Repairing the world, a little bit at a time.

In today's NYT -- Chester-Upland School District

2012-02-05T10:56:00.002-05:00

CHESTER, Pa. — The Chester Upland School District is more than $20 million in debt, its bank account is almost empty and it cannot afford to pay teachers past the end of this month.

To make matters worse, the local charter school, with which the district must divide its financing, is suing the district over unpaid bills.

The district’s fiscal woes are the product of a toxic brew of budget cuts, mismanagement and the area’s poverty. Its problems are compounded by the Chester Community Charter School, a nonprofit institution that is managed by a for-profit company and that now educates nearly half of the district’s students.

The district sees the charter as a vampire, sucking up more than its fair share of scarce resources. The state, it says, is giving the charter priority over the district.

“It’s not competition, it’s just draining resources from the district,” said Catherine Smith, a principal at Columbus Elementary, a district school. “It’s a charter school on steroids.”

The charter says that it is also part of the public school system and that the district, its primary source of financing, has not paid it anything since last spring. The state has taken over payments, but even those are late, it says.

Chester may be a harbinger of fiscal decline. At least six other Pennsylvania school districts are bordering on insolvency, according to State Representative Joseph F. Markosek, the Democratic chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

To read more, click here

In last week's Economist -- Chester Upland School District

2012-01-29T21:48:00.002-05:00

(I was surprised last week to find Chester-Upland School District's financial plight written up in The Economist)

THE Chester Upland school district is one of the poorest in Pennsylvania. It gets about 70% of its budget from state funds (richer school districts get most of theirs from local property taxes). Most of its 3,600 students come from low-income families, and about 80% are eligible for free or cut-price school lunches. Academically, it is no better off. Only half its students graduate. The district was under state oversight from 1994 until 2010. It also had an unsuccessful four-year stint under the supervision of Edison, a for-profit education group. Little wonder, then, that pupils have been fleeing the district’s schools. Nearly half the children living there attend independent charter schools.

The decision to come out of state oversight in July 2010 may not have been wise. The new school board inherited debts of about $20m, an unsustainable budget and an unaffordable workforce. The school board had to lay off 28% of the district’s staff last year. But the district still cannot afford to pay its bills. Its bank account is almost empty, but it owes suppliers $4m. Without state help, Chester Upland cannot pay for school-bus fuel and electricity, never mind salaries for teachers, drivers and lunch ladies. It owes millions to insurance companies and to the state pension plan.

to read more, click here

MLK Day 2012 pictures

2012-01-29T14:50:00.002-05:00

fstier1950's photostream on Flickr.

Just looking at Joel's photos in my hotel room in Tokyo made me smile.

So many thanks to give to all the wonderful families who made MLK day a success. To Elayne DeSimone, for her leadership, to the Wainfans, Hoffmans, Griesmers, Kaplans, Hellmans, Gardner, Zirings, Feins, and to Rabbi Gerber and so many others.

Soup for MLK day - from Candy

2012-01-03T21:15:00.002-05:00

This is the recipe for Candy's soup for MLK day -- I'm posting it so I won't lose the recipe again.

8 large onions
3 lbs. carrots
3 mid-to large-size turnips

1 bunch celery
1 bunch parsley
1 - 2 lbs. collard greens (or a large bunch)
1 head garlic
8 bay leaves

brown lentils, 3/4 lb.

1 lb. whole wheat pasta, either spirals or other small type

2 containers TJ Butternut Squash Soup

2 containers TJ vegetable stock

2 cans tomato paste

1 can garbanzo beans

I like the onions, carrots, and turnips cut to medium, spoon-able sized chunks.
I suggest starting the soup by coating bottoms of 2 large stock pots with sufficient olive oil and pre-heating, then add and saute the above items. Towards the end of the saute, I add the diced garlic.
I would add the collards (washed and mouth-sized chop) next. Give a saute for a few minutes, then raise heat, add water, 8 (or more) cups for each pot. Bring to light boil, then turn down heat, add bay leaves and kosher salt.
Time all other ingredients as needed. I usually use all the parsley, discarding only toughest stems. I use a rough dice for it and add it sometime during 2nd half of cooking process.

LifeCenter Dinner: New Years Day

2012-01-02T18:20:00.005-05:00

Many, many thanks to the Berman, Cohen, Fein, and Kaplan families, who coordinated and served dinner last night at the LifeCenter. Here are some pictures:

Year-end update: remember the hungry and homeless

2011-12-29T15:59:00.001-05:00

As you make out year-end donations, consider including one (or more) to help the hungry and homeless in the Delaware Valley. The need is very great this year.

Philabundance (has a matching grant challenge till the end of the year)

The Bernardine Center (a food bank in Chester)

Save Our Shelters (helps Community Action Agency of Delaware County keep shelters open)

Or, donate to Helping Those in Need, through Ohev Shalom

LifeCenter Dinner, January 1^st, organized by Chavurah Yeladim. Thank you so much!

Reading Partners: on Thursday afternoons, January 5^th and January 26^th . Meet at 4 PM at Ohev Shalom (we return about 5:45). We read with kids in the tutoring program at Family Management Center (FMC); the kids keep all the books they read.

Martin Luther King Day: Monday, January 16^th (9am-2PM): Ohev Shalom hosts families from Wesley House and FMC for a day of cookie baking, games, books, lunch, and crafts (with an hour at the HealthPlex, on the MoonBounce). Join us for set-up and food prep on Sunday January 15^th (9-12), or come and host an activity. Contact Elayne Desimone (elayned@gmail.com or 610-892-2888)

Last week on WHYY - Philabundance

2011-12-29T15:23:00.002-05:00

Philabundance is the region's largest hunger relief organization. In addition to producing meals for shelters and feeding programs, their Community Kitchen is also a place for low-income adults to learn the culinary skills needed to get a job in a commercial kitchen.

The Philabundance Community kitchen in North Philadelphia is a buzz of activity. The kitchen is attached to a homeless shelter for women and children, which is where some of the food being prepared will go. This crew of twenty is also preparing meals for other shelters and food programs throughout the region. One cook puts down her knife to describe the scene, "basically we're just cutting up vegetables, we're getting food out for lunch that has to go in the oven. We have spare ribs ready to go in the oven, barbecue chicken ready to go in the oven, goulash ready to go in oven. We have to keep busy, it's a kitchen, there's always something to do in a kitchen."

To read more, click here

Today on NPR -- Food banks in a bind

2011-12-26T15:59:00.001-05:00

Nearly 50 Americans million now live below the poverty line, according to the Census Bureau. Many food banks are not only reporting an increase in the number of people they're serving, but also a drop in food and cash donations — as much as 30 percent in some areas. Guest host Allison Keyes talks with two people working on the front lines of hunger relief.

To listen to the story, click here

From a little girl at FMC

2011-12-26T11:52:00.002-05:00

At the pajama party, a little girl slipped this note into my pocket. It chokes me up.

Pajama party at FMC

2011-12-14T21:32:00.004-05:00

Some wonderful donations to Helping the Community meant we could give the staff $500 in Target scrip to take the 16 kids in the tutoring program shopping pajamas, robes, and slippers. The kids were so excited to be able to pick out their own things.

Naima, Jordyn, Rachel & I had brought books (of course), gift bags with school supplies and gloves, candy canes, and (very yummy, home-made) cupcakes, and we had a party. The Bluford High books, Captain Underpants, and the Magic Treehouse were major favorites.

The kids posed holding their new pajamas and robes. One little girl kept nuzzling her new, pink, fuzzy slippers. Another boy was saying he'd always wanted a robe with sports figures on it.

They'd made a huge poster with photos and thank you notes for us. A few are shown above.

It was such a happy day.

In the Washington Post -- the Food Stamp Challenge

2011-12-11T21:20:00.002-05:00

y Teresa Tomassoni, Published: November 4

Food overwhelmed his every thought.

“When am I going to eat? What am I going to eat?” he asked himself throughout the day.

Envious of those around him at work, on the street, in restaurants — enjoying what he could not have — he saved soup from Tuesday’s dinner to get him through Wednesday, and a spoonful of instant coffee to wake himself up on Thursday.

“All I think about is food and food,” he said, his voice trailing longingly over the phone as he spoke from his apartment in New York City.

For almost a week, he had been surviving on just lentils, cornflakes and eggs as part of a nationwide challenge to live for a few days like the millions of Americans who depend on the country’s primary food assistance program.

Living on a budget of $31.50, the average weekly food stamp stipend for an adult, Rabbi Steve Gutow, 62, joined at least 600 imams, pastors, members of Congress and community activists across the country in the second nationwide Food Stamp Challenge, part of an annual interfaith campaign to raise awareness about America’s poor.

As the challenge launched last week with a shopping trip at a Safeway in Southeast Washington, faith leaders and officials, including Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), vowed to put themselves in the shoes of the poor. In turn, they demanded that government decision makers preserve funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), widely known as the food stamp program.

to read more, click here

Wildthings & a pencil sharpener

2011-12-07T07:13:00.005-05:00

Twice a month, I go with Bonnie K, her 12 year old daughter Jordyn, and Naima (also 12) to read with kids in a tutoring program at a shelter. We bring books for the kids to keep -- Bonnie has been wonderful about buying the books kids ask for. There's a huge range among the kids. Some are eager, skillful readers, others struggle.

Only one kid in the group has a pencil sharpener (the little plastic kind that costs maybe $.45). The other kids borrow his and carefully return it.

I was reading with a pair of 6 year old twins who were struggling with words and letters. The beginning reading books they'd chosen didn't hold their interest too well. But they wanted to hear Where the Wild Things Are over, and over, and over, and over. Bless Sendak, who's taken so many children over the tumbling ocean, and in and out of weeks, to where the wild things are.

Chester's Coop, in last month's Swarthmore Alumni Bulletin

2011-11-29T20:57:00.004-05:00

Eat Well, Seek Justice

In Chester, Pa., urban prophets and activists are offering good food, building community, and generating social capital at the Chester Co-op.

By Mark Wallace
Photographs by Jim Graham

MARK! DO YOU WANT THESE ASPARAGUS? If you don’t take them, they’ll go bad,” says Tina Johnson. “Sure,” I reply, knowing that the asparagus had already endured a final round of weekly sales activity and, without refrigeration, probably wouldn’t last another week.

It was a year ago, and the end of my Saturday morning volunteer shift as a cashier at the Community Grocery Co-op, a market in Chester, Pa., a downtrodden post-industrial city of 35,000 people. The Co-op is an experiment in food democracy and sustainable living. Tina Johnson, its director, purchases wholesale fruit and vegetables—much of it locally grown—and, at that time, retailed her goods twice weekly in a jazz club in downtown Chester. It’s the only grocery store in Chester open on a daily basis because the supermarket chains have redlined the city as too great a financial risk.

In poor, minority communities awash in chronic environmental and health problems, services like the Co-op are a lifeline for residents where fresh, affordable food is not easily found. In these settings, food security—ready access to reasonably priced and nutritious food for healthy living—is a form of environmental justice. Chesterites like Tina Johnson, a longtime community activist, partner with local farmers to support regional food production without relying on the fuel-intensive and land-depleting agriculture that underpins the globalized food economy.

The Co-op also increases Chester’s social capital by uniting the city around good eating, but it lacks the financial capital to fully support its mission. Without a steady source of income, the Co-op must purchase foodstuffs one week with the proceeds from what it sold the week before. A year ago, it could not afford the basic trappings of most grocery stores: shelving, signage, carts, even refrigeration. And without refrigeration, a lot of the produce quickly spoiled. So on that spring morning, after a good day of strong sales, I was happy to take home some leftover asparagus at the end of my shift—but also sad that an enterprise so vital to the health of the community is so marginal that it can’t afford to bind over week-to-week its principal product, fresh produce.

The lack of access to good food in many inner-city communities is an environmental justice problem embedded within a host of other social and economic issues. Only a holistic analysis of the systemic forces that tie together seemingly disconnected social pathologies can make sense of—and provide solutions for—the eco-crisis in urban communities today. The quest for eco-justice and sustainable living in blighted communities is inextricably linked, for example, to the need for good schools and workforce development. Chester has become a poster child for small U.S. cities that have all the problems of big city life with few of the resources to tackle them. The quest for sustainable eco-justice in Chester—and other inner-city communities—only makes sense in relation to a deeper understanding of the historic, economic, and political forces that have fueled the crisis.

In Chester, the “American Dream” has failed struggling individuals and families mired in failing schools; dangerous environmental conditions; and low-paying, dead-end jobs—or no jobs at all. But I and others live in hope that the city’s dire conditions will change.

to read more, click here.

Rabbi Wernick on the Food Stamp Challenge

2011-11-20T20:42:00.001-05:00

Why is it that we celebrate feelings of fulfillment with food? Perhaps one reason is found in the Torah verse that becomes the source for Birkat HaMazon: “v’akhalta, v’savata uverakhta – you shall eat, be satisfied and you shall bless.” (Duet. 8.10) When we are filled, we feel fulfilled, so it makes sense that when we feel fulfilled we want to also be full.

No wonder then so many celebrations are accompanied by festive meals! Next Thursday Americans will sit down for Thanksgiving dinner as an expression of our feelings of gratitude for family, for friends and for this wonderful land which promises so much for so many. Though I am looking forward to a scrumptious feast with my family, this Thanksgiving I will also be thinking of the 45 million Americans living on food stamps in a way I have never thought of them before.

As many of you know, I participated in the food stamp challenge (https://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5145/c/627/t/13626/my/donate.jsp?supporter_my_donate_page_KEY=3394) sponsored by the JCPA (www.jcpa.org) of which the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism is a member organization. By participating in the challenge I joined Jewish and other faith community activists in communities across the country to call attention to the national crisis of hunger and poverty. I spent this last week living on just $27 for six days. And I learned a lot.

I learned:

That I take a lot of food for granted. It’s been a while since I’ve done the food shopping, for example, and the price of milk ($3.19/gallon) is a lot when you only have $31.50 to spend each week.
That fresh fruits and vegetables are difficult to come by when on a tight budget.
That eating healthy takes work. My wife Jody found lots of recipes from the Department of Agriculture that were better than what I would have done if left alone. For example, there was a recipe for tortellini soup that cost $2.87 for the ingredients. Made 6 ½ servings. In other words it was just $.44 per serving!
It occurred to me that I was lucky. I have a wife, who is a nurse, who knew to access the Department of Agriculture website and had a computer to do so. How many people on food stamps have that access?
That I went hungry every day, and simply did not have enough food to satisfy me. I woke up in the night, didn’t sleep well and was irritable most days.
Snacks are too expensive.
Eating out is impossible.
I should be more thankful for the opportunities and bounty that I am able to enjoy.

To read more, click here

Thanksgiving Collection 2011

2011-11-20T15:07:00.010-05:00

This morning was bright and warm, and the best place in the world to be was the Ohev parking lot, as family after family drove up to deliver a turkey or a bag of groceries to the Fein-Levin's van. There were 36 turkeys in all, along with stuffing and yams and canned vegetables and cranberry sauce. The next best place in the world to be was Chester Eastside Ministries, full of volunteers and grocery bags being readied for distribution. What a wonderful way to start the holiday.

Many, many thanks to Joel, Vicky and Jay and to our donors.

In Yesterday's Inky: Youth root for nutritional rights

2011-11-04T18:54:00.004-04:00

Dianna Marder, Inquirer Staff Writer

There are teenagers who prefer apples and tossed salads over sodas and fries - and not because they are dieting. Matthew Johnson, 19, a June graduate of University City High School, is Exhibit A.

Johnson and his older brother and sister live with their mother, a kidney patient on dialysis 11 hours a day, in a rowhouse they share with four aunts and uncles.

He grew up on a food-stamps subsistence diet - eating what he thought was easy and cheap - hot dogs, canned stews, chips. Gradually, through a youth development program that engages, educates, and empowers through the familiarity we all share with food, Johnson learned how much more nourishing a meal can be on a food-stamp budget.

And now he is an advocate for change.

Townsend Press -- what a wonderful outfit

2011-10-02T21:26:00.002-04:00

We're starting another year of Reading Partners, so I put in an order to Townsend Press -- a great place, that sells a line of chapter books (the Bluford High books) and early reading books (the King Street School series) that are a) ethnically diverse and b) $1/book. They also have a huge library of classics edited for readability.

I first found out about them from the kids at FMC, who clamoured for Bluford High books.

Here's a link to their catalogue.

Mi B'Ra'av (who by famine), last week's NYT Book Review, and Rabbi Gerber's comments on Bread from the Earth

2011-09-25T10:53:00.006-04:00

The class at Mekom Torah was discussing the Unetaneh Tokef last week, with its litany of all the deaths that befall humans in each year,

who will live, and who will die
who in the fullness of time, and who not in the fullness of time,
who by fire and who by water,
who by sword and who by beast,
who by famine and who by thirst...

For middle-class Jews in the USofA, the days when Jews died by famine seem distant. Not so for the author of Eichah

Tovim hayu hallele-herev
mehallele ra'av
better off were the slain of the sword
than those slain by famine

Thomas Keneally's book Three Famines, reviewed in last week's book review section echos Eichah:

You and I and everyone we know are always living only a few weeks of food away from famine psychosis. Here’s how it goes. Deprived of meals, your body starts to consume itself. It uses up the glucose stored in your liver and body fats. It uses up the proteins in its own muscles and cells. Rapidly, your body starts to mock you: your belly swells as if you are becoming fat, because the breakdown of muscle causes the remaining fat to bunch there.

And then your personality is consumed. As Thomas Keneally puts it in “Three Famines”: “The victim becomes a new person. The fastidious become slovenly; the kindly become aggressive; the moral are caught up in the great amorality of famine. Fraternity and love wither. Judgment vanishes, and a hyperactive anxiety seizes the mind.” You are gripped by psychotic delusions. Sometimes you will eat your own children. You will become so insane you don’t even recognize food when it is put in front of you; rescued famine victims often howl for sustenance long after it is offered to them. And then you die.

It’s torture. Eradicating famine from the human condition is one of the most noble goals we can have. But to do this, we need to understand how famine happens — and in the past few decades, this has gone through a revolution, which Keneally’s important new book helps explain.

As recently as the mid-1980s, it was thought that famine was usually an “act of God” — a “biblical” failure of rains or crops or seasons. But in the 1990s Amartya Sen, the Nobel-winning economist, showed this was wrong by proving one bold fact: “No famine has ever taken place in the history of the world in a functioning democracy.” Famine, it turns out, is not caused by a failure to produce food. It is caused by a failure to distribute food correctly — because the ruler is not accountable to the starving.

(to read more, click here)

In his intro d'var torah to last week's Social Action Brunch, Rabbi Gerber talked about how we thank God for the rain and fertile soil that allow grain to grow, but that bread also comes from cooperation between a farmer, a miller and a baker, and (we saw above) a functioning society.

In today's Inky -- Hunger Experts Stew about Food Deserts

2011-09-23T19:08:00.001-04:00

By Alfred Lubrano

Inquirer Staff Writer

Saying "sugar is the new street drug," a researcher who is an expert on the dearth of nutrition in low-income neighborhoods told an antihunger symposium in Philadelphia on Thursday that there are myriad health consequences for people living in so-called "food deserts."

Mari Gallagher, a Chicago public-health researcher, mapped Chicago neighborhoods to measure the distances residents had to travel to stores that stocked fresh produce and other healthful foods.

One conclusion she drew was that poor people "who cannot choose an apple as easily as a burger" invariably eat the foods closest to them, resulting in higher rates of diabetes and other life-threatening diseases.

"We are all really what we eat," Gallagher said at the first hunger symposium organized by Philabundance, the region's largest hunger-relief agency.

Gallagher praised Philabundance's efforts to build an "oasis" in one of this area's largest food deserts - Chester City, which has been without a full-service food market for 10 years.

Philabundance is creating a nonprofit supermarket that will offer free items, like a food pantry, along with low-priced staples.

It should be open within a year, said Bill Clark, executive director of Philabundance, who is putting funding together for the project.

Clark was among those addressing an audience that included antihunger advocates and executives whose companies donate food and money to agencies like Philabundance.

He invoked the latest bad news about the poor, provided by the U.S. Census Bureau this month: In 2010, 15.1 percent of Americans lived in poverty, which represents 2.6 million more people than in 2009. That's a number "greater than the populations of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore combined," Clark said.

Others speakers included Lyn Kugel, a senior director of PathwaysPA, a social service agency in Holmes, Delaware County.

Citing the high costs of housing, food, and child care in the area, Kugel said a single parent with one school-age child and one preschool child would need to make $54,705 annually to live without using public assistance.

"That's startling," Kugel said, saying few single parents in the area make that much money.

Praising the resourcefulness of poor women who learn to shop, deal with public-assistance bureaucracy, and work when they can, Mariana Chilton of Drexel University's School of Public Health said she had seen the "fragility and grace" of mothers suffering from hunger.

Children without sufficient nutrition face developmental problems throughout life, said Chilton, a nationally recognized expert on hunger.

While the dramatic new numbers from the census depict working-class Americans newly fallen into poverty, it's important to remember the long-term poor, said Rachel Cooper, analyst with the Food Research and Action Center, a Washington-based antihunger advocacy group.

"People who've always been down are now down and out," Cooper said.

