The Feed People Project

It’s been a while since I wrote about our Soup Lady Project or even hunger in America for that matter, but I am here to assure you that both topics - for better and worse - are still going strong.

The Soup Lady Project is something that has become a simple part of my life - and that was really the point. The idea was to try and build a practice that supports food assistance in my own community into my lifestyle and I’m proud to say that the experiment has been a success! Every Wednedsay now I leave work a bit early and I head over to pick up the 4.5 gallons of soup that my mom - the original Soup Lady - spends the day making. Driving it to the shelter takes about an hour altogether and is a far better use of my time than 9/10ths of the other things I do every day.

What should probably be the real burden on my lifestyle is the $120/month or so that I spend funding these Wednesday soup meals… but to be honest I hardly notice the difference. Perhaps that says something about my budgeting skills, but I like to think it speaks more to my priorities. What $120 meant to me before this project was about 12 drinks - spread over a month that works out to about 3 drinks a week. When you think about it that way and realize that it really is a trade off between 3 alcoholic drinks a week and feeding upwards of 40 people a week, it just makes sense.

When it comes to charity, I am finding that consistency is king. This is why part of our “small win” philosophy involves making an emotional connection to what you are participating in. We don’t frown on large one-time donations, but they aren’t nearly as good as small ongoing sponsorships. While it might seem like $60 in January is the same as $5/month throughout an entire year, the fact is that the latter approach makes you far more likely to care about where your money is going. The latter approach is far more likely to be sustainable and, therefore, it’s more likely to lead to successful solutions for society’s problems.

There is a lot going on right now. The economy is terrible and people are losing jobs. I’m personally at the busiest time for my own job at a time when 7-8% of my company’s workforce is being laid off. Announcements are coming out every day and it’s really hard to keep from seeing ourselves as victims or potential victims. This is not a time when people tend to divert their resources to charitable endeavors. Donations are down across the board. This is what happens when people use the outstretched palm-up hand instead of the ongoing emotional connection to get people involved in charity. The philosophy of building small wins into your lifestyle is not as succeptiple to these ups and down which are a simple inevitability.

That’s all I have to say for today. I need to update the Soup Lady Tally because frankly it’s been a few weeks since I’ve done it and it’s severely understating our impact. Also, I want to give a thank you shout to all of the Soup Lady Sponsors who have continued to keep $5/month food assistance funding as part of their lifestyles - even throughout what is looking to be a difficult time for everyone. It’s a commitment to caring that most people only know through an empty envelope in the mail or a Donate Now button on a website. You guys are dropping $5 from your budget each month to make sure that 7 people get a warm meal on a cold day. This is how people who have should treat those who have not.

Until next time…

- Stefan

Hi everyone. It’s been an interesting busy couple of weeks since I last wrote and I’ve been feeling neglectful of this site… so I’m fitting an update and quick commentary on Thanksgiving in between the cracks, with a promise to write more after this holiday break.

A few items on the agenda for today, in no particular order:

First, I want to announce that the Soup Lady Project has reached a milestone! We have created our first complete funding network for one of the Wednesday meals we serve each week to the homeless shelter at 150 Otis St. Since the goal of this project has evolved to be a model of sustainable social network managed food assistance, this is a huge step for us. It means we’re more than 1/4 on the way towards supporting a whole month of Wednesday soups. Once we reach that goal, we’ll be able to start thinking about expanding out past Wednesdays. This is truly a landmark event, so thank you to all of the Sponsors who have signed up for the recurring $5/month payment. Your contribution is a meaningful part of the funding network which feeds healthy nutritious food to 40 people each month.

Next, I wanted to quickly touch on the event at Rye last Monday, Nov 17th. The event was a huge success and thank you all for coming out to show your support! Thanks to the lovely ladies of Mrs. Robinson we raised $200 and brought 5 new Soup Lady Sponsors on board. This is how things get started - with motivated people who believe in the message spreading it to other cool people who care.

Finally, I want to make note that on Thanksgiving - a holiday about food - there is most likely going to be plenty of food assistance to go around. So on this day as we’re all gathering together to share our food let’s ask ourselves why every day can’t be like Thanksgiving? Why can’t we fill our hearts with love and share the joy of cooking on the other “normal” days? We can… and we should.

On Thanksgiving this year, please take a minute to consider what food means to you and the people around you. Consider how you might be able to participate in a meaningful solution to the problem of hunger here at home. Any thoughts? Ideas?

Thanks for reading and enjoy your turkey day!!

