, we are fairly effective at explaining to at-risk patients that it is not only safe but important to their health.

This level of communication is deliberately fostered through our model as a medical home. Unlike “drive by” medical providers like health fairs and mass vaccination sites, a medical home allows for strong relationships to develop between people and their doctors. Our patients meet with staff members whom they know and trust, and who take the time to explain they people don't qualify for the vaccine, or why it's important for them to take it. Generally, our patients trust us in either case.

As a matter of fact, last week we received word that the DC Department of Health (DOH) "will be adjusting its current H1N1 vaccine clinic schedule, by reducing the number of free H1N1 vaccine clinic locations for priority groups in the District and increasing the amount of vaccine available at doctor’s offices and community health centers." This means, presumably, that medical homes and other community clinics will have more capacity to vaccinate more people. At BFC, we think that is a very good thing indeed.

(For more about Bread for the City's medical homes model, watch this video below.)

Help the Homeless Walk -- 2 Days Away!

Look how much the Help the Homeless Walk is!!

Join Bread for the City this Saturday on the National Mall for the Help the Homeless Walk. It's only $25 for adults and $15 for youth (age 25 and younger). Bread for the City gets 100% of your registration fee, and you get a snazzy t-shirt, some exercise, and if you're lucky, we'll let you hold the cool BFC banner. (See above-- it's really fun)

Register here: http://bit.ly/31xXuP. Don't forget to choose Bread for the City as your beneficiary organization!

Hope to see you there!

13 yrs + 317 donors = 77,000 Holiday Meals

Dickstein Shapiro. We've written about them before on here, but man oh man, they just keep knocking our socks off.

George and I had the honor today of presenting an award to Dickstein Shapiro for their service to Bread for the City. Dickstein volunteers work in our food pantry, participate in Glean for the City, and provide hundreds of hours of pro bono legal assistance. (I swear, they never sleep.) Dickstein Shaprio also represents the biggest contributor to our annual Holiday Helpings campaign (firm and staff). In fact, they're closing in on $2 million since they started giving in 1996.

And while Partners Paul Taskier, Larry Garr and Michael Nannes do so much for Bread for the City-- really, we'd be lost without them-- what I personally find most remarkable is the groundswell of support we receive from every corner of the firm. When I think about it, it warms my heart.

So thank you, Dickstein Shapiro. You mean so much to us.

Food Stamp Benefits Needed for Families Moving from Welfare to Work

[This is authored by Katie Vinopal, Nutrition Associate at DC Hunger Solutions, and cross-posted from the DC Food For All.]

A new report by So Others Might Eat (SOME Inc.) and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute finds that Temporary Assistance for Needy Familes (TANF) is not providing adequate support for the 16,000 low-income families in the District's program. TANF is designed to provide job training, supportive services, and cash assistance, with the goal of helping adults who are able to work find jobs.

Others have written about the findings of the report and its innovative methods. What hasn't yet been discussed is cash assistance, and in particular the supports available as families transition from TANF to employment.

At D.C. Hunger Solutions, we’ve often heard that cash assistance and food stamps rarely last the full month, leaving people without enough money to buy food. This report comes to the same conclusion, pointing out that the benefits TANF families receive ($428 a month for a family of three) are not enough to make ends meet. These families often face one or more weeks at the end of the month without enough money to buy food.

Research has consistently shown that even a temporary increase in food insecurity can have a long-lasting and serious impact on the well-being and health of families.

While the report recommends the District government increase cash assistance, something Fair Budget Coalition and others have pushed for, there's another immediate step the District can take to improve food security for TANF families: adopting transitional food stamp benefits, a policy option that will help families moving from TANF to paid employment.

Adopting this policy makes sense for D.C. families. There is a reduction in public benefits that accompanies an increase in earnings which makes transitioning from TANF to work that much more difficult. According to the report, a family of three that works for $9 an hour at their job (well below the living wage at $12.10), will lose $4,512 in food stamp benefits annually. Even worse, many families drop out of the food stamp program altogether when they leave TANF, unaware that they may still be eligible for benefits.

As one TANF recipient says in the report, "It's more than you get with TANF but when you look at it, if you take that job, they're going to take all your benefits from you once you get that job, so that means you have no help with food."

Under the transitional food stamps policy option, a family leaving TANF can continue to receive the same food stamp benefit, adjusted for the loss of TANF income, without any additional interviewing, processing, or reporting requirements, for up to five months. And the payment is 100% federally funded. Nineteen states, including Maryland and Virginia, have already adopted this option.