Deep poverty - defined as 50 percent of the poverty level of around $22,000 annually for a family of four - is persistent and growing, Chilton said.

Such deprivation creates depression in people, many of whom withdraw from their own children and have a harder time keeping jobs, she added.

Trying to balance the symposium's somber tone with positive news, Yael Lehmann, executive director of the nonprofit Food Trust in Philadelphia, said her organization now runs 26 farmers' markets in the area.

The Food Trust, which makes healthy food available throughout the region, also battles food deserts and tries to educate owners of corner stores in poor neighborhoods about the need to stock fruits, vegetables, and other healthy foods.

Of course, said Elaine Waxman, a vice president of Feeding America, Philabundance's parent agency headquartered in Chicago, patrons frequenting farmers' markets for the first time may not recognize or know how to prepare fresh foods.

But she said that people are smart enough to learn, and to try to improve their lives in food deserts.

Injecting a tone of camaraderie among weary hunger-fighters, Clark said, "Together we can work toward a future where no man, woman, or child goes to be hungry."

From Philabundance: Proposed cuts to Commodity Supplemental Food Program

2011-09-18T20:52:00.002-04:00

(by Jenna Linke, Philabundance Staffer)

If you’re like me, you may be just tuning out the news nowadays when they talk about budget cuts and the economy. I’m an NPR junkie, and yet I’ve found myself turning the radio dial to find some mindless music more often than not when the talk turns to Washington, arguing, votes, cuts, debates, and politics in general. It all just seems like the same story.

There is one thing my ears do perk up for, however, and that is talk about cutting funding for social services, and specifically for CSFP – the Commodity Supplemental Food Program. CSFP is a federal program that provides monthly nutritious boxes of food to eligible children, pre- and post-partum mothers, and low-income seniors. Philabundance provides CSFP boxes to 9,176 seniors in Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, Chester, and Philadelphia counties.

Currently, we pack the USDA-supplied food into 9,176 boxes every month. Even though we serve 9,176 seniors each month, we still have 2,286 additional seniors on our wait list. Each of those seniors has been pre-screened and is eligible to receive a box, we just don’t have any boxes to give to them.

And now Congress is talking about cutting $38 million from CSFP funding, a 22% reduction. Statewide, this would mean 7,610 seniors currently receiving a monthly food box would be cut off. For our service area, 1,835 seniors would be dropped off the active list and added to our already large waiting list.

A few months ago, I asked our partner agencies, who distribute the boxes directly to the seniors, to ask their seniors what receiving the box means to them. Here are a couple of responses we received.

Without food I can’t take my medication and without my medication, I don’t know where my health will stand. How am I supposed to choose between the two? Receiving my monthly box allows me to have both so I don’t have to make these types of decisions. – Anonymous

My fixed income barely covers my living expenses so most times I don’t know how I’ll be able to afford groceries, especially since food is so expensive these days. Thanks to my monthly box, I don’t need to spend as much on food every month. -Anonymous

The food we receive goes such a long way for us. I’m able to prepare meals that last me days at a time while also having quality food to choose from. Means so much to us to have this. – Anonymous

I am so thankful for the box of food I receive every month. Bless the people that donated, bless the people that worked to get the donations, bless all that sorted and packed all the boxes, and bless the angel that delivered my food. Thank you and each and every one of you are in my prayers! – Anonymous

When I read these, and then listen to the arguing on the radio about the Federal Budget, I can’t help but ask myself, how am I going to tell 1,835 of my seniors that there’s no more food available for them?

Tribute to Bev Dickson

2011-09-18T16:21:00.005-04:00

Every year for 7 years now (“to this day”), Social Action and Chesed do a brunch to raise funds.

For Social Action, these funds enable us to serve dinners at the Life Center (a soup kitchen in Upper Darby) and to host families from CAADC (Community Action Agency of Delaware County) at Ohev on MLK day for a day of cookie baking, games, crafts, and books, and to fund memberships for the shelters in Chester’s Cooperative Grocery.

CAADC’s Federal and State funds have been cut this year; they’ve had to close one of their three family shelters: they’re reaching out to local congregations for help to keep the other two open. Your generosity meant we could contribute over the summer; we hope to be able to continue our support through the year.

Many, many thanks to everyone who pitches in to make it possible, especially Judy Stall and Liz Stern, Lisa Gardner, and Edie McFall. Especially, we want to say thank you to Bev Dickson.

Every year for 7 years now, Bev has designed a beautiful flyer for these brunches, stuffed envelopes to mail it out, come to bake and set up.

She’s a wonderful baker – she never gets flustered, she never forgets ingredients. Last year, when the dairy KitchenAide burned out in the middle of baking apple cake, she creamed butter & sugar by hand for 8 cakes & grated cheese by hand, and kept watch on the rest of us so we didn’t forget ingredients or put in double (and she had us out of there in record time).

Bev’s always been active in Sisterhood, taking on Torah Fund, helping assemble the directory this year. She shows up every year for hamentaschen baking, she puts together Donor Dinners. She’s done ad books for Presidents’Balls, and served on Budget and Audit Committee. These behind-the-scenes, roles are what keep Ohev Shalom going.

Bev, you embody Shammai’s advice in Pirkei Avot – to say little and do much. We’re so grateful for everything you do.

Tuesday's NYT: 15% of Americans Live in Poverty -- highest rate since 1993

2011-09-18T16:14:00.002-04:00

by Sabrina Tavernese

WASHINGTON — Another 2.6 million people slipped into poverty in the United States last year, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, and the number of Americans living below the official poverty line, 46.2 million people, was the highest number in the 52 years the bureau has been publishing figures on it.

And in new signs of distress among the middle class, median household incomes fell last year to levels last seen in 1996.

Economists pointed to a telling statistic: It was the first time since the Great Depression that median household income, adjusted for inflation, had not risen over such a long period, said Lawrence Katz, an economics professor at Harvard.

“This is truly a lost decade,” Mr. Katz said. “We think of America as a place where every generation is doing better, but we’re looking at a period when the median family is in worse shape than it was in the late 1990s.”

The bureau’s findings were worse than many economists expected, and brought into sharp relief the toll the past decade — including the painful declines of the financial crisis and recession —had taken on Americans at the middle and lower parts of the income ladder. It is also fresh evidence that the disappointing economic recovery has done nothing for the country’s poorest citizens.

The report said the percentage of Americans living below the poverty line last year, 15.1 percent, was the highest level since 1993. (The poverty line in 2010 for a family of four was $22,314.)

to read more, click here

In todays Inky: How hunger affects children in the Philadelphia area

2011-07-28T21:32:00.002-04:00

By Alfred Lubrano

Inquirer Staff Writer

Children in poverty are more emotionally affected by a lack of food than was previously understood, new research shows.

With food prices up nearly 5 percent over last year and the poor disproportionately hurt, children are noticing their parents skipping more meals to let their youngsters eat.

That's causing kids to speak up.

"I get yummy French toast, but when Mommy doesn't eat, I say, 'Please eat right now, Mommy,' " said Kodi-Cheree Moses, 5, of North Philadelphia. Her mother, Shontaya, 31, a security guard, has three other children, and food is scarce.

The same worries course through the streets of Frankford, where 7-year-old Marcus Gaines Jr. has his parents' missed meals on his mind.

"When I eat and I see my mom and dad don't, I say, 'Why don't you eat?' " he said. "It makes me feel nervous and kind of sad and stuff.

"I worry about them. I try to give them my chicken nuggets."

Marcus Sr. gently turns down his son's offers and tells him not to fret. "As long as you guys eat, we're OK," he said he tells the boy. "Me and Mommy will find something."

As hard times get harder, they seem to press more unyieldingly on the poor.

"The whole life of someone economically stressed is a lot more fragile than before," said Bill Clark, executive director of Philabundance, the region's largest hunger-relief agency.

The agency has seen need in the Philadelphia area grow 22 percent over last year, and 66 percent since 2009.

For the poor, the increase in food prices means they must spend an extra $30 a month, a huge sum for low-income people, analysts say.

to read more, click here.

Chester's Co-op

2011-07-23T18:21:00.006-04:00

View Larger Map
Chester's Coop is at 512 Ave of the States, with convenient parking. Their phone is 610-447-1414

There's such a contrast between the bright, cheerful, well stocked co-op and the pawnshop that used to occupy the site.

Social Action meeting: July 12th

2011-07-23T18:16:00.005-04:00

We discussed Social Action’s financials – as of 6/30/2011 (the end of the fiscal year), we have a balance of $3,846, up from $1,602 the beginning of the fiscal year. Donations totaled $7,248.00 through the year (mostly connected with our fall fundraiser), and expenditures were $5,002.

We decided to donate $1,000 to CAADC.org’s Save our Shelters campaign. Community Action Agency of Delaware County had to close the Colony Building shelter in June because of funding cuts at both the state and federal level, and is reaching out to local congregations for help with its deficit to keep its other shelters (Life Center, Wesley House, and Family Management Center) open.

Chester’s Co-op is open (see attached flyer) – the store brightens up the block it’s on, and has a good selection and very affordable prices. It very needs to grow its member base and is reaching out to Chester & surrounding communities. If you would like printed copies of the flyer to post or distribute, please let me know.

Starting in 2013, Social Action at Ohev Shalom will be one of the groups to benefit from the Netzach fund – a very generous, anonymous donation that established a fund whose income (if the principal appreciates) will be used to support the synagogue and social action programs. We are very excited at the possibility of being able to do more, but also conscious that we need to continue our own efforts and maintain a base of support.

Social Action / Chesed Brunch will be Sunday, September 18th -- mark your calendars.

· O Our honoree for this year’s brunch will be Bev Dickson – we’re very excited.

· O Our speaker will be Dr. Daniel Taylor – click here for a recent op ed piece in the Inquirer.

We discussed a meeting schedule for 2011-2012, and decided on the 4^th Monday of alternate months, with exceptions for Sept 2011 & May 2012 because of the holidays:

Monday, Sept 12^th, 7 PM

Monday, Nov 28^th

Monday, Jan 30^th

Monday, March 26^th

Monday, May 21st

Our next Life Center dinner is Sunday, Sept 4^th; as usual, we need shoppers & servers. Signed up so far: Jacque & Aubrey Tillman, Shari Baron. (We had a wonderful response in July for servers – many thanks to the Kaplan, Sherman-Petrescu, Tillman, and Saluk-Brown families for all the shopping & serving).

Chester's Co-op

2011-07-16T16:00:00.003-04:00

I love shopping at Chester's Co-op -- Tina (the manager) always greets me with a hug, then her Mom (at the cash register) hugs me, then they point out the produce they're proudest of for the week -- this week it's a plum with bright red flesh --plumegranate. Nimrod and Keith bring my groceries out to the car and load them (where else do you get service like that?).

I always buy some extra and drop it at Wesley House (one of the CAADC shelters) -- this week, it's bags of oranges and apples and roasted peanuts in their shells, and milk. As I leave, a boy (maybe 12?) is loading his pockets with oranges, and some Moms have already scurried off with the gallons of milk.

Chester's Co-op

2011-07-16T15:54:00.000-04:00

In yesterday's NYT: Them that's not shall lose

2011-06-26T11:05:00.001-04:00

“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”

James Baldwin penned that line more than 50 years ago, but it seems particularly prescient today, if in a different manner than its original intent.

Baldwin was referring to the poor being consistently overcharged for inferior goods. But I’ve always considered that sentence in the context of the extreme psychological toll of poverty, for it is in that way that I, too, know well how expensive it is to be poor.

I know the feel of thick calluses on the bottom of shoeless feet. I know the bite of the cold breeze that slithers through a drafty house. I know the weight of constant worry over not having enough to fill a belly or fight an illness.

It is in that context that I am forced to assume that if Washington politicians ever knew the sting of poverty then they have long since vanquished the memory. How else to qualify their positions? In fact, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, nearly half of all members of Congress are millionaires, and between 2008 and 2009, when most Americans were feeling the brunt of the recession, the personal wealth of members of Congress collectively increased by more than 16 percent. Must be nice.

Poverty is brutal, consuming and unforgiving. It strikes at the soul.

You defend yourself with hope, hard work and, for some, a helping hand. But these weapons grow dull in an economy on the verge of atrophy, in a job market tilting ever more toward the top and in a political environment that would sacrifice the weak to the wealthy.

On Thursday, the Pew Research Center released a poll that showed how disillusioned low-income people have become. Those making less than $30,000 were the most likely to expect to be laid off or be asked to take a pay cut. Furthermore, they were the most likely to say that they had trouble getting or paying for medical care and paying the rent or mortgage.

But at least those numbers include people with incomes. A vast subset is chronically unemployed and desperately searching for work. According to the Consumer Reports Employment Index, “In 23 of the past 24 months, lower-income Americans have lost more jobs than they have gained.” It continues, “Meanwhile, more affluent Americans seem to be gaining more jobs than they are losing.”

And the current election-cycle obsession to balance the books with a pound of flesh, which is being pushed by pitiless Republicans and accommodated by pitiful Democrats, will only multiply the pain.

Until more politicians understand — or remember — what it means to be poor in this country, we are destined to fail the least among us, and all of us will pay a heavy price for that failure.

From the June 15 Inky: Philadelphia family shelters are filling up faster, sooner

2011-06-26T10:59:00.003-04:00

(Family Management Center, one of Delaware County's 3 family shelters, closed in mid-month, making space tighter than ever. )

By Jennifer Lin

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

For four days, Yasmeen Goodmond, 23, went to the city's homeless-services office, asking for help.

And for four days, she was told there were no beds for her family.

With nowhere to go, Goodmond and her two children went to the emergency room at Hahnemann University Hospital. They slept in chairs in the waiting room and slipped out in the morning.

But their welcome was wearing out. On Monday night, Goodmond asked her cousin to watch her 5-year-old daughter for a few days, while turning to her grandmother for help with her 2-year-old son.

For herself, she stayed on the streets, walking all over Center City, never sleeping.

At 6:30 Tuesday morning, Goodman went immediately to the Appletree Family Center, the cheery name for the city's main intake office for homeless families, at 15th and Cherry Streets in Center City.

But when the staff opened the doors at 9, they delivered the same news: no beds.

"They just tell me there's nothing they could do," Goodmond said as she sat outside a Center City sandwich shop with her son, who was smiling and eating grapes in his stroller. "They're giving me nowhere to go."

Advocates for the homeless say that the city's shelters for families always fill up in the summer, but that this year, that seems to be happening sooner than usual.

Marsha Cohen, an attorney for the Homeless Advocacy Project, which provides free legal help to homeless individuals, said mothers with children could often double up with friends or relatives during the school year. But once summer arrives, they either choose to leave difficult situations or are forced out.

She said the spike in homeless families this summer was most likely a reflection of the poor economy. "I've heard 10 horror stories in the last week."

Cohen said a father and his 10-year-old son were sleeping at the 69th Street bus terminal. In another case, a mother with an infant and two children were placed in a shelter, but there weren't enough beds for everyone. The 5-year-old slept with his mother, while the 4-year-old was sent to stay with a relative.

She said the spike in homeless families this summer was most likely a reflection of the poor economy. "I've heard 10 horror stories in the last week."

Nationally, the number of homeless families is rising. In the annual report to Congress on homelessness released Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said the number of homeless families has increased 20 percent from 2007 to 2010.

HUD also reported that the proportion of homeless families in shelters or transitional housing has increased from 30 percent to 35 percent during the same period.

"It's not surprising given the economic crisis that we are seeing an increase in homeless families," HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said in a conference call with reporters.

Cohen said the city's Office of Supportive Housing (OSH), which manages the shelter system, should have anticipated a rising number of homeless families.

"This is the third consecutive year that the city has seen this," Cohen said. "So for them to be caught so flat-footed at the beginning of the summer is unconscionable. There is going to be significantly more families flooding into the system."

In Philadelphia, 425 families are housed in emergency shelters, with an additional 335 families in transitional shelters, which offer both housing and services to help families move on with their lives. (The city maintains separate facilities for single men and women who are homeless.)

Overall, there are about 6,000 homeless men, women, and children in Philadelphia, living in emergency shelters, transitional housing, or on the streets. Nationally, on any given night last year, about 650,000 people were homeless, HUD calculates.

Dainette Mintz, the city's OSH director, said families have been placed in shelters based on when they requested help and whether they had special needs, such as a woman dealing with domestic violence.

"We monitor and use all the resources available to us to place homeless families," Mintz said. "Unfortunately, however, there are instances when we are unable to provide immediate assistance."

HUD has focused much of its attention in recent years on reducing the ranks of chronically homeless individuals who live on the streets. Most are older or middle-aged men. It also has introduced special programs for preventing homelessness by offering one-time financial assistance for families to stay in their housing and not to enter the shelter system in the first place.

In another initiative, HUD is providing funds to rapidly get people out of shelters and into permanent housing through rent assistance.

But Donovan acknowledged that the federal housing agency was "not as far along in developing tools and solutions to end family homelessness."

For Goodmond and her two children, meanwhile, the wait continues.

Goodmond became homeless after being evicted from her apartment in Germantown. She wasn't on the lease and had to leave.

On Tuesday morning, she used the last of her money to buy breakfast for her son. She made some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at her cousin's house, but those, too, went quickly.

She seemed restless, lost. She took her son to LOVE Park and to look at the fountain at Logan Circle. In a few hours, she would take him to her grandmother's house. His clothes were packed into a knapsack that hung from the stroller handle. Her daughter already was with a cousin.

And for herself? "I don't know what I'm going to do."

Come the morning, she would be back on the front steps of the Appletree Family Center, hoping to hear better news.

From last week's Inquirer - When Children face continuous traumatic stress disorder

2011-05-30T16:39:00.003-04:00

Daniel Taylor

Posted on Wed, May. 25, 2011

It was like any other day. An early-morning panel of pediatric patients. A mother asking me why her 6-month-old is always crying no matter what she does to calm him. A 3-year-old asthmatic child jumping back slightly as I approach to listen to his lungs. A 12-year-old in for a suture removal after getting hurt in a fight at school, his third this year.

As a pediatrician working at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in North Philadelphia, I see these scenarios play out daily. Our hospital is smack in Philly's epicenter of childhood poverty, hunger, violence, and unemployment - factors that contribute to individual, family, and community stress. Factors that can make babies more twitchy, toddlers more hyper-vigilant, school-aged children more prone to headaches, and children more overweight and likelier to be asthmatic. These factors can also cause tweens to be more apt to fight and teens to self-medicate and engage in more violent acts. As I read The Inquirer's seven-part series on school violence, "Assault on Learning," that exposed the brutal attacks on both children and teachers and the complexities of balancing school safety and learning, I saw a common thread in this tragedy: stress.

When a soldier comes home after witnessing the horrors of war, or a woman is raped, they may be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Many studies in adults have shown the devastating costs of trauma and the difficulty of treating PTSD. What about the consequences of trauma in the developing brains of our children? What if there is no post in their trauma? What if it's continuous traumatic stress disorder.

This term was introduced in 1986 by South African writer Frank Chikane as he chronicled the effects of continuous trauma on children living through apartheid.

Research has confirmed the detrimental effects of pesticides, childhood lead poisoning, and secondhand smoke. More recent work has pointed to substances made internally to ward off actual or perceived danger: hormones involved in the fight-or-flight mechanism for human survival. Substances that, if chronically bathing a child's developing brain, will alter its architecture along with the child's response to environmental stimulus.

The culprits have names such as beta endorphins, epinephrine, and the major offender, the "stress" hormone cortisol. These chemicals help us jump out of the way of an oncoming car, fight off infections, and do better on a math test. If they are secreted in short bursts, we are safer, faster, and stronger. If there is prolonged activation of these chemicals, they become toxic and increase a child's allostatic load, a term coined by two psychologists, McEwen and Stellar, at Yale in 1993.

Allostatic load is defined as the effects of chronic exposure to changing or elevated chemical responses stemming from repeated or chronic stress. This concept has been demonstrated in several large studies in children and adults, including the Adverse Childhood Experience Study (ACE Study) in California, which has shown that the more adverse experiences children have - such as child abuse or domestic violence - the less likely they are to work or have a high school diploma and the more likely they are to be unhealthy, take risks, and die at a young age.

More recent studies show that children exposed to chronic domestic violence, housing instability, and hunger had more asthma diagnoses, obesity, and developmental delays.

Continuous stress is especially toxic to infants and younger children who are starting to make connections in their developing brains.

Armed with this knowledge, doctors and child advocates fight against continuous traumatic stress. Domestic-violence screening and trauma-informed therapy can help the healing process. Connecting families to resources, such as those on www.cap4kids.org/philadelphia, also can help.

Knowing the negative effects of stress on a child should guide public policy and get us to rethink cuts to efforts that nourish children, such as Medicaid, Head Start, and WIC.

The morning session is over and the afternoon panel awaits.

My first patient, a 7-year-old boy, is struggling in second grade and has a history of living in a household with documented domestic violence. He looks me in the eye, pensive and distrustful. Broken.

I empathetically discuss school testing with his mother for possible learning disabilities, suggest an after-school program that offers free homework help and mentoring, and discuss resources for families affected by household violence. These are small interventions, but with two other charts waiting in adjacent doors, it is all I can offer.

As I leave, his look reminds me that we must heal the hurt to stop the cycle of violence.