Things are picking up here at the Feed People Project as we’ve regained a focus on our Soup Lady Project in particular. Thanks to the involvement of the Mrs. Robinson ladies, we are moving full steam ahead with our plans to produce a Soup Lady Start-Up Kit - an online printable information kit which will provide recipes, instructions, FAQ’s and everything else you need to start making homemade food for people who can’t feed themselves. To highlight the kit we’ve booked the awesome venue Rye for a November 17th celebration of food, community and the Soup Lady concept. It’s going to be a blast so look for more information to come soon. (If you’d like to be notified of the event details please contact me here via a posted reply or email me!)

I also had the pleasure today of stumbling upon a very thoughtfully written blog post about feeding homemade food to people who are hungry. It was notable to me because it hit on concepts that are very core to Soup Lady philosophy. Check out this little passage:

As we all know food taste’s the best when…

1) The food is served with love…It could be your life partner…your mom. or any favorite people in your life…

2) You are really hungry…and I mean dead hungry….

We all put lot of devotion to prepare food for the people who fall in the first category…We prepare the spice mix days in advance if you are planning a special dinner or if you are calling friends over home…and there is so much passion involved in creating that perfect carte for our loved ones…We do all this because we genuinely like the people for whom we are serving the food?

Most of us haven’t had to experience [the] feeling [of true hunger] in our lives…Most of us as adults could always afford to buy food whenever we needed…and splurge too…But unfortunately there are millions who cant…. I am requesting for a small help….Just take time out in a weekend…Instead of cooking for our friends or guests…Think about cooking for someone else if you are willing to..

Amen to that! This is exactly what the Soup Lady Project is trying to do - pair up people who love to cook with people who need to be cooked for. It’s that simple! The economics of soup are such that we can easily provide nutritious and nourishment to the 30-something million American households that suffer from food insecurity each year. When you realize that you can feed 40-50 people for about $30 (while we each spend a good $6-$10 a day on lunch in downtown SF) it sort of makes you wonder why we are letting so many people go hungry!

At the end of the day there are unhappy people on both sides of the aisle. The people who love to cook aren’t all cooking as much as they’d love and the people who need food are being left hungry. With a little organization and motivation we can put these groups together and provide a better world for everyone.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post today. In the next few weeks I’ll be developing the Start-Up Kit and posting more information on the November 17th event. If you want to be more in tune with the Soup Lady Project you can also go on to Facebook and find our group under the same name. That is a great way to keep up with what is going on.

Until then… enjoy your opportunities to bring smiles, health and happiness to the community around you. It not only feels good but it gives you a sense of personal satisfaction that you can take with you no matter what the circumstances are.

- S

We live in a time when people are starving among us. That is a fact of reality that we need to deal with - but for some reason we don’t.

I’m going to say this once and I’m going to say it again at the end - There are over 35 million families in this country that cannot put food on their table every night. This is called food insecurity and it’s an atrocity for this condition to be so prevalent in American society.

During this presidential election with all its punditry and pageantry it’s easy to become distracted from what really matters to us - the health and well being of ourselves, our familes and our communities. While all our eyes are glued to the debates tomorrow night the same people who have been struggling even to put food on their family’s tables will keep doing the same thing they’ve been doing for a long time - just barely surviving.

The one thing that we can’t afford to politicize in this country is our peoples’ right to accessible nutritious food. A nutritious diet is a cornerstone of a productive healthy life. This great American experiment of ours was intended to be “by the people and for the people”. When people can’t even eat - much less try to lift themselves up out of poverty - we are leading this experiment down the path to failure.

More than ever it is important that we come together in tangible communities to do what we know is right. We can work to establish these efficient systems of self preservation by leveraging technology (Facebook, for example) and friendship to establish lasting forms of self government. This can be our reality but we need to step up and start to make change.

Here’s where I would normally toss out the Soup Lady pitch and ask for a $5/month sponsorship that equates to feeding 7 people one meal a month… but it really doesn’t matter how you do it. Frankly, the point is that we stop relying on what is a failing system of social services and build something ourselves from the grassroots up. It’s time for us to meaningfully recondition ourselves to care enough and to reconsider our lifestyles.

I don’t think any of us want to feel responsible for allowing millions of our own citizens to go hungry. In fact, if you were to consider what a future observer might think of the citizens who would let such conditions continue, much less flourish, it sort of puts things in perspective. Think about how we perceive the atrocities of Nazi Germany and how we wonder why more people did not step up or speak out.

We need to face our problems and talk about them for what they are - atrocities. Upwards of 35 million American families struggle to feed their families. We can feed them. Regardless of all the distractions… this fact is indelibly true.

It’s been a while since I wrote about the Soup Lady project… it’s just become a routine that is part of the rhythm of our lives. We’ve got four sponsors who effortlessly give $5/month to help buy ingredients. We’ve got a lovely Soup Lady who spends hours each Wednesday making delicious homemade soup. My employers are kind enough to allow me to leave early so I can pick up the soup and bring it to the homeless shelter at 150 Otis St. All in all this collective effort allows us to provide opportunity to eat for people who can really use it. The best part? It feels awesome.