During this difficult transition from TANF to employment, the District must ensure that families do not go hungry. Adopting transitional food stamp benefits for these families is one important way of providing this support and moving families toward stability

Katie Vinopal, Nutrition Associate at DC Hunger Solutions

Holiday Helpings 2009 with Leon Harris

There are people who make stuff happen. And there are people who make stuff happen. Bread for the City is a place that makes stuff happen.

That's from ABC-7's own Leon Harris. Leon is a DC area resident and supporter of Bread for the City. We invited him over to our Northwest center to help pass out some turkeys for Holiday Helpings. Leon arrived, smartly dressed yesterday afternoon on his way in to work and was immediately impacted with the number of people in our Northwest food pantry.

"I had no idea you all helped so many people," he said with emotion thickening his voice as we walked back to the food pantry. "This is incredible. You know, we never think that there are this many people who need just the smallest gesture...just to make it through the day."

Leon immediately grabbed an apron and, with ABC-7 cameras in tow, got to work laughing with clients, distributing food, and listening to stories. His booming stature and vocal personality was matched only by his enthusiasm. The energy level among the staff, clients, and volunteers in the food pantry instantly increased. "This is a story that goes beyond the holidays," Leon said emphatically. "So much of my job is dealing with the worst - the very worst - that people can do to each other. And then I come here and see people doing their best... This is how I was raised. This is the way it's supposed to be all the time. Not just during the holidays."

Be sure to look for Bread the City to be featured on an upcoming ABC-7 newscast!

Thank you Leon Harris for partnering with our Holiday Helpings campaign! Thank you for helping to raise our spirits. Most importantly, thank you for helping to raise public awareness of the growing need that Bread for the City encounters every day.

We’ll miss you, Betsy!

“I was uncertain that I would be able to do anything.” Elizabeth (Betsy) Linsert recounted about her first day at Bread for the City. Betsy had been inspired to volunteer at Bread for the City by her professor at George Washington University – who also happens to be Bread’s veteran health care provider, Dr. Randi Abramson.

“Dr. Randi was a wonderful teacher. She really set us up to learn. She made us believe in the importance of this work.”

When Betsy arrived in the clinic, her fears were immediately put to ease. Even with the overwhelming amount of need for healthcare in this community, the whole place was warm and welcoming. Betsy volunteered a shift or two per week for more than ten years.

“I came to love being here, because clients were always treated with dignity, respect, and compassion,” said Betsy, and on top of that, “there’s always been an effort to expand what we can do here. The atmosphere here has always been one of wanting to do more and do better.”

So, was she helpful? It should come as no surprise that the answer here is a resounding yes! “Betsy’s so great!” emphasizes Bread’s full-time NP, Heather Rivasplata, “she brings a unique perspective as a nurse practioner; she’s interested in teaching; she loves spending time with the patients. And she always keeps herself busy- many times we would find her just stocking exam rooms with supplies. No one asked her to do that, she just saw something that needed to be done, and she did it.”

Betsy plans to stay connected to the Bread for the City community through the clinic’s planning committee and peer education program, which is just getting off the ground. We thank you, Betsy, for your years of service and wish you the best of luck on your next chapter.

Volunteer with Holiday Helpings

The holiday season is upon us, and Holiday Helpings is upon Bread for the City. This is perhaps our favorite time of year, because we know how important it can be for our client families to enjoy what would otherwise be an unattainable luxury: a celebratory holiday meal in the sanctity of their own homes.

This season, Bread for the City will give out 8,000 feasts -- a turkey with all the trimmings -- all in addition to our regular food program. And we’re well on our way to that goal: last week alone, we had 1,595 visits to our pantries, and we gave out food to feed approximately 2,626 people for three days!

It costs just $28 to bring Holiday Helpings to a family of four. You can contribute to Holiday Helpings today:

www.breadforthecity.org/holidayhelpings

We wouldn’t have been able to do this without the help of some really great volunteers. Last week, we had folks from the DC United Soccer Team’s non-profit arm, United for DC, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Maret School, Duke Realty Corporation, Oneness Family International Peace Academy and One Brick, as well as a slew of goodhearted individual volunteers.

It’s not too late for you to get involved, too. Check out our Holiday Helpings Volunteer Calendar to see when we need your able hands, and email me (eholmes@breadforthecity.org) if you are interested in helping out.

We thank all of those that have helped us in our efforts already, and we invite the rest of you to get involved!

Chopping Broccoli

On a gorgeous fall morning, Glean for the City made our long anticipated return to Parker Farms. Two previously scheduled trips had been rained out, but now we finally got our first crack at broccoli gleaning.