More than 100 years ago Frederick Douglass wrote, "It's easier to build strong children than repair broken men." It's time to build.

From the Daily News - Chester's Co-op

2011-05-28T16:19:00.003-04:00

May 26, 2011|By BETH D'ADDONO, For the Daily News

THE GREATEST symbol of hope for the beleaguered downtown business district in Chester isn't the fancy new soccer stadium or the new casino along the riverfront.

For people like LarRaine Branch, who's lived here for 46 years, or octogenarian Thelma K. Haskins, in residence since 1953, hope blooms in the shape of a beautiful bunch of fresh collards or a tray of what Haskins calls "chicken hips," all-natural Bell & Evans chicken legs and thighs. Those are just a few of the items on the shelves at the Chester Co-op, a community-owned grocery store that brings healthy and fresh food and staples into the heart of town.

"What does this place mean to me?" said Branch. "It means everything to me. To see the co-op grow and come to life helped me regain my faith in what could be. People like me who knew Chester when it was a great city still see a place worth saving, a place that is worth something. And why shouldn't we be able to shop in our own community?"

Why, indeed.

The last supermarket in Chester closed 17 years ago, leaving only neighborhood bodegas in its place. Chester's economic woes, kick-started back in the '50s and '60s with the loss of shipping and manufacturing jobs, are written in the vacant storefronts and shuttered businesses in the once bustling downtown. The city's crime rate is worrisome; about half its young people never finish high school. This was the scene that greeted Tina Johnson when she returned to her hometown in 2005 after living and working in Mexico and India for more than a decade.

"I came back to be with family, my mom lives here, my father's family lives here," said Johnson. "But there was no place to buy fresh food. I could get grapes and bananas in the Himalayas, but not in Chester? That seemed crazy."

The idea for the co-op came up at a luncheon she attended, Johnson recalled. After listening to a local doctor discuss nutrition, one attendee stood up and said, "I'd like to eat healthier, but I don't have a food option in the city of Chester." She, like many Chester residents, didn't have a car. In the ensuing discussion, the idea of a co-op was raised.

"By the end of the meeting, it was, 'When are we starting the co-op?' " Johnson said. "I started doing some research and looking at this business model as a viable option."

What she found was a model that appealed on many levels. A food cooperative is self-sustaining. It promotes self-reliance and independence within its members and the community, fosters a sense of pride and delivers a much-needed service. Members feel a real sense of ownership in the process, paying a one-time fee to belong, meeting regularly to set policies and make decisions and earning access to lower-than-average prices by working a set number of hours every month.

"We just started asking the question, 'Why not?' " said Johnson. "Most co-ops are in communities with higher incomes than Chester. But why couldn't we have one? People are always saying what you can't do, or that's just the way it is. But why couldn't we start a business that met our needs?

"The only way to start creating community wealth is to invest in the community in which you live."

Slowly, with Johnson leading the charge, the idea took shape. Opened in the back of a truck in 2007 with 13 members, the co-op had a few different homes until a grant from the Reinvestment Fund funded a move to a 3,000-square-foot storefront at 512 Avenue of the States. Now at 260 members, the co-op has one paid staff member, Johnson, as its general manager.

The new location, complete with a parking lot, opened March 12. Besides a $50 joining fee, members pay a one-time investment fee, $200 per family. That fee can be stretched over as many payments as necessary. Also each member commits to working two and three-quarters hours a month doing things like food prep, stocking shelves, maintaining the parking lot and working the cash register. "Members understand the value of their investment, " said Johnson. "They see the benefits."

Inside, members can have a cup of fair-trade coffee in the cheery cafe, which is also open to the public, and sells salads, wraps and locally sourced pastries. Here, too, membership has its benefits. For instance, a large bottle of water is marked $1.50, but members pay just 68 cents. Soda isn't sold here; members filled shelf space with food instead of sugary drinks.

The brightly lighted store, painted in shades of citrus, is a pleasant place to shop. One wall is taken up with beautifully displayed fresh fruit and vegetables. There's a small freezer case that includes vegetarian entrées, a dairy case with cheeses, Greek yogurt, brown eggs, a spot for deli meats and homemade prepared dishes like vegetarian lasagna and baked chicken, along with a catering menu for off-site parties.

Nutty granola and hummus with pita chips are a few healthy snack options. Whole-grain bread heads one aisle. Dried legumes, spices, canned soups and vegetables and dry goods round out the inventory. Where possible, Johnson sources locally, a familiar idea since both sides of her family have farming roots. Organics are generally out of her budget, but members voted to carry pricier Bell & Evans chicken, raised humanely without antibiotics or growth hormones, over cheaper supermarket brands.

The chicken is still affordable because volunteers break down family packs into smaller portions, allowing someone like Haskins to buy a single portion of her favorite "chicken hips."

Annie Long raves about the chicken, too. Long, a new member who moved to Chester five years ago from Philadelphia, has her own business, Top It Off, across the street from the co-op, offering sewing classes, custom designs and clergy robes. "I was used to well-stocked stores," she said. "Chester had nothing like that. I don't have a car, so where do I get the potatoes and onions I need for dinner?"

Johnson takes issue with the idea that people in Chester rely on fast food or convenience foods to feed their families. "We cook, we spend money on food. A family of four could easily spend $300 a month on food. Until the co-op opened, we just spent it somewhere else, outside of our community."

Founding member Will Richan has lived in Chester since 2002. Long retired, he's been onboard from the start, helping stock shelves, sweep and mop floors, whatever it takes. "It's too easy for people to miss the downtown area when they come to the stadium or to Harrah's," he said. "Maybe this place can help bring things back. At first I wasn't sure it was going to work, but Tina stuck with it."

Although she gave up her own, higher-paying business to manage the co-op, Johnson says that it's a labor of love. "I believe in this," she said. "And I'm here to serve the members." She's always available to listen, to take a look at a puzzling bill or piece of paperwork, and give a hug when needed. The store offers a community room for group meetings and events like an upcoming poetry reading by a local writer.

"This is a good place to be," said Branch, who always works more than her required hours per month. "I eat more fresh vegetables now than I have in a long time. I can walk here, so I get exercise. And I get to meet people from all walks of life and ethnic and economic backgrounds."

She's lost 15 pounds, too.

But even more than fresh food and camaraderie, the co-op has given something back to Branch that she hadn't felt for a long time. "My voice matters here," she said. "All of our voices matter. We all have a vote. There's something always something to work out, something to talk about. And you know, everybody enjoys being heard."

Community Grocery Co-op, 512 Avenue of the States, Chester, 610-447-1414, www.chestercoop.com.

Aubrey's Bat Mitzvah Centerpieces

2011-05-01T15:35:00.002-04:00

Aubrey's Bat Mitzvah last night was just lovely-- just like her Dad said, she gave 110%, and her happiness lit up the bimah.

Among the special details were the centerpieces. Each one was made from books her sister had collected, and from new, book-themed stuffed animals. I went to collect them today, to take them to one of CAADC's shelters tomorrow. There were Hungry Caterpillars, Grinches, and Wockets, all soft and new (the shelter's can't accept used stuffed animals, for fear of allergies). Along with piles of bright board books, they'll be treasured by the babies & toddlers there. Thanks so much!!

Pix from Ohev Shalom Culinary Institute

2011-04-07T20:26:00.004-04:00

Here are pictures from Ohev Shalom Culinary Institute, where our own Chef Liz Stern led us through a baked frittata with spring vegetables, coffee cake with walnut-streusel topping (yum!), fruit salad with a lemon-Cointreau dressing, and green salad with balsalmic vinaigrette. It was treat to watch Liz cook -- the ingredients seemed to fly together of their own accord. It was even more of a treat to sit down afterwards, talk with friends, and feast on our handiwork.

In Thursday's Inky -- A Co-op Blooms in Chester

2011-03-26T08:39:00.002-04:00

By Daniel Rubin - Inquirer Columnist

For the longest time, you couldn't buy a pineapple on the Avenue of the States in Chester. Not a real one. You could buy sneakers, braid your hair, get your nails or your taxes done, and buy a cheap phone.

But fresh fruits and vegetables were a thing of the past in the old shopping strip the locals call "over town."

If the 30,000-plus residents wanted to go to the supermarket, they had to leave Chester; there hasn't been a big-box grocery store within city limits since 2001. In a postindustrial place where 30 percent of the population can't afford a car, many people had to walk to a corner store, where pineapples come in cans.

That changed March 13. Fresh pineapples - golden, sweet, spiky ones - are the first things customers now see upon entering Chester's Co-Op's new, six-day-a-week location at 512 Avenue of the States.

Assuming that Chester Spoadie, natty at 81, hasn't first greeted them at the door.

"These are Del Monte Gold Extra Sweet pineapples," said Tina Johnson, the force of nature behind the sparkling community-owned venture that's opened in the former Lou's Pawnshop.

"We've got mangoes, cantaloupe, honeydew, and bananas for 30 cents a pound. Where are you going to find bananas for that price?"

Tuesday was mostly a family affair at the co-op. Johnson's twin sister, Nessie - up from Florida for the launch - was busy stocking shelves. Their mom, LarRaine Branch, was giving a tour to two women from the Chester Housing Authority who'd come by during their lunch break.

To read more, click here

Chester Co-op Grand Opening

2011-03-13T20:10:00.011-04:00

The Chester High School marching band performed, and Avenue of the States was full of music & drums & swirling orange & black flags. A Gospel choir filled the cafe with praise. There was a moon bounce for kids, face painting and clowns. Ohev Shalom's beautiful, bright bookcase was full of books, and kids were picking out the ones they would take home and keep.

Mayor Butler came, (that's him, to the right of Tina, our General Manager and Moving Force). (and no, you're not seeing double -- the lady in the grey striped shirt is Tina's identical twin, Nessie)

It was a long, long road, but that made getting there all the better.

Grapes

2011-02-28T20:14:00.002-05:00

The kids at Wesley House were just angelic today. The room was crowded -- maybe 15 kids, aged 3-12, in a room 12 x 12. I was spreading books from my canvas book tote out on the table.

Not a soul complained I hadn't brought enough juice to go around, they happily ate grapes & granola bars instead. One little boy said he was so excited they were having a snack (they were hungry --most of the Moms don't have time to give the kids dinner before class).

Back in the playroom, they settled into little groups, reading or playing. A bunch of kids, maybe 4-8, clustered around me as we went through an I Spy book. Then a 6 and an 8 year old took turns reading a book about snakes. I tried to talk the 8 year old into taking The Indian in the Cupboard, but she was dubious, and someone else must have taken it while we were talking. A Mom asked for a book to read; I gave her an Artemis Fowl.

Class ended earlier than usual; the kids scampered out to their parents, clutching maybe 25-30 books.

Always, when I'm leaving work, I wonder why I'm leaving early to go schlepping down to read again. And when I'm leaving the playroom, I wish I was going every day.

Maot Chitim

2011-02-27T09:33:00.004-05:00

Maot Chitim means "wheat money" -- the custom of making sure the poor could share in Pesach. Traditionally, collections began 30 days before the start of Pesach, and were delivered to the poor a week before the holiday, so they could prepare.

A link to the Passover League is posted in the space to the left and here. Every year, they hold special Seders and make deliveries of kosher l' Pesach food to some 2,500 of our fellow Jews in the Delaware Valley. Donating to them is a wonderful way to fulfill the mitzvah.

(from FMC) Thank you note - from January

2011-02-20T15:04:00.002-05:00

Dear Friends,

Christmas was especially wonderful this year, thanks to the generous contributions of folks like you. Long after the season has passed, we will be remembering you with gratitude. Many, many thanks!!!!!

The Families at FMC Emergency Shelter
229 Norris St.
Chester, PA 19013

Helping the Community -- Where does the money go?

2011-02-15T20:45:00.000-05:00

Social Action and Chesed are funded from congregants’ donations to the Helping the Community fund. Where did the money go?

From July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010 (Ohev Shalom’s Fiscal Year), Social Action and Chesed spent $6,150. Our mission is helping the hungry and homeless.

We work closely with the Community Action Agency of Delaware County (CAADC), which runs three family shelters in Chester (Family Management Center, Wesley House, and the Colony Building) and a shelter for single adults in Upper Darby (the Life Center). We also work with Chester’s Co-op, to improve access to healthy food in Chester.

37% went for dinners at the Life Center in Upper Darby, a CAADC soup kitchen and shelter that feeds more than 150 clients every night
34% went for Martin Luther King Day activities CAADC’s family shelters, swimsuits and healthier snacks for the kids in the shelters
6% went for challas and ingredients for Chesed’s Souper Sunday
18% went to Chester’s Coop, where we’ve sponsored memberships for CAADC’s three family shelters, and for the Bernardine Center (a food pantry in western Chester)
5% represented the cost of fundraisers

What do we get back? We get thanks – there is scarcely a person that goes through the LifeCenter cafeteria line that doesn’t say “thank you for coming” to the servers. We get smiles from the kids who take home donated books, and the house monitors and LifeSkills instructors at the shelters are grateful for our help. We get to know that kids who lacked pajamas and gloves in the winter and swimsuits and towels in the summer, are getting a few bright, new things all their own.

The shelters that Ohev Shalom works are all run by Community Action Agency of Delaware County (CAADC). CAADC receives about 40% of its funding from private donors, and the rest from county, state, and US funds. The major source of federal funds is Community Services Block Grant (CDBG) program, which received $900 million in 2009. In his State of the Union address, President Obama proposed reducing the CDBG program by 50%, and state and county government funding for programs helping the poor is also being cut in these hard times. They need our help more than ever.

The State of the Union and What Community Action Agencies (CAA's) mean to us

2011-02-13T11:31:00.002-05:00

The shelters that Ohev Shalom works with --Life Center, Family Management Center, Wesley House, and the Colony Building--are all run by Community Action Agency of Delaware County, one of a thousand agencies funded in part by the Community Services Block Grant (CDBG) program. In his State of the Union address, President Obama proposed cutting the $0.9 billion received by the CDBG program by 50%.

(by Rick Cohen, in The Nonprofit Quarterly)

The President’s State of the Union address is the opposite of extemporaneous. The speech is written, revised, rehearsed, and teleprompted. Everything in the SOTU, from stirring Presidential calls to action to embarrassing flops, is intentional, not adlibbed.

So it was no mistake when President Barack Obama spoke about his plan to eviscerate the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) program, the federal funding mainstay of the anti-poverty programs carried out by the nation’s 1,100 community action agencies. It wasn’t a slip of the tongue. The President had made community action agencies the sacrificial lamb on the altar of his Republican opposition’s commitment to cut the federal budget and slow the growth of the federal deficit.

Community action agencies and their state and national associations received this like a back alley mugging; they were caught entirely by surprise. Where had this come from? Why did the President, a former Chicago community organizer, pick on anti-poverty programs rather than any of the thousands of other pieces of the federal budget to demonstrate his new budget-cutting mettle? His new chief of staff, Bill Daley, clarified the SOTU message, explaining that the President’s plan is to cut CSBG by half and make the remaining funds available to any applicant, not just community action agencies.

The plan reflected a proposal made by Independent Sector in 2009 to the Obama Administration suggesting that CSBG and some other funds be lumped together into a new fund to be administered by an independent intermediary regrantmaking organization bypassing the states and territories that now by law receive CSBG allotments and generally make them available through community action agencies and Indian tribes.

It was an interesting proposal, in that IS, at least at that time, appeared to have no community action association members or representation from the national trade associations of CAAs. IS essentially eyed the resources largely controlled by community action agencies as a potential resource for other nonprofits, even if doing that would gut the programs of many community action agencies.

How important is CSBG? The FY2010 appropriation was roughly $900 million; a one-time billion was added to CSBG through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It is the mainstay of this nation’s unfortunately insufficient and dwindling commitment to the war on poverty, a national initiative that gave birth to many nonprofits – community development corporations, community health centers, and multi-service centers – not just CAAs.

In the wake of the president’s address, Nonprofit Quarterly invited statements from various community action agency associations to explain what the President’s new plan means to them and their members. We are publishing three responses here and hope that individual community action agencies will add their comments to embellish the stories below.

There’s a reason for bringing the CAAs to this venue. Although almost all community action agencies are nonprofits – all CAAs relate to nonprofits in their communities through partnerships and joint programs and interagency referrals – many CAAs frequently define themselves by the array of programs (and federal appropriations) that they run, not by their roles and functions as mainstays of the nonprofit sector’s historic commitment to social and economic equity. There is a hint of insularity in the community action movement that induces other nonprofits to make a grab for their money without much or any compunction.

It’s probably high time for community action agencies to speak to the nonprofit sector at large, to remind the national nonprofit infrastructure about what community action agencies deliver to the nation’s poorest communities and families through CSBG funds, and to re-connect community action agencies to their historic foothold as the dedicated community-based anti-poverty wing of the U.S. nonprofit sector. Here are three statements offered to Nonprofit Quarterly that we share with the readers of the Cohen Report that make the connections explicit and compelling.

From Denise Harlow, CEO, New York State Community Action Association

Did I hear the President of the United States correctly in his State of the Union? “So tonight, I am proposing that starting this year, we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years. This would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade . . . This freeze will require painful cuts . . . I've proposed cuts to things I care deeply about, like community action programs . . . I'm willing to eliminate whatever we can honestly afford to do without. But let's make sure that we're not doing it on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens.”

I’m confused. Community Action Programs (CAPs) serve our most vulnerable citizens and work every day in communities to give hope and opportunity to those that society has failed. In New York, we have a network of 52 CAPs, 50 of which are nonprofit, community-based organizations. In addition New York City invests in 200 nonprofits to serve the most vulnerable in the five boroughs. Last year 750,000 New Yorkers got help from CAPs in New York State in urban, suburban and rural communities.

The president’s proposal would drastically cut Community Services Block Grants, money that funds many Community Action Programs.

CAPs are about maximum feasible participation. Decisions on what to fund through CSBG are made at the local level, not by a “funding source” from above. Why is the administration losing faith in communities to make their own decisions about the needs in their own communities? Why praise Sargent Shriver for his life’s work on Saturday and then propose dismantling the network he founded to help families domestically on Tuesday?

CSBG is the only funding source that allows localities to address new needs quickly because they can shift priorities and CSBG funding quickly. For instance, Community Action Agencies were engaged in foreclosure prevention before the government even recognized a recession was upon us. Stimulus funds needed to be infused into low-income communities quickly and nimble CAPs around the U.S. responded quickly and used stimulus funds to create jobs, prevent homelessness, open new career paths, and provide emergency services. CAPs quickly adapted to new reporting requirements and were held accountable through state and federal oversight.

CAPs do their work in partnership with thousands of nonprofits, community groups, school districts, funders, and volunteers every year. In New York State, 3.5 million volunteer hours were invested in Community Action last year; more than 1,700 partnerships were facilitated with nonprofits (more than 600 of which were with faith-based organizations); products and services were purchased by CAPs from local businesses from Buffalo to Plattsburgh to Montauk.

Our neighbors believe in us enough to give their most valuable asset, time; our nonprofit and faith-based partners entrust us with their clients and resources; and our local businesses see us as good customers. So why is the President pulling his support?

President Johnson’s War on Poverty is won every day in Community Action Programs across this country. When a 23-year-old mother of two receives her Certified Nursing Assistant Certificate, when a single dad secures a used car that he can use to get to work, when parents access overnight child care and can get more hours at work, when a family finds they can access food stamps to stretch their family budget just a bit further, and when working parents can get their taxes done for free and access all the tax credits for which they are eligible, the War on Poverty is won. Let’s hope that President Obama will change course and live up to Johnson’s Legacy.

For more information visit theNew York State Community Action Associationwebsite.

From Lana Ross, executive director, Iowa Community Action Association

After grieving the loss of Sargent Shriver two weeks ago, my grief came back full force when, during the State of the Union address, President Obama said “I’ve proposed cuts to things I care deeply about, like community action programs”. This statement would seem to end the dream and the legacy, of Sargent Shriver; just days after our nation celebrated his long and productive life, within hours of his being laid to rest.

Sargent Shriver led this country’s effort to end poverty. He believed that organizing the local community to work to alleviate poverty was the best approach and based upon that belief he designed Community Action; a network of more than a thousand local agencies that each day are, as their mission states, “helping people, changing lives.” Shriver saw and believed in the unending potential of low-income children and families and at the same time, grasped the concept that by organizing local communities to tackle these issues we help communities to see their potential. This, then, is how the country fulfills the promise of helping all people see and realize their potential and abilities.

Today, Iowa has 18 local community action agencies that provide a range of programs and services that bring opportunity and hope to children, families and communities. Every one of these agencies is unique; molded and shaped over four and a half decades to reach for Shriver’s vision by responding to the individual needs and opportunities inherent in the communities they serve. And their work would be reduced and harmed by the proposed cut in Community Services Block Grants that the president proposed in his State of the Union address.

One example of the work of these agencies is the Start Sooner, Stay Longer, Keep Learning Project in Marshalltown, Iowa. CSBG funding provided the catalyst for a community to move from resignation regarding poverty and poor academic outcomes to a revitalization of hope (there’s that word, again) and, subsequently, action.

The program targeted an elementary school that had an 82 percent free and reduced lunch rate and was the fifth poorest school in the state. The staff and volunteers of the community action agency knocked on every door in the neighborhood – more than a thousand – and found every child they could under the age of five. Every parent was told about the early childhood opportunities in the community.