The Soup Lady Project is an example of how we can make small changes to our lifestyles that result in big positive impacts on the world around us. When faced with a problem that seems as impossible to solve as the problem of hunger in America we sometimes have a hard time figuring out how we fit into a solution. The Soup Lady Project is here to show that the best solutions are sometimes the simplest. We can get together and cook. We can personally bring food to people who need it. It doesn’t take as much time as it seems and it feels really good when you do it!

The economics of soup are incredible. On average we spend about $30/week in ingredients and we make about 4.5 gallons of soup. I’m talking fresh soup with meat, vegetables and all sorts of good nutrition. When we deliver the soup we expect people to eat at least 12oz servings so each batch serves about 40 people. That works out to about 70 or 75 cents a serving! When you think about what most of us spend every day to eat lunch at or near our jobs, it starts to put things in perspective. Were we all to skip a meal for a day we could buy 8-10 or so meals for people who are hungry.

In a world where there is enough wealth to launch exploratory missions to Mars, it’s inexcusable that we allow people in our own communities to go hungry. These people have a great negative impact on our social systems (according to a study by the Harvard School of Public Health the cost burden of food insecurity in America is more than $90B) as well. From any angle you look at it, we have a moral and social obligation to provide food for our people.

The good news is that we can! If 1/5th of all San Franciscans stepped up and pledged a few dollars or hours a month to collectively end hunger we could do it. We could stop sitting around passively expecting other people to solve our problems and we could enjoy the smiles of the people we are helping. It really does feel good - way better than sitting around watching tv. That’s for sure.

If you are interested in what we’re doing here or want to know more about what $5/month can do then please contact me and let’s talk. Or you can find us on Facebook under the same name in the groups section.

Thanks for stopping by. Check back in often for news and information on the problem of hunger in America, as well as updates on the Soup Lady and other projects. One other thing we do here is we try to publish links to interesting news about hunger - under the premise that the topic isn’t sexy enough to get major media coverage. The impact of hunger isn’t as flashy as murder or terrorist attacks so it seems to fly under the radar. The result is that we lack a sort of intimate familiarity with something that is really a root cause of all sorts of problems in our world. It’s important for us to shift focus and raise awareness around this pressing issue.

What do you all think about hunger in America? Do you perceive it as a problem? Have you experienced or heard of any cool ways to help out? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 No kidding. They really do.

The woman mentioned in the article above developed the alarming habit of eating rocks because she was starving as a child and dirt didn’t taste too good. I’ve heard of this happening before - people eating anything just to fill their empty bellies despite there being no nutritional value. Scary.

What I can’t figure out is what is more interesting - the story itself or the fact that most people aren’t aware that this sort of thing is going on all the time. It seems as if we create societal blind-spots and that we have tacitly agreed to avoid focusing on these horrible circumstances. An example of this is Falling Man from the 9/11 tragedy. Frankly, I hardly saw or heard about these hundreds who jumped yet around the world this image defined the attacks. Yet for some reason we chose to create a societal blind spot in front of it.

The article above mentions the history around the Holocaust and how images from that horror circulated the globe immediately after liberation. These images defined the time and influenced the minds and actions of our generation. By allowing these blind spots to exist we set ourselves up to make the same mistakes again in the future. As the old Jewish saying goes - We can forgive, but we should never forget.

A lady eating rocks might seem freak-show fascinating. What is lost in our practical amusement is the root cause that drove her to this strange habit - a devastatingly large and growing problem of hunger in our world today. Like the image to the left, it’s not an easy thing to look at… but it’s important that we do.

At a time when we live with a lifestyle that kings would have been jealous of centuries ago, it’s hard to imagine how we allow people to starve. My only guess is that it must be this damn blind spot causing our mass negligence.

It’s enough to make me want to eat rocks and spit diamonds.

What does hunger mean to you? If you take these two articles that appeared today atop a Google news search you can see two different ways to focus on the same issue - that hungry feeling and what we do about it.

Researchers Suppress ‘Hunger Hormone’

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/16/AR2008091602240.html

The above article discusses a new chemical treatment that actually “chemically vaporize[s] the main vessel carrying blood to the top section (fundus) of the stomach.” They do this in order to prevent the body from making the “hunger hormone” ghrelin and therefore reduce the desire of people to consume food.

This is a great example of how many of us in the First World view hunger as a cosmetic issue as opposed to a matter of nutrition (and therefore survival). In a world where there is rampant food scarcity due to economic crises (see next linked article) the vast majority don’t have this luxury. However, you’d be hard pressed to find someone with an eating problem who describes it as a luxury. I believe this is related to the great sea of mass marketing we are bombarded with constantly. We’re given so many accessible options to obtain the instant gratification of fast food consumption that we start to lose sight of what we have - constant access to nutrition. This lack of awareness leads us to treat food not as a means of survival but as a form of disposable entertainment.