It was worth the wait. 20 volunteers -- from the Historic Anacostia Block Association (HABA), a local neighborhood association, the ANC 8A (03), and White and Case -- armed with knives and enthusiasm, stormed the vast broccoli patches. Rod Parker himself generously gave our volunteers a tour of his facility, then took us into the fields and showed us the ropes of chopping broccoli.

“Just look for a good head of broccoli, it shouldn’t be hard to find. You won’t even be able to put a dent into this field, even if you fill the van to capacity.”

Rod was right. In just 1 hour and 15 minutes, our volunteers had stuffed every single produce bin. They refused to quit, and filled every picking bag to capacity as well. As folks began to stack the days take, two intrepid volunteers remained in the fields, stubbornly forcing broccoli into the final two bags.

“I don’t want to leave. There is so much fantastic broccoli left, it breaks my heart to just leave it out here!” Another volunteer carrying an arm full of broccoli remarked, “How is this possible? There are thousands of starving families in DC, and all of this produce is just rotting in the fields!”


Volunteers loved gleaning this crop. Unlike apple gleaning, broccoli needs to be cut and cleaned, and feels more like true harvesting. We had to scrape together knives from the BFC kitchen for this event. Thanks to the generosity of Andrea Messina and the Georgetown MBA Volunteers, we won’t have to worry about knives again. Even though Andrea's gleaning event was rained out she still set up a donation of 32 knives to Glean for the City. This gives us the tools to tackle any crop we please; and should be a big help as we expand the variety next season.



A special thanks to Mana Rabiee of WAMU(NPR) for joining us to cover Glean for the City. She interviewed Rod Parker, spoke with volunteers, and even helped us load the broccoli after gleaning! Check out the podcast here.

Since the WAMU report, we've been flooded with offers to volunteer for gleaning. We're thrilled to have so much support from the community -- and strangely sorry to announce that we're already booked through the remainder of the gleaning season. But we are already filling slots for next season, when we'll be gleaning strawberries as early as May! Email me to sign up.

Strengthening TANF: SOME's Report

So Others Might Eat has a major new report about the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, set to release on Thursday of this week. Bread for the City clients and staff helped with the research and feedback for the report.

SOME's Joni Podschun, friend of Bread, passes along this notice about the event. This is important stuff about the ways our city is (or isn't) supporting its struggling families, and SOME has lined up an all-star panel to discuss the implications of its findings.

Voices for Change: Perspectives on Strengthening Welfare-to-Work From DC TANF Recipients

Thursday, November 12
9:30 am - 11:00 am
12th Floor of Gewirz Student Center, Georgetown Law Center, 120 F Street NW

16,000 DC families — including one of three children in the city — rely on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) for cash assistance, job readiness training, and support services. A successful TANF program is critical to DC’s future. Yet too often, DC’s TANF families say they do not get the support they need to move from welfare to work.

Please join us to hear the key findings and recommendations from a new report by SOME, Inc. (So Others Might Eat) and the DC Fiscal Policy Institute about improving services for TANF families. The release will feature a short video of DC TANF recipients discussing their experiences with the program and a panel discussion including:

Councilmember Tommy Wells (Ward 6), Chair of the Committee on Human Services
Clarence Carter, Director, DC Department of Human Services (invited)
Peter Edelman, Georgetown Law School
Donna Pavetti, national welfare expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Please RSVP to Tina Marshall at marshall@cbpp.org or 202-408-1080. Light refreshments will be served at 9:00 a.m. All are welcome – consumers, advocates, service providers, case workers, researchers, students.

This event is co-sponsored by the Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy.

Well this is nuts

We've got some tropical flair included our grocery bags this week: a lovely bunch of coconuts!

These thick-shelled cream-balls came to DC from Florida. Through the mail. One by one. For serious.

See, the US Postal Service recently decided to close a post office in Lantana, just outside of West Palm Beach. This cost-cutting measure brought some unexpected ovoid blowback upon USPS, when the small town organized in opposition. Residents sent some 1,000 coconuts by mail, adorned with $4 to $17 in postage and civilly disobedient marker-drawings. Flummoxed by this huge pile of protest fruit, the Postmaster General's office made the best of a politically awkward situation: they contacted their favorite local food pantry. (The Washington Post covered the whole story here.)

The coconuts arrived here yesterday (via the mail, of course).

The postmarked coconuts have filled our pantry to the brim. Eager staff have already practiced opening one, draining the milk and enjoying its meat. The coconuts are indeed edible, today we'll begin distributing them to our clients along with instructions on how to open, cook and eat them.