Across all sectors of the community – individuals, parents, businesses, churches, schools and non-profits – have joined this effort and have become committed to all children in the neighborhood receiving a top notch education and all schools and families receiving the support they need to make that happen. Preschool classrooms are now in the elementary building and pre-K enrollment is up. Scores of parents and their children attend family resource center nights. Parents of children under the age of three participate in reading circles and receive books and educational materials from the “Little Ones Need Words” campaign. Parent leadership programs have begun in the neighborhood. New resources from the community are being made available to the project. And test scores are beginning to move in the direction all had hoped they would.

This transformation from resignation to action was made possible because of CSBG and because there was an agency with a 45-plus-year history in the community that could gain trust, facilitate growing community knowledge and provide structures for action. That doesn’t happen overnight. These antipoverty efforts are marathons, not sprints.

Another example of how CSBG funds can bring hope and opportunity can be seen in this testimonial from Mayor Leigh A. Rekow, of Postville, Iowa: “Northeast Iowa Community Action Corporation’s Family Service worker was instrumental in assisting our Agri-Processors work force following the raid of May 2008. Many workers were left in our City without an income. With the funding from the CSBG program through the NEICAC, Letha [the Family Service worker] worked diligently to provide much needed assistance for helping to pay their utility bills. She and the City of Postville worked together many times to assist those unable to pay their utility bills. She was a compassionate and caring person while working many hours with people who were scared and struggling.” This is the norm for Community Action Programs, and we are proud of that our agencies deliver throughout Iowa.
The challenges facing us now require bold steps from Congress. One of those steps is choosing to continue to invest in the Community Service Block Grant to help secure the long term health of our families and our communities. Community action agencies have worked for decades at the local level to provide economic and social opportunities to our community’s most vulnerable and to alleviate the conditions of poverty. These community-based efforts are needed now more than ever.

For more information visit theIowa Community Action Association website.

From Gretchen Knowlton, Special Assistant to the Executive Director, National Association for State Community Services Programs

When is an economic recovery not really a recovery at all? It’s when the poorest Americans, those disproportionately affected by the Great Recession, don’t, well, recover. In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama pledged not to make spending cuts “on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens." But in singling out community action programs as a sacrificial lamb for the new House of Representatives, he’s about to do just that.

While there’s never a good time to balance the budget on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens, it’s hard to think of a worse time. State budgets are a mess, and aren’t going to buck up anytime soon. The rising stock market, increasing consumer confidence, and an improving federal revenue picture haven’t corresponded to a recovery of the states’ fiscal health. The ARRA money that plugged the holes is gone, and the boats are taking on water again.

But just what are community action programs? You could work for years in this business and still not know. Community action programs are a network of over a thousand local agencies that offer a full spectrum of wraparound services to help vulnerable Americans access employment, education, and housing.

On the chopping block is the Community Services Block Grant network, which funds these programs to the tune of $700 million annually. The administration proposes to cut that number in half. This would seem counter-productive because the Block Grant system is the only federal program exclusively focused on reducing poverty. It’s a commonsense and effective strategy that uses a powerful mix of federal, state, and local resources to address the problems that lead to systemic poverty. While a lot of programs focus on disparate issues, CSBG is effective because it allows states to strategically target the full range of root causes on a local level. In FY 2009, with some extra juice from ARRA funds, CSBG helped 20.7 million Americans seize economic opportunities.

So why would the Obama administration propose cuts to a proven program that’s actually working? The program isn’t new, it’s not sexy, and its very comprehensiveness makes it hard to define handily in three sentences or fewer. Also, it’s not competitive. States have to fork over funds to some of the same agencies every year with limited tools to enforce accountability. That’s a concern, but not an unmanageable one. Perhaps more importantly, unlike some of the flashier programs the administration loves, the CSBG network doesn’t generate terabytes of data about itself every day to justify its own existence.

But while the numbers on community action programs might not be as granular as we’d like to see, a few broad brushstrokes still paint a compelling picture, and it’s not pretty. Right off the bat, for example, the proposed cut will impact and disrupt an $11.9 billion CSBG network (pdf). This is good for business? Then there are the 681,000 people who obtained stable employment over the last five years with the help of community action agencies. Don’t count on a similar number over the next five years.

FREE DELIVERY | Click Here to sign up for THE NONPROFIT NEWSWIRE, Delivered Daily >>

A ripple effect will spread to other government programs, and ultimately to other non-profits. The beauty of the state-administered CSBG network is that it provides a broad strategic framework and creates a seamless, efficient, and effective delivery system for what would otherwise be a disparate collection of isolated State and Federal programs. So cuts in community action programs mean reduced capacity for other State and Federal programs - most notably, the Weatherization Assistance Program, which works to improve the energy efficiency of low-income homes using the most advanced technologies in the housing industry.

The Community Action network has such expansive reach that the aftershocks from any cut in CSBG community action programs will be felt by nonprofits across the nation. Other nonprofits will experience increased demand when community action programs are forced to eliminate services, or perhaps close their doors.

Nearly 160,000 nonprofits, businesses, schools, and other community organizations are touched by Community Action every day. In some communities, Community Action is the only place for vulnerable Americans to turn. These are troubling scenarios, at a time when nonprofits across the country are already stretched to their limits due to increased need for services, state budget cuts, and reduced fundraising brought on by the financial crisis.

Today on NPR - LA neighborhood starved for healthy food options

2011-02-08T21:16:00.003-05:00

by Mandalit del Barco

Los Angeles is a food lover's paradise — unless you happen to live in the Ramona Gardens housing project. Other parts of the city have organic farmers markets and natural food emporiums, but this neighborhood, surrounded by freeways, train tracks, and industrial warehouses, is isolated from all that.

"From here, you look all around, there's no market," says Olga Perez, a 48-year-old single mother who lives in the projects.

Unlike some other low-income neighborhoods, there's no glut of burger joints or taco trucks; there aren't even any liquor stores selling milk and bread.

Perez found out how the other half lives during a trip across town to upscale Santa Monica, where she visited a local supermarket.

There, she was amazed by "the apples, the strawberries, the vegetables, the squash, everything," Perez says. "I wanted so bad to just bite the fruit right then and there as soon as I seen it. It really opened my eyes. ... I didn't even know there were markets out there like that. And I didn't know there was organic food. I didn' t even know what that was."

Limited Local Choices

Ramona Gardens is in a part of East L.A. that's never been able to attract a big supermarket for at least two reasons: People who live here don't have much money, and the area has a reputation for gang violence. People depend on the lone convenience store that survived looting during the 1992 L.A. riots. But Perez says choices are limited at the market, with costly food and products often out of date.

"I bought sour cream that was all green inside," she says. "I bought a gallon of orange juice that was ... as soon as I opened the lid, all green with fur. I've bought Rice-a-Roni, and when I opened the box, it was maggots in there."

When told the neighbors complain about the food, Karim Raza, one of the market's two managers, acts surprised. "The food? No, I don't think so," he says. "Right now you can check: nothing. Nothing's expired now. "

Then he says if he does see that food is out of date, he throws it out. He points out that the market has new owners and now has a meat counter and small produce section. But the other manager, Lori Ruiz, says they can't offer everything a big supermarket can. And she says they have to charge more than the grocery chains.

"In the big markets, they always have a promotion, and special prices," Ruiz says. "They buy by pallets, and we don't buy by the pallets because we don't sell that much."

The neighborhood has just one local street vendor who brings a few fresh fruits and vegetables. But residents like Perez say the merchant comes during the day when they're at work. So she and the others depend on the nearest supermarket, which is a bus ride away.

A Trek To The Market

Nearly three miles away, at the Superior grocery store, Perez finds better choices. But she can buy only what she can carry back home in her arms. Instead of a head of lettuce, she buys a small bag. She can't buy more than a few cans, and she can manage only half a gallon of milk.

"That's what really kills me, when there's a special and I can't get it," she says.

The people of Ramona Gardens are in a tough situation, says University of Southern California professor Cheryl Resnick, who runs a weekly free clinic for families in the community. Resnick says their poor food choices are taking a toll: a preponderance of hypertension, early-onset diabetes and obesity.

"I had to buy a scale that goes up to 500 pounds because we had three children come in that exceeded the 250-pound weight limit of our clinic scale," says Resnick. "When you have a 9-year-old who weighs 150 and when you have a 14-year-old that weighs over 250, you know you have a problem."

Now, with help from a community group called LA Voice PICO, Perez and some of her neighbors are speaking out and lobbying politicians to help them get more healthful food options.

They recently won a small victory when Superior grocery store district manager Marco Sosa brought back free shuttle van rides for customers, something he dropped last year because of cost.

"As long as they spend $40 of shopping, they'll qualify to get into the van," Sosa says.

Perez is glad for the shuttle but says that's just a partial solution. Her goal is to get a real supermarket in Ramona Gardens. She says her mother's early death from diabetes still haunts her, and she wants something better for herself, her family and her neighbors: fresh, organic foods, like the rest of L.A.

"It doesn't matter if we live in a low-income area," says Perez. "We all deserve to eat the fresh fruits that nature provided for us. We shouldn't be divided."

From the January Inky - Section of Lower Northeast sees Money Erosion

2011-02-06T19:51:00.002-05:00

January 03, 2011|By Michael Matza and John Duchneskie, Inquirer Staff Writers

Awake at 4 a.m., Rodney Walker dressed for a bitter-cold morning and scrambled to be first in line at Feast of Justice, the free food cupboard inside St. John's Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Lower Northeast.

Exhausted by the stress of needing handouts to feed his family, the 57-year-old part-time security guard set his cell phone to chirp every hour so he wouldn't fall into deep sleep in line. By the time the doors opened at 9 on a recent day, more than 150 unemployed, retired, or working-poor residents of the brick rowhouse neighborhoods near the church were assembled behind him, enveloped in clouds of frozen breath.

To be sure, there are much poorer parts of Philadelphia. Average household income here is about $50,000. In Fairhill, Philadelphia's poorest section, about five miles southwest, average annual income is just under $18,000.

But the Oxford Circle/Castor-Tacony/Wissinoming-Mayfair swath of the Lower Northeast, formerly one of the city's most stable sections, had the greatest increase in the percentage of people living in poverty over the last decade - up a whopping 110 percent since 1999, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released in December.

In 1999, 10,323 people in the swath lived in poverty, out of a total population of 99,011; in 2009, 21,695 people lived in poverty out of a total population of 114,287. Under federal guidelines, a family of four is living in poverty if household income is less than $22,050. For a family of eight, the figure is $37,010.

Sociologists, community-development officials, and those who organize feeding programs say the surge is driven by at least six factors:

An influx of comparatively poor Latinos and African Americans who are replacing a predominantly white middle class.

Elderly people, albeit a decreasing share of the total population, moving from work to the fixed incomes of pensions and Social Security.

A significant rise in residents 21 and younger, many of whom are school-age African American and Latino children, who do not have jobs.

An economic base more dependent on low-wage service-industry employment, both inside and outside these neighborhoods, which once offered manufacturing jobs.

An unemployment rate that more than doubled - from 5.6 percent in 1999 to 12.8 percent today. In 1999, unemployment in the Lower Northeast was about half the citywide average; today, it is half a point higher than the city average.

People with jobs being forced to work reduced hours.

Walker, who is African American, knows the story firsthand. He is a Vietnam War veteran who worked for three years as a Philadelphia police officer - too briefly to earn a pension. He says he quit the force after being traumatized by the confrontation between police and the MOVE Organization in 1985.

He moved to the Lower Northeast five years ago from North Philadelphia. He lives on Cottman Avenue in a rowhouse owned by his wife, Charlleen, who works nights as an office cleaner. Also at home are her 14-year-old son, Anthony, and 19-year-old daughter, Kelly, both in high school.

After he left the Police Department, Walker did odd jobs for a few years, then worked for a company that provides game-day security at Lincoln Financial Field and other sports venues. About two years ago, the company downsized and Walker was reduced to about one day a week. He estimated the family income at under $25,000.

"Between the children and the rising cost of everything," he said, "we are barely making ends meet."

The Christmas turkey and bag of groceries he received at the church that morning - potatoes, canned carrots, honey cake, corn muffin mix, and Stove Top Stuffing - was to serve as the family's holiday meal.

David Bartelt, of Temple University's Department of Geography and Urban Studies, is an expert on the demographics of Philadelphia's neighborhoods.

"What you are seeing," he said, is "fixed incomes and declining wages" coming together. He called it "a recipe for sliding down further."

In the 2000 census, said Reese Hartey, board chairman of the Mayfair Community Development Corp., Mayfair was identified as having the largest senior population in the city.

"That skews the count" of economically disadvantaged people, he said, "because a lot of seniors, unfortunately, live below the poverty line."

The surge in poverty has other sources, too.

"We have professionals who are middle-aged who were hit by this financial crisis and are in trouble," Hartey said. "We have a segment of our population that moved here . . . because they did not have the means to remain in gentrifying neighborhoods. You can get a very large house in Mayfair for a reasonable price. These new members of our community are not as well off as those who lived here in the past."

The racial makeup of the Oxford Circle-Tacony-Mayfair swath has changed, too.

In 2000, 82 percent of the population was white; today it is 59 percent white. The Hispanic population nearly doubled - from 7 to 13 percent.

"That's a pretty striking jump," Bartelt said. "And we know from other data that Philadelphia's Hispanic population has tended to track poorly in terms of income."

Izzy Colon, director of the Mayor's Office of Multicultural Affairs, said the influx of Latinos into the Lower Northeast was "a natural migratory phenomenon . . . a modest working class moving north and east, and lower-wage workers settling in."

Two forces driving that, he said, are "established Hispanics looking for more stable communities, where there may be less crime and better social offerings, like libraries and rec centers. The other is foreign-born Hispanics.

"We are seeing more minorities moving in, which is nice for the diversity of the neighborhood," Hartey said, although he acknowledged it has had economic consequences.

At Solomon Solis-Cohen Elementary, a school for kindergarten through sixth grade on Horrocks Street, across Roosevelt Boulevard from the church, African Americans, Asians, and Latinos make up about 76 percent of the population of 1,100 students. Seventy-three percent of the student body is categorized as "economically disadvantaged," another way to say poor.

"We know there are a lot of people out there hurting," said Larry Thum, volunteer food coordinator for Feast of Justice, which serves 400 to 600 families a month. Thum, born in Tacony, is a chef at the Dining Car restaurant, a Northeast Philadelphia institution. His father worked his whole career - 30 years - as a supermarket butcher.

The houses on Thum's street in Tacony used to be owner-occupied. Since 2000, at least six of them have become rentals, he said, bringing more turnover.

Manufacturing and public-service jobs used to be mainstays of the area when it was home to many police officers, firefighters and blue-collar laborers with stable union jobs.

"Now, it's a rapidly changing neighborhood," Thum said, "bringing in people who don't have the job security and incomes of the people who left."

Julie Zaebst, policy-center manager for the 10-year-old Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger, said the changes were particularly hard on longtime residents in proud neighborhoods.

"We are seeing more people unemployed over the long term, and the consequences of that on family finances. Primary breadwinners are forced to take jobs that just don't support their families at the level they need to. More and more folks who haven't sought [food cupboard] assistance in the past are needing it now," she said.

"It's an explosion of need," she said, in an area still better off than much of the city.

Contact staff writer Michael Matza at 215-854-2541 or mmatza@phillynews.com.

Candy Berlin's wonderful soup

2011-01-23T19:46:00.002-05:00

Below is the 2011 version of Candy Berlin's vegetarian vegetable soup -- a classic now for years at MLK day at Ohev Shalom

8 large onions
3 lbs. carrots
3 mid-to large-size turnips
1 bunch celery
1 bunch parsley
1 - 2 lbs. collard greens (or a large bunch)
1 head garlic
8 bay leaves
brown lentils, 3/4 lb.
1 lb. whole wheat pasta, either spirals or other small type
2 containers TJ Butternut Squash Soup
2 containers TJ vegetable stock
2 cans tomato paste

1 can garbanzo beans

* I like the onions, carrots, and turnips cut to medium, spoon-able sized chunks.

* I suggest starting the soup by coating bottoms of 2 large stock pots with sufficient olive oil and pre-heating, then add and saute the above items. Towards the end of the saute, I add the diced garlic.

* I would add the collards (washed and mouth-sized chop) next. Give a saute for a few minutes, then raise heat, add water, 8 (or more) cups for each pot. Bring to light boil, then turn down heat, add bay leaves and kosher salt.

* Time all other ingredients as needed. I usually use all the parsley, discarding only toughest stems. I use a rough dice for it and add it sometime during 2nd half of cooking process.

* Cook everything but the pasta, cover the pot -- it keeps fine overnight on the stove. Add pasta the next morning, as you're reheating the soup

This is what angels look like

2011-01-06T21:44:00.005-05:00

Serving dinner last Sunday at the LifeCenter in Upper Darby with an especially great crew.

In today's NYT: inequality and illness

2011-01-02T11:31:00.001-05:00

John Steinbeck observed that “a sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.”

That insight, now confirmed by epidemiological studies, is worth bearing in mind at a time of such polarizing inequality that the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans possess a greater collective net worth than the bottom 90 percent.

There’s growing evidence that the toll of our stunning inequality is not just economic but also is a melancholy of the soul. The upshot appears to be high rates of violent crime, high narcotics use, high teenage birthrates and even high rates of heart disease.

That’s the argument of an important book by two distinguished British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. They argue that gross inequality tears at the human psyche, creating anxiety, distrust and an array of mental and physical ailments — and they cite mountains of data to support their argument.

To read more, click here

In yesterday's NYT: Little Children & Poverty

2010-12-26T14:40:00.002-05:00

Suffer the Little Children

By CHARLES M. BLOW

As we celebrate this Christmas with the sound of tiny feet rushing toward a tree to rip open presents, let’s take a moment to consider the children less fortunate — the growing number who live in poverty in this country.

According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, 42 percent of American children live in low-income homes and about a fifth live in poverty. It gets worse. The number of children living in poverty has risen 33 percent since 2000. For perspective, the child population of the country over all increased by only about 3 percent over that time. And, according to a 2007 Unicef report on child poverty, the U.S. ranked last among 24 wealthy countries.

This is a national disgrace.

Yet the reaction to this issue in some quarters is still tangled in class and race: no more welfare to black and brown people who’ve made poor choices and haven’t got the gumption to work their way out of them. The truth is, neither the problem nor the solutions are that simple.

Yes, the percentage of blacks, Hispanics and American Indians living in low-income homes is about twice that of whites and Asians. This raises unpleasant cultural questions that must be addressed. But that’s not the whole story. Despite the imbalance, white children are still the largest group of low-income children.

Furthermore, the British may have created a road map for us that dramatically reduces child poverty while not relying solely on handouts. A report released this month by Jane Waldfogel of Columbia University and the London School of Economics paints a fascinating portrait of how smart policies and targeted investments in that country have produced stellar results.

In 1994, about 30 percent of British children were below the country’s poverty threshold. Fifteen years later, that number has fallen to 12 percent. Over that same time, the number of American children below our poverty line slipped a bit then rose again as the economy turned sour. It is now approaching its 1994 level.

How did the British do it? It was a three-pronged attack.

First, they established a welfare-to-work program and a national minimum wage (which, at about $9, leaves ours wanting) and instituted tax reductions and credits for low-income workers. They made work more attractive, and people responded. The report said, “Lone-parent employment increased by 12 percentage points — from 45 percent to 57 percent — between 1997 and 2008.”

Second, they raised child welfare benefits, especially for families with small children, whether or not the parents worked.

Third, they invested directly in the lives of young children with things like doubling paid maternity leave, providing universal preschool, assisting with child care and allowing parents of young children to request flexible work schedules.

The British example shows that child poverty is not an intractable problem. If we can rise above the impulse to punish parents and focus on protecting children, we might replicate Britain’s success.

In today's Inky: Nutrition in a Supermarket Desert

2010-12-23T20:17:00.002-05:00

One in an occasional series
By Alfred Lubrano

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Eying a potato at Frederick Douglass Christian School in Chester one day in the fall, a first-grader called it a “tomato.” Another said he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen one before.

“How do you spell ‘nasty?’” asked Ja’Niyah Van, 6, tasting a baked sweet potato for the first time.

In Chester, the kids can be forgiven for not recognizing or appreciating fresh food — there are no supermarkets, and just two stores in which residents can buy potatoes or any unprocessed foods in the entire city of around 30,000 people.

Food experts from Greener Partners, a nonprofit from Malvern that teaches children about seasonal, local foods, show up regularly at Douglass to educate the children about produce.

As a result, the kids can now speak with their families about potatoes, arugula, fresh spinach and the bounty of the earth.

Eyeing a potato at Frederick Douglass Christian School in Chester one day in the fall, a first grader called it a "tomato." Another said he wasn't sure he'd ever seen one before.

"How do you spell 'nasty?' " asked Ja'Niyah Van, 6, tasting a baked sweet potato for the first time.

No one can blame the pupils for not recognizing or appreciating fresh food. There isn't a single supermarket in Chester. A person could travel end to end in the city of 30,000 people and find just two stores that sell potatoes or any other fresh foods.