Food prices help tip 75 million into hunger in 2007-UN

http://uk.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUKLH684460._CH_.2420

So while our American market gets geared up to start purchasing the afore-mentioned wonder drug, the rest of the world slips deeper into an institutionalized form of suppression. Reasons for the growing numbers of hungry people are many, but the overall theme is the same - the problem exists and no one really seems to care.

It’s shocking to me that word of 925 million people going hungry around the world is something that falls upon deaf ears in today’s day and age. It’s almost beyond comprehension that there aren’t more of us resourceful Americans banding together to promote creative solutions to help alleviate this core concern.

That’s all I’ve got for today. I’ll be making an attempt to write more and keep collecting/consolidating news about hunger along with my regular commentary. My hope is that people who decide that they care enough to keep up with what’s going on will have a place to go…. since for some reason our major media outlets don’t see this as an important enough issue to keep at the forefront. Frankly, I think there should be a frickin counter on the nightly news that shows how many people are still hungry here in SF - and it should remain until it hits zero. That would be nice, yeah?

When people consider the problem of hunger in America their minds usually start to prioritize who is most deserving of food assistance. Children move to the front of the line followed by women and then finally men bring up the rear. While this may be a very valid selection process, it effectively creates the perception that most men are somehow not worthy of assistance - which is a shame. At the Feed People Project we choose to take a less discriminatory approach, instead believing that all opportunities to ensure food as a basic human right are equal.

                                      Drop-in Shelter @ 150 Otis St.

This blog by an intern at the SF Bay Guardian gives a window into the struggle that homeless men have to deal with on a daily basis. It’s an interesting read which shows how the system leaves men out on the street to fight through a beaurocratic and inefficient system just to secure a safe place to sleep. To think that these folks have to do all of this on top of trying to secure food and perhaps an opportunity to break out of the cycle of dependence…. it just doesn’t seem fair or productive if our goal is to give people chances to succeed.

This is even more relevant because we feed people at the drop-in homeless shelter at 150 Otis St. Now, back when this blog was written 150 Otis was not a full time shelter yet, so please don’t be confused by that. Either way, though, consider that our initial Soup Lady Project outreach puts free healthy soup in front of these folks who are engaged in the struggle of homelessness. Consider the effect that a warm bowl of soup has on a hungry, frustrated and downtrodden person. We’re not just feeding the people at the “end of the line” - we’re giving people hope of a better day and energy to keep on fighting. This is an important thing to remember when you consider pledging $5/month to help sponsor the project.

Homelessness is something that exists regardless of whether you believe it should or not. Ignoring it doesn’t make the problem go away. Besides, we’re all a couple of bad turns away from being out of home and employment ourselves. Do we want a safety net beneath us that is humane and effective or not?

Today’s SF Chronicle features an article called Budget Brown Bag: Packing a week’s worth of lunches for $20. This might be helpful for people with families to feed on a limited budget. Tips, sample menu and recipes are all in this one article so check it out!

I visited the Slow Food Nation festival this weekend and it was a blast! Sort of made me wonder why we can’t have a permanent Victory Garden and healthy food festival set up in the middle of our fine city. I’d go there every day!

It sounds like our city is going to keep its City Hall Victory Garden alive through November, which is nice to see. I wonder if this exposure to the VG concept is going to cause these gardens to spring up on empty lots throughout the city. All it takes is a donation of unused land and the efforts of caring concerned citizens. Anyone know of a plot of land we can occupy with one of these gardens? How rad would it be if we could grow our own food as part of the Feed People Project?

America’s Second Harvest Rebranded

The nation’s largest food assistance organization - America’s Second Harvest - has undergone a rebranding and is now known as “Feeding America“.

September is HUNGER ACTION MONTH!

It always amazes me how little I see in the media about these things… but September marks the first annual Hunger Action Month. Visit the Feeding America website to view suggestions for corporate organizers as well as a list of events going on to support the cause.

For us folks here in San Francisco, there is an event called Dining Out Against Hunger - Sept 18th at the Ferry Building. For $40 you get access to live entertainment, drinks and appetizers from some of SF’s best restaurants. A list of restaurants and other information can be found here!

That’s it for today with regard to links. The only update on other projects is that I’ve reached out to the California Farmers Markets Association to ask about negotiating bulk deals (or donations) with local area farmers markets…. with the idea of facilitating the transporation of fresh donated food from these markets to the SF Food Bank every week. I’ll let you all know what I hear back as soon as I hear something!

Cheers folks! Enjoy your slow food and good sunny vibes this week!