Whether or not the citizens of Lantana, Florida will have to drive an additional seven miles to pick up their packages remains to be seen. Bread for the City has no dog in the fight between Postmaster General John Potter and Lantana's nascent "access to mail" coalition. But we respect their tactical creativity, and are pleased to note that Lantana's abundant local food resource will bring some small relief to the poor and malnourished citizens of their nation's capital.

Anacostia and the Daily Food Dilemma

As a new resident of Washington, DC, and new staff member at Bread for the City, I had the opportunity to tour through a portion of Anacostia. As we visited the sites, I finally saw with my own eyes everything that I'd read about the lack of food access in this community.

As Jody Tick of the Capital Area Food Bank just wrote at the DC Food For All, Wards 7 and 8 suffer from the lack of supermarkets that offer healthy and affordable food. To see the disparity ourselves, we toured through two very different locations: the new Giant in the Congress Heights neighborhood of Ward 8 and the Anacostia Warehouse Supermarket (right across the street from Bread for the City's Southeast Office).

Walking into the Giant, which recently opened in December of 2007, the smell of fresh produce wafted past my nose, and I was struck by the colorful and varied assortment of fruits and vegetables. The shelves were fully stocked—with a variety of meats, grains, cooking amenities, and so forth. Healthy options, such as whole wheat tortillas and bread, were placed in prominent locations throughout the store. The building was large enough that we were able to navigate the store with little congestion just a little before rush hour. I was impressed by what I saw, and believe that the relatively new supermarket is an encouraging improvement for the residents nearby.

But this one store can't serve such a broad geographic area and dense population. There are still not enough supermarkets for the residents of River East. And when we popped our heads into the Anacostia Warehouse Supermarket just a block west of Bread For the City’s Southeast Office, we were surprised at the difference.

At first glance, one would think little of the store from its exterior. A nice-looking sign, but the very bleak and barred storefront blended into the street and did little to induce people to stop and shop. Once in the store, the first items that came into eyesight—once they properly adjusted to the dark—were stacks of alcoholic beverages. We turned full circle and witnessed cases of Cup of Noodles, Twinkies, chips, pork rinds, and other foods that that scream: "Diabetes! High cholesterol! Malnutrition!" Much of the food is both costly and a glut of carbohydrates and fats.

Behind the boxes of snacks and sweets, in the back recesses of the store, we found a selection of fresh meats and produce, both of which were modest. There was a variety, but the prices were a little high and some items looked a little mealy. A butcher was in the back, inhabiting a slightly grimy space, while the vegetables lined the farthest wall of the store.

Whereas in Giant my eyes were met with the rainbow of ripe foods and an array of healthy foods, the Anacostia Warehouse Supermarket did little to promote its fresh offerings.

As noted in And Now, Anacostia, the very presence of the store is a step in the right direction. However, a rearrangement of the interior and perhaps a renovation of the exterior would make this store more inviting and help to target the truly nutritious foods that our community needs.

Let’s take a closer look at shopping in River East from the eyes of the local community. I surveyed a few people coming to Bread for emergency groceries, and the resounding response to the grocery query suggests that there is, in fact, a lot of demand for more and better stores.

Many mentioned shopping at the Tiger Mart, Murray’s, Safeway and Giant, but rarely at local corner stores. One woman stated, “The corner stores? That’s highway robbery.” Instead, as another woman stated “I have to walk ten blocks to get to Safeway. Bread there is 89 cents, and in the corner store it’s $1.99.”

But even the larger stores aren’t satisfactory in Anacostia. Terms such as “obnoxious” and “ridiculous” were used. Another gentleman noted that it’s 4 or 5 miles to get to the nearest supermarket from his house and sometimes the stores aren't stocked with what he needs. Or, as two women voiced, the meat doesn’t last very long. One customer stated, “it’s not fair in the lower income neighborhoods.”

And this is why people often end up at our door. We can help with a short-term supplement with our bag of 3 days worth of groceries. The Healthy Corner Store Program is another way to begin the transition within stores to provide healthier options. But there is much more to be done in order to create a more equitable community food system in River East.

Assessing the Nutrition Initiative

[Cross-posted at the DC Food For All!]

A couple of years ago, after a series of conversations about the need for more healthy food in our client communities, Bread for the City decided that our food pantry should walk the same walk that our medical clinic talks. Thus began a nutrition initiative that ultimately led to an overhaul of our entire pantry menu.

Changes to the menu included fewer processed meats, and less red meat. More whole grains, dry beans, fruits canned without heavy syrup, as well as low sodium canned beans and vegetables. We’ve changed our wish list of donated foods to promote healthy eating by discouraging foods that can contribute to disease and encouraging foods that are consistent with the advice patients get from practitioners in our medical clinic. And of course, one of the most dramatic changes: the inclusion of fresh produce in every bag. (This was largely made possible through our gleaning program, Glean for the City.)