These days, the students learn what produce looks like from Greener Partners, a Malvern nonprofit whose experts come in regularly to teach about seasonal and local foods. As a result, the children can now speak with their families about potatoes, arugula, fresh spinach, and the bounty of the earth.

What most of them can't do is buy or eat any of the food.

Chester is part of the First Congressional District, the second-hungriest in the United States behind the Bronx and the poorest place in Pennsylvania, according to a national poll, one of the largest ever taken. The city is at the western edge of the oddly drawn district, which snakes east along the Delaware River into parts of Northeast Philadelphia.

Once a bustling center of U.S. shipbuilding, and renowned as the city where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. went to seminary, Chester lost industry and half its population in the years after World War II.

Without work, the city imploded. As in other postindustrial Pennsylvania cities, jobs disappeared while urban pathologies accrued.

When poverty increased, many businesses moved away, including supermarkets. Chester has become a so-called supermarket desert, Sahara-like in its dearth of Acmes, Genuardis, and ShopRites.

Such stores, generally 60,000 to 100,000 square feet, require a volume of traffic that can't be generated in Chester, said James Turner, director of economic development for the Chester Economic Development Authority.

Instead, Chester has about 100 corner and convenience stores, takeout places, bars and grills, and one or two sit-down restaurants within its approximately five square miles, according to a survey by Marina Barnett and Chad Freed of Widener University in Chester. The investigators created a food map of the city to catalogue resources.

"This is not healthy food being sold in corner stores," said Barnett, a professor of social work. "It's heavily processed, meant to be on a shelf forever, and more expensive than supermarket food. It's just terrible."

Of the two stores that sell produce, Barnett said, one is a tiny farmer's market with limited selections that's open only three days a week. The other is essentially a run-down, large corner store with a few vegetables. (There's a co-op in town, but it requires a $200 buy-in, which most residents cannot afford.)

"I wouldn't buy the food," Barnett said as she walked through the larger store one day. It offered a few fruits and vegetables, frozen meat, hot dogs, and chicken parts along with five aisles of dry and canned goods.

Both stores are downtown, where few people feel comfortable shopping, Barnett said.

"I don't shop downtown very much anymore because it's not safe," said Pat Pringle, 60, a lifelong Chester resident. "And there's not too much to buy, and the produce isn't that good."

The nearest real supermarkets are outside Chester, one to two miles away, said Freed, who teaches environmental science.

Because 30 percent of the population is too poor to own cars, that makes shopping for good food difficult, Barnett said her research has shown.

"People here don't venture out much," said Barnett. As a result, "many have a complete disconnect from good food. They don't know how to shop for it, how to keep it, or how to cook it. There's a lot of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese for dinner."

Lack of access to healthy food contributes to obesity, diabetes and hypertension.

Edward Emmett, an expert in environmental medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, has shown that instances of obesity and overweight in Chester children ages 2 through 17 are roughly twice those of similarly aged children throughout the rest of Delaware County.

"We are not doing well in Chester," he said.

Bill Clark, executive director of Philabundance, the area's largest hunger-relief agency, put it another way: "This food desert is a bottomless hole of need."

To help, Clark has been planning to open a new sort of food pantry in Chester, which he says would be the only one of its kind in the United States: a nonprofit supermarket filled with fresh food.

Unlike every other American pantry, this one would charge people nominal amounts for food. Pantries normally distribute donated foods to those in need without charge.

But "there isn't enough donated food to fill this hole," Clark said. So he would have to stock his shelves with food that he buys and pass the cost onto his clients, at an extremely low mark-up. Clark hasn't figured precisely how much of a discount there will be.

The problem now is money. Such a store - planned to be 12,000 to 14,000 square feet - would cost $4 million to create. Clark said he has half that now, crediting U.S. Rep. Bob Brady (D., Pa.) for raising $2 million, mostly from state money. Brady represents the First Congressional District.

Brady said in an interview that he is trying to get federal money for the project, and has even spoken to Michelle Obama about it. She has made childhood obesity and supermarket deserts a priority, and he hopes she will use her influence to steer some U.S. Department of Agriculture money toward Chester.

We're trying to make Chester a nondesert," Brady said. "All people there have is junk food to eat."

If funding is secured - "which could be tomorrow or months from now," Clark said - construction at the already-chosen site would take six to eight months, he added. Clark declined to disclose the location.

"We think this is the answer," Clark said. "But we need the stars to align. And we need cash."

A city of 'used-to-bes'

Chester Police Officer Robert Jones grew up in the city, which he refers to in "used-to-bes": "That used to be a jewelry store," "that used to be a bank."

The 46-year-old officer with the city's Weed and Seed program - a statewide initiative combining community service with law enforcement - rides through Chester these days looking numb.

"There's so much potential here," said Jones, "but so much sadness."

On a drive one afternoon, he eyed the unemployed young people in the streets. "Most of our citizens have problems getting jobs because they have records" from selling drugs and the frequent violence that plagues Chester, Jones said. "You got people out here who can't pass urine tests or can't fill out applications."

This was the case with Harrah's Chester Casino & Racetrack, which was precluded by state law from hiring as many residents as originally planned because so many had records, said Dave Schiocchetti, executive director of the Economic Development Authority.

Driving past a corner store, Jones saw a 15-year-old girl he knew on the sidewalk wearing Elmo pajamas and holding her baby. She was screaming at another teenager. "You have a baby with you," Jones told her. "Stop that!"

The girl quieted quickly. Jones said she is a special-needs student with anger issues.

"They make stupid mistakes, but there's no one to guide them and no dads, 'cause they're locked up," he said. In a small and isolated place like Chester, Jones said, many men have children with different women, and kinship lines are not readily known.

Young men involved in shootings sometimes learn afterward that they were related to the victim. "I've seen kids find out afterward and yell out, 'Oh, I just shot my cousin,'" Jones said. "Or, some kids wind up dating their half-sisters or brothers because they don't know."

Driving further, Jones stopped in front of an empty field and stared in anger. It was to be the site of a supermarket, but the deal fell through and now the space is used as a remote parking lot for the new PPL Park soccer stadium.

"Most of our kids can't afford to go to soccer games," Jones said.

Hampered by late-night shootings and ubiquitous poverty, Chester officials try to improve the city. For example, appealing suburban-style houses were recently built in a violent section of the city.

But problems persist, including environmental woes, such as air pollution from diesel exhaust on I-95 that exacerbates asthma - already too prevalent because of indoor pollutants deriving from roaches, mites and mold, according to Emmett.

Chester has had some recent successes, including adding 2,000 jobs in the last five years. Many of these were low-wage positions at the casino and the soccer stadium, officials said. Despite this, census figures released last week show that the poverty rate in the city increased from 27.5 percent to 36 percent between 2000 and 2009.

Turner said the dismal economy may have accounted for the surge in poverty.

Unemployment is around 16 percent, according to Turner. That's nearly twice the 8.6 statewide unemployment rate.

What's more, between 2005 and 2009, Chester's median household income fell from $33,087 to $24,978, the lowest in the Pennsylvania suburbs - though not the lowest in the First Congressional District, which is in the Fairhill section of Philadelphia at $17,754.

Finally, while the Department of Agriculture reports that 15 percent of Americans are food-insecure - unable to purchase enough food for a healthy life - in Chester nearly 24 percent report not having enough food to eat, according to a Philabundance survey in July.

"Back in the day, this was a happening town," Jones said, stopping near a clock at run-down DeShong Park, stuck on 6:42 since no one remembers when. "It used to be great."

Hungry children

At a Chester Housing Authority facility that houses a learning center, Kim Jennings, 49, a volunteer, said she knew so many hungry children.

"I know what hunger looks like in children - the depression in their eyes," said Jennings, a mother of five, who fled a middle-class life in Chester when her former husband became abusive. On the run for a while in Virginia, Jennings was homeless some of the time.

"Your kids are thin but they don't complain," said Jennings, starting to cry. "They don't want to shame you for not providing. And if you see your mom is struggling and you tell the teacher you're hungry, there's a fear you'll be taken out of your parent's house.

"To this day, my children can't look at peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."

In the west end of Chester later that evening, about two dozen people came in from the cold to the warmth and light of the food pantry at the Bernardine Center, a Catholic advocacy group housed in a small two-story building on Ninth Street.

Jennings' parental lament was echoed in the tiny, immaculate pantry.

" 'Mom, I'm hungry,' " my kids constantly tell me," said Valerie Howard, 47, a laid-off housekeeper and married mother of two children, ages 14 and 16.

"I have knocked on neighbors' doors, asking, 'Do you have some bread?' " said Howard, tired-looking with angry eyes. "You beg if you have to. You beg for your children."

Howard's husband works as a short-order cook, earning too much to qualify for food stamps but not enough to pay all the food bills, she said. "I have difficulty saying to the children, 'Sorry, guys, there's nothing.' It's heartbreaking."

Meanwhile, need in Chester grows unabated. The number of people visiting the pantry is up from 291 families last Thanksgiving to 341 this year, said MaryLou Laboy, food pantry manager.

She said she wanted to do more, and sometimes gave clients her own furniture and dishes just to help.

"People who aren't poor tell me the poor are just people who want everything for free," Laboy said. "But I tell them, come to Chester.

"You can't understand this until you walk in their shoes. Then you'll know."

Contact staff writer Alfred Lubrano at 215-854-4969 or alubrano@phillynews.com.

Chester Upland School of the Arts - on NBC Philadelphia

2010-12-20T05:16:00.002-05:00

Singing Brings Hope, Learning to Chester Kids
NBCPhiladelphia.com - Dawn Timmeney

Dr. John Alston is using music to inspire and empower kids in the Chester Upland School District. It's part of the program at the Alston's private/public Chester Upland School of the Arts. Click here to see more

Pajamas & books at Family Management Center

2010-12-18T15:46:00.004-05:00

We brought the books and pajamas over to Family Management Center on Monday (along with gloves, and books for the parents), and had a little party, with pizza and cupcakes. It was a bitterly cold, windy evening, but the tutoring space was warm & cozy. The families were very, very appreciative -- some kids had no pjs. It was so good to be able to bring them warm things. Many, many thanks to Elayne DeSimone for coordinating, to Mel Skalina (who helped wrap) and to everyone who donated.

In today's NYT: America's most vulnerable

2010-12-11T09:37:00.001-05:00

by Charles M. Blow

As we begin inevitably wrangling over budget cuts and other austerity measures, we must not lose sight of the plight of the most vulnerable among us — the ones who have little say and few choices: the nation’s poorest children.

The gap between those children and the rest of our children is already unacceptably wide, and it can’t afford to get wider. In fact, a report entitled “The Children Left Behind,” released by Unicef last Friday, examined inequality in well-being on a wide range of measures among children in 24 of the world’s richest countries. America’s rankings were among the worst.

Parents play a large role in this inequality, but so do policies. As the report wisely asks, “Is there a point beyond which falling behind is not inevitable but policy susceptible, not unavoidable but unacceptable, not inequality but inequity?”

I say absolutely.

To read more, click here

Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society - Wish List

2010-12-05T14:41:00.001-05:00

Refugee Resettlement
WISH LIST
HIAS and Council collects furniture and household items to set up apartments for newly arrived refugee families in the Philadelphia region. Donations (except for toiletry and disposable items) need not be new, but must be clean and functional. Essential items are in bold.
SPECIAL REQUESTS
Fans
Air conditioners
FURNITURE
Chests of drawers
Coffee tables
Dressers
End tables
Kitchen chairs
Kitchen tables
Mattresses, box springs, and bed frames (twin, full, and queen)
Shelving units
Small sofas and loveseats
BABY ITEMS
Baby wipes
Car seats
Cribs
Diapers
Strollers
CLEANING SUPPLIES
All-purpose cleaners
Brooms and dust pans
Buckets
Dish soap
Laundry baskets
Laundry detergent
Mops
Paper towels
Rubber gloves
Scouring pads
Scouring powder
Sponges
Toilet bowl brush with holder
Trash bags
Wash basins
Wastebaskets and trash cans
GENERAL ITEMS
Alarm clocks
Backpacks
Calculators
Calendars
Dictionaries
Envelopes
Notebooks and writing pads
Pencils and pencil sharpeners
Pens
Umbrellas
Wall clocks
HOME IMPROVEMENT ITEMS
Clothes hangers
Duct tape
Picture hangers
Scotch tape
Storage tubs
Tool kits (hammer, screwdriver, wrench, measuring tape)
KITCHEN ITEMS
Aluminum foil
Baking dishes
Bowls
Can openers
Chinese chef's knives/meat cleavers
Cooking spoons
Cups and glasses
Cutting boards
Dish racks
Flatware (forks, knives, spoons)
Frying pans
Kitchen knives
Kitchen matches
Mixing bowls
Mortar and pestal sets
Oven mitts and potholders
Plastic food storage containers
Plastic wrap
Plates
Rice cookers (6-cup sizes and up)
Last updated 9/3/2010
Sauce pans
Serving utensils
Spatulas
Stockpots
Tea kettles
LIGHTING, APPLIANCES, & ELECTRONICS
CFL bulbs
Computers
DVD players
Extension cords
Fans
Flashlights
Lamps
Microwave ovens
Portable washing machines
Power strips
Radios
Telephones
TVs (small sizes preferred; if analogue, with antenna and converter box)
Vacuum cleaners
LINENS
Bath/hand towels
Bath rugs
Bed sheets (twin, full, queen)
Blankets
Comforters
Mattress pads
Pillows
Pillowcases
Shower curtains with hooks
Washcloths
TOILETRIES
Deodorant
Digital thermometers
Disposable razors
First aid kits
Hair combs and brushes
Lip balm
Lotion
Shampoo
Shaving cream
Sanitary napkins (for women/girls)
Soap
Toilet paper
Toothbrushes
Toothpaste
To schedule a furniture pickup or donation drop-off time, contact:
Nicole Kligerman
nicole@hiaspa.org
215-832-0917

Thanksgiving, 2010

2010-11-21T13:17:00.003-05:00

Many, many thanks to Vicki Levin, Joel Fein, Terry and David Hoffman, for once again coordinating Ohev Shalom's Thanksgiving food drive, for Chester Eastside Ministries to distribute to families in need. We collected 54 turkeys and fixings -- enough for well over 200 meals.

Standing around in the parking lot, chatting with congregants delivering their donations -- maybe your feet get cold, but your heart feels very, very warm.

The pix below are just a few of the many, many families who took time on a busy day of a very full weekend to share a bit of TG bounty.

From Ohev, with love --Sharing Thanksgiving, 2010

2010-11-21T13:10:00.004-05:00

In today's Washington Post: USDA -- 17 million families struggled to get enough food in 2009

2010-11-15T14:26:00.001-05:00

By Kimberly Kindy
Washington Post staff writer
Monday, November 15, 2010; 11:24 AM

Nearly 17 million families in America - roughly 15 percent of all households - had trouble putting enough food on their tables at some point last year, a federal report released Monday morning shows.

The United States Department of Agriculture also found that 5.6 million of these households had chronic problems throughout the year that severely disrupted normal eating patterns. Between 500,000 and 1 million of the people affected in the homes were children.

"It's a considerable reflection of what is going on in the economy," said Kevin Concannon, USDA under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services.

The number of "food insecure" homes remained roughly the same as in 2008. But it has more than tripled since 2006 as the recession set in and nearly 10 percent of households were hit by unemployment.

The report also provided a state-by-state breakdown, based on data from 2007-2009. In the District, 12.9 percent of families struggled with securing sufficient food. In Maryland, the percentage was 10 percent, and in Virginia, 9.2 percent.

Concannon said he was somewhat hopeful since the number of families suffering from hunger and nutrition problems stabilized last year even though the population of unemployed Americans rose from 9 million in 2008 to 14 million in 2009.

He attributed the stabilization to successful outreach and enrollment of many of these families into USDA-funded food programs. Fifty-seven percent of the families in the survey are enrolled in one or more of these programs. And one in four households have at least one family member participating in an USDA feeding program, up from one in five just two years ago.

In Friday's Inquirer -- the Safety Net is Torn

2010-11-07T21:46:00.002-05:00

By Alfred Lubrano

Inquirer Staff Writer

Myra Young fits a nebulizer mask over her son Todd's face to beat back his chronic asthma. Inhaling vaporized medicine that keeps him breathing, the 4-year-old with large eyes leafs through a children's Bible to pass the time.

Young, 41, is an unemployed nursing assistant who lost her job in 2007 caring for Todd during his two-month hospitalization. She watches nervously as the whirring machine eats electricity.

The power to Young's two-bedroom rental in Kensington will be cut in two weeks because the bill has climbed to $770. She lives in the poorest place in Pennsylvania - the First Congressional District. According to a national poll, the district is the second-hungriest in America.

Young, who is separated, is not without help. She receives monthly welfare payments of $205, along with $362 in food stamps, and $674 in Supplemental Security Income for Todd's illness - part of the safety net meant to aid the poor. Young's husband, a hotel kitchen worker, chips in as well.

But all that help still keeps mother and son stuck at the poverty level - not nearly enough to pay the $625 rent, and feed Young's hungry child and his voracious breathing machine. Because Young hasn't worked since Todd's hospitalization, it's harder for her to get jobs; employers are wary of her two years away from nursing.

"It's not easy," Young says, as her masked son looks at pictures of Noah filling his ark with animals, while the kilowatt hours accrue.

Experts say that the American safety net is riddled with holes, and is not the panacea that the public believes it to be.

"It's an unstable system," said Carey Morgan, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger. "People face many problems - it's like Hurricane Katrina every day in the First Congressional District.

"And there's a huge misperception that anyone who asks for help gets what they need."

Polls show that, although a vocal minority rails against government "handouts," most Americans support food stamps and child-nutrition programs, said Guy Molyneux, a partner at Hart Research Associates, a Washington firm that researches attitudes toward the poor.

While the programs are considered vital in keeping poor Americans alive, many people erroneously believe that these efforts solve hunger, advocates say.

Just 10 percent of Americans living in poverty receive welfare cash assistance, federal figures show. Welfare rolls in Pennsylvania dropped from nearly 500,000 in 1996, when Congress began to limit the program, to around 270,000 today - 95,000 of them in Philadelphia.

(By far, more Pennsylvanians receive Medicaid: 2.5 million elderly, people with disabilities and low-income families with children, said Linda Blanchette, deputy secretary of the DPW.)

Welfare'scash-assistance benefit is small - $403 monthly for a mother with two children, DPW figures show.

The monthly average food stampbenefit in Pennsylvania is just $258 per household, said Blanchette.

Often, that's not enough to feed a family for 30 days, according to research by the Boston Medical Center and the Drexel University School of Public Health. The 2008 study revealed that a Philadelphia family of four receiving maximum food-stamp benefits would still require an additional $3,165 annually to buy the amount of food that the federal government deems adequate.

The result: Families often run out of food stamps 21 days into the month.

As of June, 416,587 Philadelphians were getting food stamps, up from 329,903 in December 2007, when the recession began, Coalition figures show.

Getting and keeping food stamps pose another set of hurdles, advocates say.People must navigate detailed application procedures, then face difficulties maintaining their eligibility.

An investigation by the Coalition last year revealed that 62 percent of phone calls to a North Philadelphia service center went unanswered because there weren't enough statecaseworkers to manage food-stamp clients.

Blanchette of DPW said conditions at the center have improved, but she acknowledged that DPW in Philadelphia alone lost 110 caseworkers in the last year, in part due to state budget cuts.

Crystal Sears, 32, a single mother of three who has been unemployed since 2007 after being laid off from her caseworker's job at a religious social-service agency, describes Kafka-esque encounters with the food-stamp bureaucracy. It was ironic, since her job had been helping low-income clients get food assistance.

Recounting a recent disastrous interaction, Sears said that caseworkers lost her paperwork, and she had to make three additional trips to the county office to straighten it out. During the intervening time, however, her family had no food stamps.

"'There's no need to be upset,' they told me," Sears recalled. "'No need?' I said. 'This is how we survive.'"

During the desperate fourth week of the month, many families turn to emergency food cupboards. But there they find a rickety, patchwork system run mostly by elderly do-gooders handing out limited supplies of food stored in church closets, often without refrigeration, noted Bill Clark, executive director of Philabundance, the largest hunger-relief agency in the area. It provides some of the food to 476 Delaware Valley cupboards.

Cupboards are scarce in the poorest areas, he said. Many are open just once a week. And each person gets only a three-day supply. Quite a few cupboards have rules precluding clients from coming more than once a month, Clark added.

"Most places keep you from starving to death, but that's all," said Joanna Cruz, 26, who lives with her husband and three children in the district in South Philadelphia.

Cruz is a former day-care worker taking Salvation Army classes to learn to be a kitchen worker. Her husband, Silito, makes $8 an hour washing dishes in a Walnut Street bar. His salary, combined with the family's allotment of welfare and food stamps, brings in the equivalent of $15,000 a year - $10,000 below the poverty level for a family of five. They turn to food pantries to make up the difference.

The general public believes things run more smoothly than they actually do, Clark said, adding: "Say you're in a car wreck. You expect an ambulance will take you to a hospital that is always open, to a doctor who is always there.

"In a food emergency, however, you may not know where the cupboards are, they're not open 24-7, and you may wait in line till they run out of food and tell you, 'Sorry folks, that's all we've got.'"

