Tag: hunger

To the rescue

Sometimes, you just have to point out the positive. From The Star-Ledger:

On Monday, Elijah’s Promise soup kitchen announced it would have to stop serving lunch on Tuesdays because, with donations down and demand on the rise, the agency could no longer afford to meet the demand.

But today, after an influx of donations totaling $7,000, the New Brunswick charity said it will be able to restore that weekly meal, at least through January.

And yet, that the soup kitchen needed the sudden deluge of money, that it is seeing a rise in demand at a time when fewer people can donate and it takes an emergency to change the dynamic…. But let’s focus on the positive for a moment.

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The wrong kind of bank failure

Bruce Springsteen has long been an advocate on behalf of soup kitchens and food banks, allowing them to make please to his audiences and dropping a bundle of cash on them himself. This ad just follows along in that vein — plus it has one of the better slogans I’ve seen, playing off the federal government’s willingness to aid the financial institutions but not the people really hurting.

The ad aims to help the Community Food Bank of N.J., one of the most important nonprofit groups in the state.

According to a press release from the food bank,the situation is pretty dire, as it is for so many other food banks, pantries and soup kitchens (see our stories this week on the South Brunswick Food Pantry and the pantries in Cranbury, Jamesburg and Monroe).

With bare shelves and demand for food among state residents far outpacing supply, the FoodBank is in danger of being unable to meet the needs of New Jersey’s hungry.

The group says it faces “a dire shortage of food, so much so that — without the public’s support — it may, for the first time in its history, begin to ration food.

This is a state-wide crisis, with the unstable economy resulting in a 30 percent increase in those needing food. In years past, the Community FoodBank of New Jersey has provided assistance to more than 500,000 New Jerseyans, but expects to see a major uptick in need this year, especially during the winter months when people often struggle between paying heating and food bills.

The ad, which will hit the dailies on Sunday, is a “call to action for people to contribute in any way they can.”

A supporter of the FoodBank for 23 years, this ad marks the first time Springsteen has publicly lent his image to the campaign, due to the urgency of the situation. The Grammy award winning musician often donates proceeds from his concerts to the organization.

To help, check out www.njfoodbank.org or call 908-355-FOOD (3663).

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Feeding the hungry when we need to fight hunger

This is welcome news, given the dire straits faced by food banks in the state. The problem is that even with a program like this supplementing the food collected and distributed by private groups is that it does not address the underlying problems that lead to food insecurity, hunger and poverty in the first place.

1. A loss of jobs in New Jersey and nationally

New Jersey lost 700 private-sector jobs in August, bringing the total number of job losses in the state to 14,600 for the year so far, according to data released by the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development two weeks ago.

“New Jersey’s employment picture continues to weaken, and with the ongoing crisis in the financial sector, we can expect more job losses in the near future,” said Philip Kirschner, president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association.

This past July, the state’s unemployment rate rose to 5.9 percent, yet still remains below the national unemployment rate of 6.1 percent. Employment has gone down in the major sectors of the state’s private-sector economy, according to the report.

In the first eight months of 2008, the manufacturing sector lost 7,800 jobs, construction lost 3,100 and the service sector lost 3,800, according to the report. The only sectors, which experienced significant employment increases, were in the education and health services sector and the information sector, according to the data.

2. Unequal income growth

Economic growth in New Jersey over the past 20 years has not been broadly shared by the state’s residents because the wealthiest have seen their incomes rise at a much greater pace than anyone else. In other words, the income inequality gap in New Jersey continues to widen and in some respects at a faster rate than in most of the nation.

3. A minimum wage that has not kept up with inflation

When New Jersey raised its minimum wage to $6.15 in 2005 and $7.15 in 2006, the state took an important step in the right direction for hundreds of thousands of working families. But, despite this increase, the minimum wage has simply not kept up with the rising cost of living—especially given skyrocketing prices for food and energy. New Jersey depends on its front-line workers to drive the state’s economy and perform important functions for residents, yet they cannot make ends meet on today’s minimum wage.

The New Jersey Minimum Wage Advisory Commission recognized this problem in its December 2007 report on the adequacy of the state minimum wage. Had the Legislature adopted the Commission’s recommendation to raise the minimum wage to $8.25 an hour and establish automatic annual cost-of-living increases, New Jersey’s workers would have received much-needed relief as they struggle to support their families and build a future.

4. A frayed social safety net at the state and federal levels

5. A cost of living that is higher than low-wage workers can afford

Many families do not earn Self-Sufficiency Wages, particularly if they have recently entered (or re-entered) the workforce or live in high cost or low-wage areas. Such families cannot afford their housing and food and child care, much less other expenses and are forced to choose between basic needs.

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