Input from our clients was and is essential in this process. Two surveys were administered to gauge client interests -- one in 2008, as the transition began, and one last month. During this second survey process, we've found some results that we'd like to share.

One of the most revealing questions was, "What item do you appreciate the most?"

In our recent survey, meat/chicken/fish had the highest frequency, receiving 101 responses, or 26 percent of the selections. That's to be expected - given the cost and societal value associated with meat in our society. However, this result reflects a decrease of 16 percentage points from our survey last year, when meat/chicken/fish received 42 percent of the responses. Though meat remains at the top of the list of our clients' preferences, we can our community has begun to take more interest in the variety of our other offerings.

In our 2009 survey, fresh fruit and vegetables came in as a close runner-up to the top choice of meat/chicken/fish with about 20 percent. But when we combine preferences of fresh or canned options, preference for fruit+veg rises to 36 percent -- higher than meat! Additionally, this statistic rose by 12 percent throughout the year, potentially because of the increase in fresh fruits and vegetables due to our gleaning program. (We must also note that this question’s format differed slightly from year to year, which likely affected the results to some degree.)

Another question that received interesting responses was, "Would you choose to get less meat/chicken/fish if you instead got a larger amount of food overall?"

Meat is the most expensive kind of item in our pantry, and our hope is that we could reduce the quantity of meat we purchase in order to purchase more of a variety of other items. At 55 percent, a majority of respondents circled “yes”: they would prefer less meat in exchange for more food, whereas 41 percent responded “no,” and 4 percent provided no response. These numbers are slightly different from 2008, in which 49 percent responded “yes,” 37 percent responded “no" (14 percent no response). The gap between “yes” and “no” widened by only 2 percentage points between 2008-2009 - but we are encouraged and will continue to look into the opportunity for more individual choice among the various items on our menu.

As an endnote, it was wonderful to receive many positive comments about the food pantry: “I really appreciate what you are doing for the people, thanks!”

Introducing the DC Food For All

Last week, we helped launch a new collaborative project -- along with friends at the Capital Area Food Bank, DC Hunger Solutions, DC Central Kitchen, Social Compact, the Common Good City Farm, the Washington Urban Gardeners, and more.

The DC Food For All will chronicle the many efforts here in Washington DC to expand access to -- and demand for, and production of -- fresh, nutritious food. We hope it becomes a forum for the discussion of all things food, and that together we can make great progress towards a more equitable community food infrastructure.

Already in the first week, Bread for the City staffers have contributed a couple of great posts: one from Jeffrey Wankel about the Glean for the City project, and another from our Emerson Hunger Fellow Amy Johnson, about analyzing the feedback from our clients about changes in our food pantry. (Stay tuned for that to be posted here.)

You'll hear a lot more from us about this project. In the meantime, you can subscribe to the DC Food For All's RSS feed here, and you can follow it on Twitter and fan it on Facebook. And if you'd like to participate in the conversation among DC Food For All contributors about the direction this project will take, request to join the google group here. Stay tuned!

Holiday Helpings 2009: Kick Off Update

Today marked the first day of Bread for the City's 2009 Holiday Helpings campaign, a time when our pantries are overflowing with laughter, tears, and lots of turkeys.

Cassandra came out this morning not to pick up a Holiday Helpings meal for herself, but instead came on behalf of an elderly neighbor who is unable to leave her home. "I’m coming to get her turkey and her food today," she says. "Because my job is to help others. If she needs me to cook it, I’ll do that, too. Someone helped me when I was down and out and looked after me. So now it’s my turn to look after someone else.”

All in all, Day 1 resulted in staff and volunteers distributing over 400 complete holiday meals. Thank you to all who made this possible...but we're not done yet!!

While 400 holiday meals in one day is impressive, it is only 5% of our goal. It is definitely not too late to get involved to help make our goal of distributing 8,000 Holiday Helpings meals a reality.

To organize a food drive, please contact our Holiday Helpings Coordinator, Nathan LaBorie at 202.386.7611 or nlaborie@breadforthecity.org. (We are already running low on essential Holiday Helpings items! Please call Nathan today!)

To volunteer, please contact our volunteer coordinator, Erin Garnaas-Holmes at 202.386.7006 or eholmes@breadforthecity.org. (Volunteer opportunities are still available, but fill up fast! Contact Erin now!)

Stay tuned...Holiday Helpings has much more excitement to come including visits by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, NPR's Cokie Roberts, ABC 7's Leon Harris, and MORE!