Beyond that, the state recently cut $250,000 out of the $18 million it spent last year to buy food for cupboards. At the same time, cupboards in the region reported that need shot up 66 percent over the last two years, Clark said.

Other feeding programs - the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, as well as school-lunch programs - feed around 170,000 in Philadelphia annually, government statistics show. But they're limited, advocates say.

Hunger doesn't exist in a vacuum. The poor must constantly balance meager resources to pay for shelter and utilities along with food, advocates say.

A 2009 study showed that children on the waiting lists for Philadelphia Housing Authority or Section 8 subsidized housing were two times more likely to be underweight than children in the same economic bracket who are already living in subsidized housing.

The study, which included children being seen by doctors at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in the First Congressional District, was conducted by pediatric researchers around the country, including Drexel University's School of Public Health.

Many poor people are eligible for subsidized housing, but supplies are short.

There's a nine-year waiting list for public housing in the city, said Rachel Garland, a housing expert with Community Legal Services. For Section 8 subsidized housing, the list is 10 years long, she said.

* * *

Her son's nebulizer treatment complete, Myra Young removes the mask from Todd's face.

It's the third week of the month - no more food stamps. Young will be asking her mother for a chicken.

Grateful for the help she's gotten but worried that she'll lose electricity for Todd's nebulizer, Young doesn't want to rely on the safety net a day longer. "I would love to punch a clock," she said. "But I can't find work and it's irritating.

"I'm a mother taking care of her son. And I refuse to collect welfare for the rest of my life. I just will not do it."

Pajamas & books

2010-11-07T12:58:00.015-05:00

We're doing pajamas & books for the kids at FMC again this year. We'll deliver them early in December, so please let us know which kid(s) you'd like to sponsor, and we'll set up a box at Ohev Shalom to drop off donations.

NAME SEX AGE SIZE

Abed M 11yrs. M/Boys (Szabo-Longs)

Lowzzah F 8yrs. L/Girls (Greismer-Katchers)

Eias M 4yrs. 5T(Zirker-DeSimone)

Meona F 5yrs. 6T (Zirker-DeSimone)

Tajmeer M 8yrs. 8 (Greismer-Katchers)

Rosalinda F 8yrs. 8 (Zirker-DeSimone)

Jihad M 6yrs. 5 (Zirker-DeSimone)

Jasmine F 5yrs. 4 (Glanzmans)

Ajahnae F 3yrs. 4/5 (Glanzmans)

Naiemah F 16 mos. 6-12mos. (Skalina)

Antonique F 5yrs. 6 (Zigons)

Sahri F 23 mos. 18-24 mos. (Sterns)

Sharnee’ F 15yrs. Med. (Sherman-Petrescu)

Lashad M 4yrs. 5t/6t (Pollacks)

Jaziyah F 3yrs. 3t/4t (Pollacks)

Ariyonna F 7mos. 6-12mos.

NahiDeja F 5yrs. 7 (Zigons)

El’Monie F 3yrs. 5 (Sherman-Petrescu)

Kalif M 2yrs. 3 (McFall)

Nave’ah F 2 wks. 6-9mos. (Kaplans)

Autum F 7mos. 12-18mos. (Kaplans)

Christian M 3yrs. 3t (Kaplans)

Javion M 12yrs. 12-14 (Stier-Maurer)

Daja F 13yrs. Petite/small (Skalina)

Elaina F 15 yrs. Jr. Petite (Stier-Maurer)

Daniel M 14 yrs. 18 (Tashmans)

Ava F 3yrs. 4T (McFall)

Quwasheen M 1yr. 3T (Tashmans)

In today's Phila Inquirer -- Food that's as poor as the family

2010-10-31T20:06:00.003-04:00

Cheap diets tend to be sugary, salty, fatty — raising obesity and diabetes risks.

Second in an occasional series

By Alfred Lubrano

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Mold grows thick and black on the walls of Celeata Bailey's Norris Square bedroom.

Because most of the ceiling is missing, Bailey, 21, gets soaked in bed when it rains.

Bailey's family puts up duct tape to keep the bathroom wall from collapsing. Raw sewage burbles in the basement, and the family stores surgical masks in the kitchen for anyone who has to descend into its putrid depths.

Bailey's poverty is evident throughout the house, which sits in the First Congressional District, the second-hungriest in America, according to a Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, one of the largest polls ever taken.

But poverty is also written on Bailey's body, made heavy since childhood by a poor person's diet of cheap, fattening, processed foods larded with high-fructose corn syrup, fat, and salt. As a result of her diet, Bailey has suffered from diabetes since she was 13.

It is, doctors acknowledge, a paradox that hunger and obesity are linked. And doctors say obesity and diabetes among the poor are on the rise, as many families faced with hunger have little choice but to eat nutritionally disastrous foods to survive.

"You can't find fresh fruits and vegetables in this neighborhood," said Bailey, a high school graduate who has not found work since her census job ended in the summer. She was raised by her grandmother Etherline Bailey, 73, who lives with her.

Bailey said she had to leave community college because of money trouble and was taking steps to return.

She gave up jogging in the neighborhood after she was mugged and now tries to do kickboxing indoors.

"I ate a lot of instant noodles and drank a lot of Hawaiian Punch from the corner stores up here," said Bailey, a sweet-faced woman who is afraid of dying young of a heart attack, as her mother did when Bailey was 3.

In Philadelphia, around 25 percent of nonpoor adults are obese, compared with about 34 percent of poor adults, according to Public Health Management Corp. figures from 2008 analyzed by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health.

Children are measured differently, with overweight and obesity combined. The overweight/obesity rate for nonpoor Philadelphia children is around 40 percent. For poor kids, it's almost 52 percent.

And 17 percent of poor adults in the city have diabetes, compared with 12 percent of those who aren't poor, PHMC figures show. Diabetes rates for both groups have been increasing since 2000.

Bailey says her being overweight is "60 percent" her fault because she ate unhealthy foods. Some say that's the wrong way to think.

"One of our biggest misconceptions is that it's poor people's fault," said Adam Drewnowski, a University of Washington epidemiologist and obesity expert. "The poor, without access to healthy foods, are making the best possible choices under difficult circumstances."

When there's money, Bailey said, she treks to relatives in West Philadelphia who live near a supermarket. But the four-bus round trip for groceries can be daunting, she added.

And on the rare occasions she can return home with healthy food, Bailey has to eat it in the same dilapidated house. It's not clear who owns it. No one has paid taxes on the property since 1987, records show, and the family

doesn't know where to send the rent.

These days, Bailey writes poetry to cope with the moldy house, the diabetes, the endless poverty:

I had no shield, no umbrella to run from them . . . rainy dayz. Like an animal caged and chained up - no movements, no sounds, just rage.

Fighting cancer

Renee Turchi is a pediatrician who has been battling pediatric cancer - in herself.

The doctor at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children is being treated for Ewing's sarcoma, a bone cancer found 90 percent of the time in children, not in their doctors.

SLIDESHOW

Renee Turchi

She has lost her hair after 31 rounds of radiation and 13 of a scheduled 15 rounds of chemotherapy. But Turchi, who's been told her cancer is gone, simply covers her head with a Phillies cap and goes to work.

"You learn from being a patient," Turchi said. "You're more responsive to families in the waiting room."

Collected in those rooms these days are low-income children, many of them becoming obese and diabetic from eating inexpensive foods, said Turchi, who estimates that 80 percent of her patients' families are food insecure - unable to afford enough food for a healthy life.

Particularly popular, instant noodles and juice are the pediatrician's bugaboos - low-priced foods with outsized health consequences. They are the staples of corner stores, which outnumber supermarkets citywide by 17-1, according to an analysis by the Food Trust, a Philadelphia nonprofit working to provide access to healthy food.

As a result, "there's a childhood epidemic of obesity that is developing diabetes in children," Turchi said.

In St. Christopher's, Turchi sees too many mothers holding blue or red or orange bottles to their babies' mouths - filled with juice rather than water or pricier milk.

"If we see a mom with a colorful bottle, we need to work quickly with that family . . . to forestall developmental delay," Turchi said.

Parents think they're doing something beneficial.

"They know soda is no good and won't feed that," said David Bennett, psychologist at the Grow Clinic, which treats underweight children at St. Christopher's and was created by Mariana Chilton of the Drexel University School of Public Health.

"They think juice is a better alternative to soda. But we preach the evils of juice."

'Quarter water'

It's often called "quarter water" for its 25-cent price.

The 8-ounce children's drink known as Little Hug - a brightly colored child-size plastic barrel covered with foil - is "enormously prevalent" in the First District, according to Terri Lipman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.

"Kids prefer Hugs to bottled water. Poor African American kids say drinking bottled water is viewed as a white people's thing."

Loaded with sugar (100 calories in 8 ounces) until recently, Little Hug drinks are the subject of nostalgic paeans on Facebook.

They're also referenced in hip-hop star Jay-Z's song "On to the Next One," in which he's drinking Little Hugs with Oprah Winfrey:

. . . Had Oprah chillin' in the projects

Had her out in Bed-Stuy chillin' on the steps

Drinkin' quarter water's gotta be the best.

Little Hug drinks are found mostly in urban corner stores and in Wal-Mart, said Tim Barr, vice president of marketing for American Beverage Corp., manufacturers of the drink outside Pittsburgh.

"It tastes good, and it's cheap," Barr said.

Others offer different assessments.

"It's the food of the devil," said Kristin Marozsan, social worker at the Grow Clinic.

"It's not uncommon to hear that," Barr acknowledged.

To answer such criticisms, American Beverage removed sugar from Little Hug drinks within the last two years, switching to sucralose, an artificial sweetener marketed as Splenda, Barr said. Now Little Hug drinks are 10 calories per 8 ounces. But that hasn't assuaged experts.

"Hugs gets kids accustomed to high levels of sweetness," said Kelly Brownell, director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale University. That kicks off a lifelong craving.

Beyond that, artificial sweeteners are of "questionable safety for children," said Sandy Sherman, director of nutrition education for the Food Trust.

Along with Little Hug drinks, First District stores are stacked with instant foods such as ramen noodles. They're cheap, and they defeat hunger. But they can pack 790 milligrams of sodium, 3 grams of saturated fat, and 190 calories per serving, a typical block of noodles cut in half, said Angela Ginn, dietitian with the American Dietetic Association in Baltimore.

For a single meal, a person should not eat more than 400 milligrams of sodium, said Ginn, who added that most people eat a whole package of instant noodles in a sitting and are taking in 1,600 milligrams of sodium - four times the healthy amount. (There are 2,300 milligrams of sodium in a teaspoon of salt.)

High sodium levels are especially worrisome for African Americans, who have a greater incidence of high blood pressure than white Americans, Ginn added. The First District is 47 percent black.

"There should be a warning label on instant noodles," she said: " 'Overconsumption of high-sodium foods may lead to hypertension and stroke. Eat at your own risk.' "

Getting involved

At 6 a.m. recently, Turchi and a nurse went on a home visit to a Kensington child with lung problems.

Taking a break outside, Turchi said: "People sometimes say there's nothing to eat in their house. But many families out here have nothing-nothing: a can of soup and an empty fridge."

Standing on a buckled sidewalk at dawn in the second-hungriest place in America, Turchi, a sucker for Rocky movies and positivity, said she still believed children could be helped - if the rest of the city decided to get involved.

"It's the starfish theory," she said. "You can't save all the starfish washed up on the beach. But pick up one and put it back in the water, and you've saved it."

Then the woman who beat back cancer tugged on the brim of her Phillies cap and added: "It isn't hopeless."

Contact staff writer Alfred Lubrano at 215-854-4969 or alubrano@phillynews.com.

Soup-Making, fall 2010

2010-10-31T16:32:00.007-04:00

Soupmaking in the Ohev kitchen on Sunday morning, with Edie McFall, Shari Baron, Andy Szabo, Pam Stone, Sherry Zigon (not shown) and your humble scribe. As usual, discussions about every step. Should the carrots be cut in 4" lengths, or small coins? Should the onions and celery be removed from the chicken soup? (Some feel: what goes in the soup, stays in the soup. Others remove or don't remove onions and celery, depending on which relatives will be eating it).

The shopping list I'd made was too short on matzo meal & eggs, and I greatly underestimated the amount of soup we'd be making (so we kept running out an buying more containers), so I'm trying to record this year's experience so we'll more together next year.

Here are the soup ingredients we used for the biggest meat pot:

15# chicken
5# carrots (cut in 4" lengths)
2 bunches of celery with leaves (also in 4" lengths)
5# onions (quartered)
bay leaves, thyme
about 2 tbs salt
**makes about 25 quarts**

Our matzo ball approach was a little improvisational because I hadn't printed out recipes, so here, for next year, are the standard proportions, blown up:

8 c matzo meal (2 lbs)
2 cups chicken soup
2 cups oil
about 1 tbs salt
chopped parsley
paprika
32 eggs (so buy 3 doz)

mix; let chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour

For mushroom barley soup (which went in the big speckled black pot)

5# onions
2 bunches celery
5# carrots
all diced small -- put in a pan in the oven & roast for an hour
2 pkgs dried mushrooms -- soak in hot water for an hour; save liquid
3-4# mushrooms clean & slice & brown in oil.
add roasted veggies & soaked dried mushrooms to the sauteed mushrooms & cook for about an hour.
2 lbs Quaker pearl barley: set to boil separately (it takes about an hour to cook)
**Makes about 20 quarts**

By the time we left (about 1:30); the new Chesed freezer was full of containers of chicken soup and mushroom barley soup. The matzo balls were a bit short on symmetry, but long on ruach. Many, many thanks to Bonnie Kaplan (our shopper), and to our super-soup-makers.

Angels

2010-10-04T20:20:00.003-04:00

It's Saturday night in the Ohev kitchen, and I know what angels look like. They look like Bev, Edie, Elayne, & Bonnie B, come to set tables and cook. Bonnie came to let us in, and stayed to thaw and squeeze 12 lbs (do you know how much that is) of frozen spinach.

Elayne told us about her father-in-law and the kosher lobsters.

The milchig Kitchen-Aide died, but Bev pressed on, creaming the butter for apple cakes and stirring and folding by hand. Bev jokes about the year I forgot the sugar in a batch of scones (or was it baking powder?) --she never loses track of where she is in a recipe. By 9:30, and the apple cakes are cooling, the spinach frittatas are covered in the refrigerator.

It's Sunday morning in the Ohev kitchen, and I know what angels look like. They look like Frances, come to help bake scones, and remind me to make a list and delegate and be sure I'm done in the kitchen by 9:30 so I can work the room outside. She runs out for the coffee I forgot to buy, makes opening remarks, arranges group photos.

Year after year, I worry will the food come out right, will enough people attend, will we raise enough money to pay for the LifeCenter dinners and MLK day. And, year after year, angels flutter into the kitchen to cook, pay at the door and sit around the tables in the reception room. I'm so very, very blessed.

Spinach Frittata

2010-10-02T22:05:00.003-04:00

Ingredients:

1 (10 ounce) package frozen chopped

spinach, thawed and squeezed

thoroughly to remove liquid

4 eggs or equivalent egg substitute

1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese

3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

3/4 cup chopped portobello mushrooms

1/2 cup finely chopped scallions with

some green tops

1/4 teaspoon dried Italian seasonings

1 pinch Salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

1.	Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2.	In a large bowl, whisk together all ingredients until well mixed. Spray a 9-inch pie plate with cooking spray and fill with the spinach mixture.
3.	Bake for 30 minutes, or until browned and set. Let cool for 20 minutes, cut in wedges and serve.

This morning on NPR

2010-10-02T22:01:00.003-04:00

Midnight Shopping On The Brink Of Poverty

by Jamie Tarabay

Take a trip to one of those 24-hour Walmarts on the last day of every month, and you'll get a glimpse into the lives of low-income families trying to get by. At one location in Fredericksburg, Va., at around 11 p.m., families start to load up on necessities like diapers and groceries.

People like Tracy and Martin Young live nearby, and for the pair in their early 30s, it's a chance to shop quietly without their five children, two of whom are teenagers. Each is pushing a shopping cart overflowing with food. There's mac and cheese, bags of cereal and cans of evaporated milk. Most of this has to last for the whole month.

A Midnight Run, Come Rain Or Shine

Despite torrential rain outside and flash-flood warnings across the area, the couple arrives to shop. Tracy Young says they've been doing this midnight run on the last day of every month for so long now that they're on a first-name basis with Gloria, their cashier.

"It's been about a year. We used to go to Bloom, and then we found out we were saving more coming here," Tracy Young says. At a stroke or two after midnight they begin unloading their carts at the checkout. Tracy says they set aside $500 for groceries a month. With five kids, the money they get never lasts until the next monthly check.

"It's usually about a week and a half," she says. "We try to figure out what we need to do about a week and a half before the end of the month."

That's why they're here at midnight: It's when their food stamps and government checks for their 3-year-old daughter kick in on the first of every month.

Tracy works in retail and Martin works two jobs. One of those is as a waiter at a fast-food chain, so their monthly income goes up and down all the time. Tracy says all their income goes to groceries, the rent and the bills, and hardly anything is left over.

Living Paycheck To Paycheck

That's not unusual, says Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist at the Economic Policy Institute. "There's no question that there's going to be more people living paycheck to paycheck now," she says, adding that more and more families are living on the brink of poverty.

"They see wages get cut or not grow at all, so family incomes suffer, and when they take a hit some fall down" below the poverty line, she says.

Last year, 3.7 million Americans joined those already living in poverty, meaning families of four living on just under $22,000. That's 14 percent of the population. The government says the price of food has risen in the past year: Eggs cost 44 percent more and milk is up 21 percent, mainly because of fuel prices.

Shelf-Stocking Patterns For The First Of Every Month

Wal-Mart noticed that sales were spiking on the first of every month. In a recent conference call with investment analysts, Wal-Mart executive Bill Simon said these midnight shoppers provide a snapshot of the American economy today.

"And if you really think about it," Simon said, "the only reason somebody gets out and buys baby formula is they need it and they've been waiting for it. Otherwise, we're open 24 hours, come at 5 a.m., come at 7 a.m., come at 10 a.m. But if you're there at midnight you're there for a reason."

And so Wal-Mart has changed its stocking pattern. It brings out larger packs of items in the beginning of the month, and smaller sizes toward the end. It makes sure shelves have plenty of diapers and formula.

"It's definitely an indicator in terms of people who are struggling," says Charles Fishman, journalist and author of The Wal-Mart Effect. "That tells you there's a large swath of America that is still very carefully calculating how much money is available and how they're spending it on even the most basic things like diapers and milk and bread. That's not the sign of an economy that's shaken off the recession."

Checking Out Under Budget

At the checkout, Tracy and Martin Young see the total. It's $485.49. And they're under budget. Martin Young says they'll use the extra $60 to buy more canned vegetables from another store.

Tracy says their children know when the end of the month is approaching, because what they like to eat is gone and the kitchen shelves have emptied. The children are all home asleep while the parents are out shopping.

In the morning, Tracy says, they'll wake up and be able to have what they want for breakfast.

In todays Washington Post: 1 in 7 US families lives in poverty

2010-09-16T19:12:00.001-04:00

by Carol Morello
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 16, 2010; 3:08 PM

One in seven Americans is living in poverty, the highest number in the half-century that the government has kept such statistics, the Census Bureau announced Thursday.

Last year was the third consecutive year that the poverty rate climbed, in part because of the recession, rising from 13.2 percent in 2008 to 14.3 percent, or 43.6 million people, last year.
Asians were the only ethnic group whose poverty rate did not change substantially; every other race and Hispanics experienced increases in poverty rates.

In addition, 51 million Americans were uninsured, as the number of people with health insurance dropped from 255 million to less than 254 million -- the first decrease since the government started keeping track in 1987. The number would have been worse because 6.5 million fewer people got insurance through their jobs, but it was offset by a leap in government-backed health insurance. More than 30 percent of Americans now get coverage from the government.

"Given all the unemployment we saw, it's the government safety net that's keeping people above the poverty line," Douglas Besharov, a University of Maryland public policy professor and former scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, told the Associated Press.

The grim statistics reflect the depth of the recession that began almost three years ago and could have an impact on midterm elections less than two months away.

"These numbers should be a wake-up call," said Peter Edelman, a Georgetown University professor and co-director of the Georgetown Center on Poverty, Inequality and Public Policy. "These are deeply disturbing numbers."

At organizations where the unemployed come to get help finding a job or seek food, the numbers were no surprise.
"In the decade I've been doing this work, this is a low point," said Jason Perkins-Cohen, executive director of the Job Opportunities Task Force in Baltimore. "We're getting a real feeling of desperation. For sheer numbers, it's a new, unhappy world."

At the nonprofit Action Though Service in Prince William County late Thursday morning, the shelves of the agency's pantry were starting to empty, as the line for help snaked out the door with a few dozen people seeking assistance.

Prince William resident Carol Williams said she has come to the shelter once a month since January, when she was laid off from her job at United Medical Center due to budget woes.
"I worked since I was 15, and, now, for the first time I don't have a job and I can't feed my family," said Williams, 55. "I have a degree; doesn't matter. The jobs aren't there."

Williams said she has been applying for dozens of jobs a week and had about 20 interviews since January. "I think people are scared to hire someone who is not working," she said, adding there also is just a lot more competition because of the high unemployment rate.

A single mother, Williams has five mouths to feed -- children and grandchildren-- ranging in age from 17 months to 28. Williams said she was able to raise three sons on her own, but she now turns to the food pantry at ACTS and her father and friends for help.

"We had no bread, no nothing last Friday because the pantry was closed," she said. "Luckily a friend helped me or we would have had no food for the weekend."

Advocates said they're seeing a lot more people like Williams.

"We have definitely seen many more individuals who are very well-educated, with high degrees, where it's the first time to ever be in a situation to ever have to ask for help for food or shelter," said Vickie Koth, executive director of Good Shepherd Alliance in Loudoun County.

Koth recalls one family of four in particular, where both parents were highly educated -- the mother was a lawyer, and the father was a mortgage broker. "They were in the business of buying and selling homes, and they had three foreclosures within the same span of time and were homeless for the first time.

"We're full all the time and we turn people away every day, and that's always been true. But the types of people that call have changed," Koth said. "Time after time I've heard individuals say, 'I've given to shelters, I've volunteered at food pantries. I've never thought I'd be here myself.' "

In todays NYT: Number of families in shelters rises

2010-09-12T13:16:00.002-04:00

By Nick Luo

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — For a few hours at the mall here this month, Nick Griffith, his wife, Lacey Lennon, and their two young children got to feel like a regular family again.

Never mind that they were just killing time away from the homeless shelter where they are staying, or that they had to take two city buses to get to the shopping center because they pawned one car earlier this year and had another repossessed, or that the debit card Ms. Lennon inserted into the A.T.M. was courtesy of the state’s welfare program.

They ate lunch at the food court, browsed for clothes and just strolled, blending in with everyone else out on a scorching hot summer day. “It’s exactly why we come here,” Ms. Lennon said. “It reminds us of our old life.”

For millions who have lost jobs or faced eviction in the economic downturn, homelessness is perhaps the darkest fear of all. In the end, though, for all the devastation wrought by the recession, a vast majority of people who have faced the possibility have somehow managed to avoid it.

Nevertheless, from 2007 through 2009, the number of families in homeless shelters — households with at least one adult and one minor child — leapt to 170,000 from 131,000, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

With long-term unemployment ballooning, those numbers could easily climb this year. Late in 2009, however, states began distributing $1.5 billion that has been made available over three years by the federal government as part of the stimulus package for the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, which provides financial assistance to keep people in their homes or get them back in one quickly if they lose them.

More than 550,000 people have received aid, including more than 1,800 in Rhode Island, with just over a quarter of the money for the program spent so far nationally, state and federal officials said.

Even so, it remains to be seen whether the program is keeping pace with the continuing economic hardship.

On Aug. 9, Mr. Griffith, 40, Ms. Lennon, 26, and their two children, Ava, 3, and Ethan, 16 months, staggered into Crossroads Rhode Island, a shelter that functions as a kind of processing and triage center for homeless families, after a three-day bus journey from Florida.

“It hit me when we got off the bus and walked up and saw the Crossroads building,” Ms. Lennon said. “We had all our stuff. We were tired. We’d already had enough, and it was just starting.”

The number of families who have sought help this year at Crossroads has already surpassed the total for all of 2009. Through July, 324 families had come needing shelter, compared with 278 all of last year.

National data on current shelter populations are not yet available, but checks with other major family shelters across the country found similar increases.

The Y.W.C.A. Family Center in Columbus, Ohio, one of the largest family shelters in the state, has seen an occupancy increase of more than 20 percent over the last three months compared with the same period last year. The UMOM New Day Center in Phoenix, the largest family shelter in Arizona, has had a more than 30 percent increase in families calling for shelter over the last few months.

Without national data, it is impossible to say for certain whether these are anomalies. Clearly, however, many families are still being sucked into the swirling financial drain that leads to homelessness.

The Griffith family moved from Rhode Island to Florida two years ago after Mr. Griffith, who was working as a waiter at an Applebee’s restaurant, asked to be transferred to one opening in Spring Hill, an hour north of Tampa, where he figured the cost of living would be lower.

He did well at first, earning as much as $25 an hour, including tips. He also got a job as a line cook at another restaurant, where he made $12 an hour.

The family eventually moved into a three-bedroom condominium and lived the typical suburban life, with a sport-utility vehicle and a minivan to cart around their growing family.

In January, however, the restaurant where Mr. Griffith was cooking closed. Then his hours began drying up at Applebee’s. The couple had savings, but squandered some of it figuring he would quickly find another job. When he did not, they were evicted from their condo.

They lived with Ms. Lennon’s mother at first in her one-bedroom house in Port Richey, Fla., but she made it clear after two months that the arrangement was no longer feasible. The family moved to an R.V. park, paying $186 a week plus utilities. By late July, however, they had mostly run out of options.

They called some 100 shelters in Florida and found that most were full; others would not allow them to stay together.

They considered returning to Rhode Island. An Applebee’s in Smithfield agreed to hire Mr. Griffith. They found Crossroads on the Internet and were assured of a spot. Using some emergency money they had left and $150 lent by relatives, they bought bus tickets to Providence.

Now, the family is crammed into a single room at Crossroads’ 15-room family shelter, which used to be a funeral home. All four sleep on a pair of single beds pushed together. There is a crib for Ethan, but with all the turmoil, he can now fall asleep only when next to his parents. A lone framed photograph of the couple, dressed up for a night out, sits atop a shelf.

The living conditions are only part of the adjustment; there is also the shelter’s long list of rules. No one can be in the living quarters from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The news is even off-limits as television programming in the common area. Residents were recently barred from congregating around the bench outside.

Infractions bring write-ups; three write-ups bring expulsion.

The changes have taken a toll on the family in small and large ways. Ethan has taken to screaming for no reason. Ava had been on the verge of being potty-trained, but is now back to diapers. Their nap schedules and diets are a mess. Their parents are squabbling more and have started smoking again.

Mr. Griffith found that he could work only limited hours at his new job because of the bus schedule. The family did qualify last week for transitional housing, but that usually takes a month to finalize. They are still pursuing rapid rehousing assistance.

Others at the shelter with no job prospects face a steeper climb meeting the requirements.

Every few days, new families arrive. A few hours after the Griffiths got back from the mall, a young woman pushing a stroller with a toddler rang the shelter doorbell, quietly weeping.

Thoughts for Elul

2010-08-15T16:06:00.002-04:00

The month of Elul started last Wednesday; the High Holidays are less than a month off. Traditionally, Elul is a time to take stock of the year that’s drawing to a close, and begin to think about t’shuvah, t’fillah, and tzedakah (repentance, prayer, and charity). Can you find a few hours in the year to come, to make a little bit of the world a little brighter for the people around us?

Chester’s Food Coop: Chester’s Coop received a $150,000 grant from The Reinvestment Fund to bring Chester its first full-service grocery store in 17 years. The grant will go to rent, renovate, and equip a store at 510 Ave. of the States, a block from Chester’s transportation center. We’re excited to be supporting this grassroots effort to bring healthy, affordable food to a community so near us. The coop is especially eager to draw on advice of congregants with retail and construction skills to share.

Feeding the Hungry -- LifeCenter dinners: Sunday evenings: September 5th, November 7th (Sisterhood), January 2nd 2011, March 6th 2011, May 1st 2011. We need shoppers (any time) and servers (5:30PM-7:45). Great mitzvah for teens and tweens.

Bringing books that need homes to homes that need books: Monday evenings 5:30 – 7, we read with kids at Wesley House, while their parents attend class; we bring healthy snacks and books the kids can bring home & keep.

High Holiday Food Drive September 8th to 18th (Bergman-Hoffman family coordinating)

Social Action / Chesed Brunch: Sunday, October 3rd – funds a year’s worth of mitzvot for Chesed & Social Action. Help us plan & prepare [Prep dates – Sunday morning, Sept 26th 9AM-12 and Saturday night, Oct 2nd 6:30PM-9:30 (including wine & light supper)]

Soup-making Sunday, October 31 9AM-12, to stock the Chesed freezer with chicken & mushroom-barley soup for the winter ahead.

Thanksgiving collection Sunday, November 21st, for Chester Eastside Ministries (we need coordinators)

Ohev Shalom Culinary Institute: Sunday, February 13th (the Stern family) Delight your loved one(s) on erev Valentines Day.

Any time, any Friday: deliver challas and extra Shabbat cheer for some of our most beloved congregants. Contact Ruth Kaplan rfk918@aol.com or 610-891-1716.

For more information, contact Fran Stier (franstier@comcast.net or 610.543.0815)

on NPR today - Food Coop brings healthy food to a low income neighborhood in St. Louis

2010-08-12T20:25:00.003-04:00

U.S. First Lady Michele Obama has drawn national attention to the problem of "food deserts" - neighborhoods that may have plenty of McDonalds and other fast food restaurants, but no supermarket with fresh vegetables and other affordable, healthy foods.

Residents of the central-U.S. city of St. Louis are working to turn one inner-city neighborhood from "food desert" to oasis. They've opened a community-run grocery store - the first of its kind in the city.

Food desert

For the past decade, the Old North St. Louis neighborhood has had only one grocery store. But the dilapidated market carries mostly junk food, cleaning supplies and liquor. Its tiny produce section consists of a handful of sorry-looking vegetables and fruit.

Old North resident Etta Adams says until now, she's had to do her shopping outside the neighborhood. "Well, there haven't been nothing over here - too much to - you know, to shop from."

Kara Lubischer is a community development specialist with the University of Missouri Extension. She says the nearest major supermarket is about 5 kilometers away. "Which doesn't sound that far if you have a car, but it sounds very far if you have to get on a bus, and you have to carry your week's worth of groceries home with you."

About 40 percent of households in this mostly African-American, low-to-middle income neighborhood don't have access to a car.

"The idea for a grocery store came directly from the residents." Lubischer says people in the neighborhood liked the idea of a food co-op: a community-owned grocery, where members would have a say in how the store would be run, and what products it would carry.

Almost all the work for the co-op project has been carried out by volunteers.

VOA - A. Chimes

A diverse crowd fills the Old North Grocery Co-op on opening day.

Food Oasis

On Saturday, a diverse crowd packed into the newly-renovated one-storey brick building, for the grand opening of the Old North Grocery Co-op.

"I'm very happy about it," said neighborhood resident Gudayzke. "I don't know whether this will be my main stopping point or not, but it certainly does give me another option."

Luz Maria Evans agreed. "I mean it's great because now we can have something convenient to, to make the shopping's list. Everything you need. Near."

Old North St. Louis Restoration Group director Sean Thomas says the co-op will sell a variety of foods and household items. "This store will be structured to suit the tastes and desires of the community who are here, as well as other customers who might come from outside the neighborhood."

Thomas says the store will also rely as much as possible on local producers. "One of the farmers we've been working with from the very beginning is a guy named Rusty Lee."

Local produce

Rusty Lee and his family raise vegetables and livestock on his farm in Truxton, Missouri, about 100 kilometers west of St. Louis.

He has recruited other local farmers to help him supply the co-op with fresh produce and meat. "We saw it as an opportunity to help somebody out, to help ourselves out. It's a market that no one has really been servicing."

Old North resident Claretha Morant is grateful for Lee's efforts to bring fresh produce to her neighborhood. "For us peoples that don't have transportation and stuff, you know, that's a big improvement for us."

Without a car, Morant has had to depend on friends and neighbors to take her grocery shopping in other parts of the city. "And now, I can just go on my own, you know, just get the bus and go on my own now. I'm glad of that. I'm proud of it."

Organizers stress the co-op is open to all shoppers - not just members.

But in St. Louis, a community-run grocery is an untested concept. Its survival may depend on how willing area residents are to change their shopping and eating habits.

From yesterdays NYT: College Admissions put more value on local volunteerism

2010-08-01T15:44:00.002-04:00

WHEN I was growing up, I don’t remember hearing much about community service. My parents were certainly civic-minded, but they were a lot more concerned about the work I did around the house. Like cleaning bathrooms and weeding the lawn.

Nowadays, some sort of volunteerism is a given in many places. Through schools, churches, synagogues, Girl and Boy Scouts and countless other organizations, children and teenagers are expected to do something, whether it be fund-raising for charities, working at soup kitchens or assisting at animal shelters.

In the most positive light, such service teaches children and teenagers to look beyond themselves and understand the role they can play in their community and country. In the most negative light, it is one more activity to tick off en route to college.

“There is some cynicism among people that some portion of community service is prompted by students interested more in résumé-building,” said Richard G. Niemi, professor of political science at the University of Rochester.

But does it really matter why it’s done? Isn’t it enough to volunteer, no matter the motive?

Well, yes and no. Studies have shown that generally, community service for whatever reason is a good thing. But how it’s done and whether it also involves service learning — that is, lessons that discuss homelessness, say, or hunger in a larger context — make a difference.

Joseph E. Kahne, a professor of education at Mills College, and his colleagues just completed a survey of more than 500 teenagers in the 11th and 12th grades from a diverse set of 19 high schools in California. The researchers followed the students for up to three years after graduation.

The students who were engaged in some sort of community service in high school — whether mandatory or voluntary — were more likely to volunteer or be involved in some civic activity. Most, but not all, of the volunteer work had classroom learning attached to it.

Participants get much more out of the work they do, Professor Niemi said, if there is a forum to talk about and question the larger issues involved.

Otherwise, he said, students may believe that all problems are solved through individual efforts and government doesn’t have a role. “They’ll see that the homeless don’t have food and that individuals help, but they won’t understand the connection between public policy and the homeless,” he said.

Professor Kahne also found this to be true in his research, noting that “most service programs do not examine causes of social problems or possible solutions” and, therefore, play down the need for political engagement.

In looking at what volunteering offers, Professor Kahne distinguishes among three types of citizens: “personally responsible” — that is they help people they know and donate blood; participatory citizens, who are active in community projects; and justice-oriented citizens, who examine causes and possible solutions for society’s ills.

“We believe that all three dimensions of citizenship are important, but found that most programs do not address all three and generally pay least attention to the last,” Professor Kahne said.

In fact, if teenagers — and adults for that matter — are thrust in a volunteer situation they don’t understand or feel that they are simply being assigned made-up work, it can actually have a detrimental effect.

James E. Youniss, a research professor of psychology at the Catholic University of America, said an unpublished study of New York students discovered that they were actually turned off to community service when they were told they were going to help people and ended up doing menial jobs that seemed unrelated.

Of course, volunteering may involve mundane or repetitive work, but those participating need to understand the connection between their work and the overall issue, Professor Youniss said.

“It’s not that service is bad, but that programs can be bad,” he said.

Because of time constraints and concerns about overt political messages, it can be difficult to create programs that offer the insights along with community service, Professor Youniss added.

But that doesn’t mean schools and organizations — not to mention parents — should stop encouraging or even requiring children to volunteer. Professor Youniss studied students in one Massachusetts high school that was about to introduce mandatory community service.

He looked at a sample group of teenagers, including those who did no volunteering, those who did so on their own and those required to complete a certain number of hours by their senior year.

The students were asked at the beginning and end of their high school career if they were likely to vote when they became eligible and do some sort of community service. Those who weren’t volunteering, or weren’t required to, usually said they were unlikely to vote or do community service in the future. Those who volunteered without being required generally said they were likely to vote and would volunteer. But the big switch to being much more inclined to volunteer and vote was apparent among those students who had been assigned service in the community, Professor Youniss said.

“I remember one kid who was a fullback, who waited until his senior year to volunteer,” he said. “Then he filled the 40-hour requirement by every Saturday taking a blind man to a gym and walking him through his physical activity.” That changed the boy’s outlook on his role in the community and helping others, Professor Youniss said.

What about the many programs that offer young people a way to travel and do good deeds, by building schools in Costa Rica or digging wells in Thailand?

That’s fine if you want to travel and can afford it. But most people I talked to seemed to feel that volunteering in your own community over a sustained period of time offers a more worthwhile experience. And if you’re using travel volunteerism to burnish your college application, beware. It may backfire.

“We’re not idiots,” said Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers. “We know the price of an air-conditioned hotel and a plane. It’s an act of affluent tourism masquerading as community service.”

A 2008 survey of admissions officers from the top 50 colleges and universities by the organization DoSomething.org, found that admissions officers consistently put a higher value on continuous volunteering over several years at a local place than a short-term stint overseas.

Mark Segal, director of Westcoast Connection/360° Student Travel, said he understood why some people might be cynical about spending a fair amount of money to volunteer abroad. But, he said, the teenagers who went on the type of community service programs that his company offered typically did volunteer work at home as well.

Spending two weeks or a month overseas immersed in a project “is a life-changing experience,” Mr. Segal said. “You’re opening the doors for relationships and learning in a way that’s very different than being a traveler.”

In the survey, the admissions officers said they were confident they could discern when a student was being disingenuous about her commitment to community service. One noted that “insincerity seems likely when there is a laundry list of activities with minimal commitment.”

Those surveyed also said they understood some students had to work and didn’t have time for volunteering. My sons do have the luxury of being able to help in the community, and I’m glad to say they seem to want to. It’s the other service I spoke about — the bed-making and trash-emptying — that they, for some reason, seem far less eager to do

Today at Family Management Center

2010-07-28T22:03:00.003-04:00

A few of the kids at FMC, showing off their swim gear. Many, many thanks to all the wonderful folk at Ohev Shalom who made this possible.

today on NPR - Nutritious is a struggle when money is scarce

2010-07-20T07:59:00.002-04:00

Alex Williamson, 8, doesn't look very hungry — in fact, he's a little chubby. But Alex, who lives in Carlisle, Pa., is one of 17 million children who live in U.S. households where getting enough food is a challenge.

The Obama administration has pledged to end childhood hunger in America by 2015. A key element of that challenge is to make sure the food hungry children eat is nutritious. They're lofty goals that will be difficult to achieve.

Alex's mom, Connie Williamson, says she tries to give her son healthy food but doesn't always succeed.

"When he gets up on his own, he'll go find what he wants," she says. "He'll get a hot dog bun, or get a piece of bread. He'll get an ice pop or something."

And that's exactly what he did early one morning, before his family headed out to the local food pantry. Alex ate a blue ice pop for breakfast.

A Struggle To Eat The 'Right' Food

Hunger in America is complicated. It's not just getting enough food, but getting the right food — and making the right choices.

Connie Williamson says it's not easy on a tight budget. She spends hours driving around each month looking for deals. She has to stretch $600 in food stamps for herself, her husband, Alex and two teenage girls.

You can get leaner cuts of meat, but then they're more expensive. You can get fresh fruit every couple of days and blow half of your budget on fresh fruits and vegetables in a week's time, easy.

- Connie Williamson

"You can get leaner cuts of meat, but then they're more expensive," she says. "You can get fresh fruit every couple of days and blow half of your budget on fresh fruits and vegetables in a week's time, easy."

The Williamsons live well below the poverty line. And in the family's struggle to obtain enough food, nutrition sometimes takes a back seat to necessity. There's often a tug of war between the best intentions and some not-so-good eating.

For example, the Williamsons have a garden behind their apartment in downtown Carlisle. They grow lots of healthy food — zucchini, peppers and Brussels sprouts. But when Alex was thirsty after a walk, his mother gave him a plastic water bottle filled with orange soda.

Elaine Livas, who runs Project SHARE, the local food pantry, says she sees it all time.

"A gallon of milk is $3-something. A bottle of orange soda is 89 cents," she says. "Do the math."

Livas says low-income families might know milk is better for their kids, but when it comes to filling a hungry stomach, a cheaper high-calorie option can look pretty good.

Project SHARE, like many food pantries and soup kitchens, is increasingly offering cooking and nutrition classes to help their clients get the most out of what they eat. And Alex Williamson is taking some of those classes.

"Because really, that's what we need, a transformation in how people view their relationship with food," Livas says.

A Third Of U.S. Children Are Overweight

The White House agrees. First lady Michelle Obama recently welcomed hundreds of chefs on the White House lawn. She was encouraging them to volunteer at schools to help cafeteria workers, students and their parents learn how to prepare more nutritious meals.

She noted that almost a third of U.S. children are overweight.

"Good nutrition at school is more important than ever," she told the chefs. "A major key to giving our children a healthy future will be to pass a strong child nutrition bill."

Children Living In Households Facing Food Shortages

1n 1998, 14 million children lived in households where getting enough food was a challenge. While that number has risen and fallen, it took a dramatic jump in 2008 to 17 million children, according to the USDA's most recent data. Below, NPR calculated the percent change per year of children in households facing this challenge.

That's a big part of the administration's plan to end childhood hunger. President Obama has asked Congress for a billion dollars more a year to do things like make school lunches healthier and to expand access to subsidized meals for low-income children. Advocates say it will help kids learn better, and reduce health care costs.

There's a lot of support on Capitol Hill, but lawmakers are also increasingly nervous about new spending. Committees in both chambers have passed scaled-back versions, and it's unclear whether a bill can be enacted before year's end.

In an exchange at a House hearing this month with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) raised other concerns.

"I have no doubt there are kids that go to school hungry," he said. "But I have to admit, every time I hear that we have an obesity problem and everybody's going hungry, how do you reconcile the two?"

Vilsack said they're not all that different. He said there's a similarity between low-income families trying to stretch scarce food dollars with high-calorie processed foods, "and youngsters who are just flat out not getting fed because their parents don't have the resources to feed them."

Cassidy said he wasn't sure he followed that reasoning. And he might still be confused if he took a trip to the Williamsons' kitchen in Carlisle, where contradictions swirl about like stew. The refrigerator and pantry are often filled with food — but the family sometimes has to go to the local soup kitchen to make ends meet.

Hard To Make Good Decisions When You're Hungry

When asked, Alex says he worries about food all the time, and that he's always hungry. But later, he admits he has enough to eat. It's just not always what he wants. He says he especially doesn't like it when his mother makes Brussels sprouts for dinner.

His 14-year-old sister, Beanna, tries to explain.

"He more or less just worries about if there's going to be enough food that he likes or if we have something that he likes," she says. "He's really picky about what he wants."

As Beanna talks, Alex goes to the refrigerator for some chocolate. He gets upset when his sister tells him he can only have one piece.

It's not that uncommon for an 8-year-old to prefer chocolate over Brussels sprouts. But Livas, of the local food pantry, says a good diet is especially important for the poor, as a first step toward addressing their other problems, with things like work, health care and education. She says it's hard to make good decisions when you're hungry.

Livas says there's something else to consider. As the nation becomes more health conscious, she's noticing less healthy food coming to her pantry. She's getting more sugar-coated cereals, for example, than the high-fiber ones she used to receive.

"We can't really complain that the poor are heavier, when what we're donating is our kind of castaways," she says.

Stay safe

2010-07-17T08:53:00.002-04:00

I dropped the key for Chester's Coop and some reports off with a coop member the other day. She and I talked a minute or two, then she kissed me on the cheek and said "Stay safe". It didn't hit me what she meant until I'd driven off.

Parts of Chester are under curfew -- four homicides in 8 days the other month. One of the victims was a 2 year old. People worry, of course. They bid each other "Stay safe".

No one needs to say "stay safe" in Swarthmore, where I live. Three miles up the road, full of trees, streets well paved; it might as well be another planet. We hardly worry about guns here.

An armload of books - USA Today last month

2010-07-10T15:11:00.001-04:00

Can a $50 stack of paperback books do as much for a child's academic fortunes as a $3,000 stint in summer school?

An experimental program in seven states may help answer that question this summer as districts from Nevada to South Carolina give thousands of low-income students an armful of free books.

Research has shown that simply giving children books may be as effective as summer school — and a lot cheaper. The big question is whether the effect can be replicated on a larger scale and help reduce the USA's nagging achievement gap between low-income and middle-class students.

Getting kids to read in summer

Schools have always tried to get students to read over the summer. For middle-class students, that's not as big a deal with their access to books at home, public libraries and neighborhood bookstores, says Richard Allington, a longtime reading researcher at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

Over the past 20 years, researchers have shown that low-income students simply have less access to print. In some cases, even walking to the local public library may be too dangerous.

"A lot of parents say, 'When we're gone, you can't go to the library.' It's not an option," says Rebecca Constantino, a researcher and instructor at the University of California-Irvine.

The result: a well-documented "summer slide" in academics that, by sixth grade, accounts for as much as 80% of the achievement gap, Allington and other researchers say. Researchers note that low-income students lose about three months of ground each summer to middle-class peers.

"You do that across nine or 10 summers, and the next thing you know, you've got almost three years' reading growth lost," Allington says.

For a study to be published later this year in Reading Psychology, Allington and colleagues selected students in 17 high-poverty elementary schools in Florida and, for three consecutive years, gave each child 12 books, from a list the students provided, on the last day of school.

In all, 852 students received books each year, paid for mostly by federal Title I money. Three years later, researchers found that those students who received books had "significantly higher" reading scores, experienced less of a summer slide and read more on their own each summer than the 478 who didn't get books.

Simple cause-and-effect

Constantino, who in 1999 founded Access Books, a group that has given away more than 1 million books, says the cause-and-effect is simple: "When kids own books, they get this sense, 'I'm a reader,' " she says. "It's very powerful when you go to a kid's home and ask him, 'Where is your library?' "

The program, piloted last year in Richmond County, Ga., and Charleston, S.C., expands to eight more cities this summer, and 1.5 million books are expected to come home with students, says Greg Worrell of children's book publisher Scholastic, which is offering the books at a discount.

Like Constantino, Worrell says many low-income families "just don't have books in their home at all." But when books come home, parents are inevitably as excited as their children, says Carmel Perkins of Chicago Public Schools, which plans to hand out books to 8,600 students this summer.

"It seems so simple, but parents see it very differently," she says.

In yesterday's Inky: Stimulus funds to Philadelphia to improve food access

2010-07-05T21:01:00.002-04:00

By Alfred Lubrano

Inquirer Staff Writer

In the bleak cityscape of Philadelphia's poorer neighborhoods, the corner store is both convenience and curse, stocking milk and cheese, as well as junk food and cigarettes.

Thanks to federal stimulus money recently pumped into the city, such stores may also start carrying healthier foods, like fresh produce.

In March, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced awards of more than $372 million to 44 communities to combat obesity and smoking.

Philadelphia's share - $15 million to battle obesity and $10.4 million toward smoking cessation over two years - was disbursed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The money is meant to avert what city officials call a "desperate health crisis" by preventing heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and diabetes, and by lowering health-care costs.

For years, advocates such as the Food Trust have tried to get fresh fruits and vegetables into corner stores.

Working with the city's Department of Public Health, the Food Trust will use a portion of the stimulus money to augment its Healthy Corner Stores Initiative and reach 1,000 corner stores in low-income areas with high rates of obesity.

The stores will be asked to sign an agreement to participate in a campaign to stock at least two categories of healthy foods, according to Yael Lehmann, executive director of the Food Trust, a nonprofit working to provide access to healthy foods.

"We've been able to show store operators that there is customer demand for fresh foods," she said. "There's a misconception that people [in poor neighborhoods] don't want fresh food. And we're showing store owners that fruits and vegetables are actually profitable to sell."

For example, Lehmann said, a three-year study of youth snacking behaviors by the Food Trust and Temple University showed, among other findings, that a bag of chips offers a profit of 20 cents, while containers of fruit salads sold for $1 bring in 30 cents of profit.

At Romano's Grocery Store in Juniata Park in North Philadelphia, the addition of produce increased business by 40 percent in a short period of time, owner Juan Carlos Romano told the Food Trust.

About 100 stores will receive mini-grants for renovations that could bring new refrigeration and shelving to accommodate fresh produce.

The changes are vital, officials say.

"Whenever there's an epidemic like obesity, it costs society," said Nan Feyler, chief of staff of the Philadelphia Health Department. "The reality is, in poorer neighborhoods, it's much cheaper to buy unhealthy foods. It's making for a fairly desperate health crisis citywide."

Annual U.S. obesity-related medical spending is estimated at $147 billion, according to the CDC.

At the Jarabacoa corner store at 16th and Ontario Streets in Tioga the other day, customer Tommy Coppock, 78, said he'd tried for years to get the store to stock fresh produce.

"You have to go a good ways to get fresh stuff," said Coppock, referring to the problem of supermarket deserts - large areas of poor neighborhoods that don't have big grocery stores. Typically, corner stores are just 200 to 600 square feet with two aisles and little room for refrigeration, Food Trust research showed.

With help from the Food Trust, Jarabacoa was able to get a refrigerator that now stocks apples, vegetable juices, and yogurt.

In addition, the store sells tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, bananas, and oranges, which are not the usual fare in places better known for chips, cakes, and cookies.

The Food Trust is connecting store owners to produce distributors so they can buy as a group and keep the cost of fruits and vegetables low.

Sandy Sherman, director of nutrition education for the Food Trust, began the Healthy Corner Store Initiative for the nonprofit eight years ago, after she approached schools to reduce unhealthy foods and beverages.

"School officials told me that cutting down kids' consumption of bad foods in schools would have little effect without addressing corner stores," she said.

Since then, Sherman and others at the Food Trust have been educating both students and store owners about the importance of fresh food.

It's having an effect. "The other day, my mom asked me if I wanted a pizza roll," said Ivanna Estevez, 12, who will be starting the seventh grade at John Welsh Elementary School in North Philadelphia this fall. She is part of the Food Trust's Snackin' Fresh program to enlighten Philadelphia students about nutrition.

"I said, 'No, I want watermelon.' It's important because you won't get diabetes or overweight or bad diseases, and you can become very healthy in the future, with good bones and stuff."

Ivanna said she has approached neighborhood corner stores and asked their owners to stock fruits and vegetables.

"I'm telling them to make the right decision," she said.

Chester's Coop

2010-06-23T21:22:00.001-04:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Chester- Chester's Community Grocery Co-op continues to make great strides after receiving $150,000 from The Reinvestment Fund.

Chester's Co-op, a community owned grocery store is pleased to announce a $150,000 grant from The Reinvestment Fund. The funds are to assist in the on-going development of the Co-op in its new location at 510 Avenue of the States. Tina Johnson, President of the Co–op explained that the funds will be combined with member's equity to develop the new location.

"This is an exciting time for Chester's Co-op, Johnson said. “Our members have been dedicated to bringing quality and fairly priced food to the area for over the past four years. Everyone is excited that we will now be able to continue to build on our vision."

Chester's Co-op is a member owned and operated grocery story. Its business model relies on member labor and member investment to accomplish the Co-op’s many goals. Two main goals are to provide the best quality food at fair prices, and to revitalize Chester.

“It is really important to the members that we are a part of the revitalization of the City, especially its downtown area”, Johnson said. “Our member base comes from all over the County, out of the County, and from out of State, and we plan on being an impetus for Chester’s growth.

For more information about Chester’s Community Grocery Co-op visit their website at http://www.chestercoop.com, or contact Tina Johnson at 610.864.9929 to find out when the new member orientation will take place.

on NPR: how the working poor became big business

2010-06-16T19:18:00.001-04:00

How the working poor became big biz

Journalist Gary Rivlin talks with Kai Ryssdal about his new book "Broke USA," and the business of making money off the poor.

Kai Ryssdal: You know the credit crisis we've been dealing with for the past couple of years? Banks not really lending to each other, never mind cracking down on mortgages and student loans. Well, that really only applies at the middle and upper ranges of the income spectrum. For the working poor -- or for anybody, really who's got a decent job but who's just a little bit short waiting for their paychecks -- there's cash to be had all over the place. For a price, of course. Payday lending is everywhere, and it's nicely profitable.

Gary Rivlin writes about the business of making money off the poor in his new book "Broke USA." Good to have you with us.

Gary Rivlin: My pleasure.

Ryssdal: How do we go from in this country, you know the every now and then, mom-and-pop check cashing shop, to in some places, in some cities in this country, they're on every corner.

Rivlin: Check cashing dates back to the 1930s, but today, there's no less than seven publicly traded companies. They're in the check cashing business. payday lending, which didn't even exist 20 years ago, there's now six publicly traded companies in the payday lending business. And so they competing with each other. They had a lot of funding; big banks loaned them money. And by 2006, there were 24,000 payday lenders, which was more than the combined number of McDonald's and Burger Kings in the country.

Ryssdal: Help me with the business model though. If their customers have so little money, where's the profit margin?

Rivlin: Well, it's a nickel-and-dime business, but the good news for those who are in it, is there's lots of nickels and dimes.

Ryssdal: You have this anecdote actually, where you're talking to the guy who, I think you called, the "father of payday lending," and he basically makes that argument. And then you pull out your calculator.

Rivlin: Actually, I asked him to borrow his calculator.

Ryssdal: Remind us of this guy's name. Tell us who he is.

Rivlin: Allan Jones. I met with him for a couple days in Cleveland, Tenn. And he starts taking the amount of money his company is making and dividing it per store, per week, per hour. And he shows me, like, "Look, I'm only making just under $8 per hour in a store that's minimum wage." And I say, "Can I borrow your calculator?" And he had told me he has 1,200 stores, so I start multiplying 52 weeks and 1,200 stores and it turns out that he's bringing in around $22, $23 million in after-tax profit a year.

Ryssdal: We had a commentator on the broadcast, maybe, I don't know two months ago, as financial reform legislation was just getting started. And he defended his interest and he said, "We are not the bad guys. We provide a service." And while we certainly got a share of letters from listeners that said payday lenders are terrible and horrible, we got far more than I would've expected from people who said he does provide a service, I need this kind of thing, leave him alone.

Rivlin: So, let me give the payday lender argument. They're not holding a gun to anyone's head. It's transparent; you walk into most stores and it is posted on the wall, "We charge $15 for every $100 you borrow for two weeks." And that works out to an annual percentage rate of 390 percent. The problem with the payday loan is the person who's so desperate today that they're borrowing money at that kind of rate, two weeks from now, how are they doing to have the extra money to pay back the borrowed amount, plus the fee?

Ryssdal: Describe the tactics these guys use. You tell about store managers who are under immense pressure to reach out to previous customers to make sure they come back in, to get 'em going again. It's a hard sell.

Rivlin: There are some chains that have set up their computers so they automatically spit out the names of the people, everyday, who haven't been in at least 60 days. And the store managers are under pressure to call those people. There's the up-sell. I come in, I ask for $200, but I make enough money that I can borrow $500. They're going to have their people ask, "Are you sure you don't want to borrow $500. You know, you qualify for $500." And so, suddenly, their argument of "well, we're just here when people need us" evaporates.

Ryssdal: "Broke USA" is the most recent book by Gary Rivlin. Gary, thanks a lot.

Rivlin: Thank you.

last night at reading partners

2010-06-08T13:30:00.000-04:00

There were 4 of us Ohev volunteers last night: Cecily, me, Heidi and Rachel. The kids were w/ their parents (the child care aide hadn't arrived from dropping off the after-school program kids), and the room was crowded as usual.

Cecily was helping an older kid through Green Eggs and Ham, while feeding a teething 6-month old, Heidi was reading Duck feet on the floor with a bunch of kids, Rachel was deep in conversation with an older girl, and I was trying to engage a series of toddlers in a series of books.

The 6 month old threw up over poor Cecily, and I was scampering around trying to find paper towels (none in the first bathroom I tried, but there were a few in the staff bathroom).

One little girl, maybe 1?, had a particularly pungent diaper & I went off to change her. She didn't mind being carried off by a strange lady, didn't mind having her hands washed afterward. Even after being changed, her clothes were dirty, and her hair didn't seem to have been washed in a while. It surprised me -- most of the kids we see are clearly well-cared-for; clean clothes and combed hair.

I wanted to carry her home to my house & give her a bath, the way I used to bathe my kids. Leon & Aaron, when they were little, had a routine where they'd cover themselves with towels after their baths, while we intoned "my egg, shouted Horton, my egg, why it's..." and they'd pop up and chirp "HATCHING!!" (out of Horton the Elephant).

Of course, it's easy to have bath time when you have a bathtub in your house (the shelters only have showers), and you have plenty of soap (not covered by food stamps) and towels, and a washing machine right in your house to wash the towels (and plenty of detergent), and a spouse to clean up the dinner dishes while you wash kids. And maybe her parents are depressed, or just stressed out.

She was a spunky little tyke -- toddling around among the older kids, and not upset when someone knocked her over (which was often). I imagined bringing her home, and giving her a bath so she'd smell nice, and washing her clothes, and enrolling her in good day care... Of course, she's a kid with parents and siblings who love her, not an accessory.

And I'm almost 60, and had trouble keeping up with my own kids when they were toddlers, 20 years ago. Maybe we could do a baby-supply drive? Or, at least I could remember to bring along a roll or two of paper towels next time we come...

Even 25 books in a house make a difference

2010-05-21T17:14:00.002-04:00

Every other week, a few volunteers go over to Wesley house & read with kids whose Moms are in class. The kids each get to pick out a book (or two) to keep. I love going over and spending an hour or so with kids on my lap or next to me (my kids are grown), but I always wonder if a few more books in a house can make a difference. Here's an answer (from this week's Journal of Higher Education):

Want Smart Kids? Here's What to Do
Buy a lot of books.
That seems kind of obvious, right? But what's surprising, according to a new study published in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, is just how strong the correlation is between a child's academic achievement and the number of books his or her parents own. It's even more important than whether the parents went to college or hold white-collar jobs. Books matter. A lot.

The study was conducted over 20 years, in 27 countries, and surveyed more than 70,000 people. Researchers found that children who grew up in a home with more than 500 books spent 3 years longer in school than children whose parents had only a few books. Also, a child whose parents have lots of books is nearly 20-percent more likely to finish college. For comparison purposes, the children of educated parents (defined as people with at least 15 years of schooling) were 16-percent more likely than the children of less-educated parents to get their college degrees. Formal education matters, but not as much as books.

From the paper:
Thus it seems that scholarly culture, and the taste for books that it brings, flows from generation to generation largely of its own accord, little affected by education, occupational status, or other aspects of class ... Parents give their infants toy books to play with in the bath; read stories to little children at bed-time; give books as presents to older children; talk, explain, imagine, fantasize, and play with words unceasingly. Their children get a taste for all this, learn the words, master the skills, buy the books. And that pays off handsomely in schools.

Even a relatively small number of books can make a difference: A child whose family has 25 books will, on average, complete two more years of school than a child whose family is sadly book-less.

I wonder what e-book readers like the Kindle will mean to these statistics. On the plus side, a lot of e-books are free and those that aren't are often discounted, so a family with a Kindle might be able to afford more books (assuming they can pony up for the device). But the books aren't as easy to share and you probably don't want your 5-year-old dribbling juice onto your fancy expensive gadget.Plus, the Kindle doesn't look as nice on a shelf.

(The article isn't available online, but you can read the abstract here. The authors of the paper are M.D.R. Evans, Jonathan Kelley, Joanna Sikorac, and Donald J. Treimand.)

10 years of Social Action

2010-05-17T11:48:00.001-04:00

The trees are green; the weather’s warmer; kids are counting the days left in the secular school year. It’s been about 10 years of being in charge of Social Action for me; I’m so grateful for all the support there’s been. Especially, I’m grateful to the people who’ve stepped up and made one or two or many deeds of kindness part of their lives, for year after year after year.

Month after month, six times a year, Sisterhood and Mens’ Club and individual congregants set off to serve dinner at the LifeCenter in cars loaded with food and volunteers. Wonderful people have made it a tradition in their lives to do a dinner a year, or two, or more.

Year after year, there’s been a school supplies drive at the summer picnic – tables loaded with new notebooks and pencils and pens and backpacks, so more kids start the school year with the tools they need to learn.

Year after year, there’s been a High Holiday food drive – a stage loaded with bags and boxes for Mitzvah Food Pantry and the Bernardine Center and Wesley House full of the staples they need to keep feeding the hungry in our midst. Summers are hard for food banks – donations drop off and demand rises (no school lunch programs); our drive comes at an especially helpful time in the year.

Year after year, there’s been a Thanksgiving drive – cars pull up in the parking lot with a turkey, with stuffing mix and canned yams and vegetables, and year after year there’s enough so that 200 or more people have a bounteous Thanksgiving.

Year after year, we’ve hosted families from nearby shelters for Martin Luther King Day; remembrence of Dr. King, and crafts and games and blocks and books, and encounters between kids who don’t often meet.

Year after year, a few special people have taken a few challas to a few congregants, and taken a moment to say “Shabbat Shalom” and hope things are going well.

They’re the people the Rabbis meant the prayer in the Torah Service for the congregation, for those who support synagogues with funds for heat and light and wine for kiddush, bread for the wayfarer & charity to the poor. Hoping for a happy summer with at least a little rest for them, and saying Amen, with extra fervor.

2010 - 2011 Calendar; dates to save for Social Action

2010-05-17T08:01:00.001-04:00

Many, many thanks to the angels who shopped and served for the May 2 LifeCenter Dinner: Edie McFall, Andy Szabo, Steve Katz, Liz & Etai Stern, Vicki Levin & Seth Fein, Allan & Jason Glanzman.

As we head into summer, please mark a few dates on your calendar for 2010-2011, and let me know what works for you:

Reading Partners: Next date is Monday, May 17^th, June 7^th, June 21^st , Meet at Ohev Shalom @ 5:15.

LifeCenter dinners: First Sunday of odd-numbered months: July 4^th , September 5^th, November 7^th (Sisterhood), January 2^nd 2011, March 6^th 2011, May 1^st 2011. We need shoppers (any time) and servers (5:30PM-7:45). Make the summer holidays special for some people who don’t get many treats in their lives.

School supplies for kids in need: Wednesday July 21^st. (Tashman family coordinating)

High Holiday Food Drive September 8^th to 18^th (Bergman-Hoffman family coordinating)

Social Action / Chesed Brunch: Sunday, October 3^rd. Organizing meeting Aug 15 or 22 or 29 (let me know what works)

Soup-making Sunday, October 31, to stock the Chesed freezer with chicken & mushroom-barley.

Thanksgiving collection Sunday, November 21^st, for Chester Eastside Ministries.

Ohev Shalom Culinary Institute: Sunday, February 13^th (the Stern family) Delight your loved one(s) on erev Valentines Day.

Any time, any Friday: deliver challas and extra Shabbat cheer for some of our most beloved congregants. Contact Ruth Kaplan rfk918@aol.com or 610-891-1716.

Wishing you much fresh air and peace in the warm months ahead,