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PRIVATE AND PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS PARTNER TO FIGHT FOOD INSECURITY
By Michelle Alfini and Isabella Broggini
When Loaves and Fishes, the largest food pantry in Alamance County, closed abruptly in August of 2013, 7,000 people faced losing access to the food they needed to sustain themselves.
That’s when Allied Churches stepped in to fill the void.
Already a serving as a shelter and offering meals to the homeless of the community, Allied Churches expanded to include an on-campus food pantry. Still a far-cry from the 7,000 Loaves and Fishes served the pantry now serves about 2,000 people every month.
Government role in alleviating food insecurity in Alamance County
While the burden of feeding the county falls on organizations like Allied Churches, the local government is looking at attacking the more systematic issues surrounding the issue.
- Stacie Turpin-Saunders, health director of Alamance County
Stacie Turpin-Saunders is the health director of Alamance County, which means she oversees the government arm of public health in the local community. According to an assessment done by her department, Turpin-Saunders said the three greatest public health priorities in the area are access to care, poverty and education.
Of these priorities only access to care fits the traditional definition of health, but according to Turpin-Saunders all are in the realm of what her department needs to focus on in order to improve the community.
“All these things are connected,” she said.
Obesity, hunger and the health complications that accompany these problems are symptoms of larger issues in the area, such as a failure in the education system and widespread poverty. Turpin-Saunders said all of these environmental and social factors need to be addressed before those symptoms can be treated.
“While we can look at those symptoms and treat those symptoms, we’re not really treating the things that are causing or that initially put that person on that path,” she said.
Take for example, the issues surrounding hunger. Poverty, number of grocery stores in the community, access to transportation and education are all significant factors when it comes to access and desire to eating healthy food.
“I don’t think people necessarily link those things together, but they are very closely linked,” she said. “A child who has a good start, actually will do better in school. A kid who does better in school has a better outcome, not only physically healthy, but fiscally healthy, also socially, and vice versa. Those things go back and forth.”
For those who don’t have the opportunity to have that good start in school, the odds are stacked against them when it comes to their health. That’s what Turpin-Saunders wants her department to look at.
“I think for me I’d really like us to stay on this course of seeing health broader than just symptoms,” she said. “It’s diabetes or it’s heart disease and these types of things but in actuality when you look deeper than that There’s some really root-level determinants that are contributing to that person’s health.”
Partnering with nonprofits
Besides the government, other organizations have taken up the responsibility of addressing these symptomatic issues. Impact Alamance, a supporting organization of the local hospital, Alamance Regional Medical Center partners with the health department, supplying a financial arm to back some of their efforts.
- Marcy Green, director of operations and senior program officer at Impact Alamance
Part of the Cone Health Network, Impact Alamance was founded in May 2013 as a result of AMRC’s merger with Cone Health. The organization’s primary role is funding and providing the resources for local partners that tackle public health issues. Marcy Green, director of operations and senior program officer at Impact Alamance said that means partnering and bringing together whatever group can best address the issue.
“As a funder philanthropy that’s a big role for us,” she said. “To get people around those issues and work with other folks like the health department and the hospital and the university to see what kind of impact we can make on social and health issues together,” she said.
And according to Turpin-Saunders the partnerships between her department, nonprofits and other arms of the government work well in Alamance County because they see each other as essential in meeting their common goals. She said in that way, the community benefits the most.
“Our county, I don’t know if we are the only ones who do that, but we definitely have a really incredible group and collaborative nature here that we don’t necessarily see that as your job or your job, that this is how we’re going to work together to move outcomes for our next generation and for ourselves, she said.”
One of Impact Alamance’s current initiatives is “Investing in Healthy Kids,” which means increasing children’s physical activities and access to healthy foods.
It’s an issue that Green said is particularly important in Alamance County given the way many children live.
“One thing that's very alarming that a lot of people do not know is 30 percent of children in Alamance County are in poverty, which is a huge number and when you actually look at 30 percent of Alamance County’s population or the population of children, 30 percent it’s the same as the town of Elon,” she said.
To address this issue, Impact Alamance has funded organizations like the Alamance-Burlington School System, Alamance Community College and the Women’s Resource Center. Additionally Impact Alamance has awarded $12,000 to Allied Churches to create an outdoor learning environment and play area for residents.
Elon’s fight against food insecurity
One of the most relevant nonprofits fighting food insecurity in Alamance County is Elon University. Volunteers from the university work closely with Allied Churches, Alamance Regional Medical Center, the local schools and other health-based organizations in the area to better the county.
Campus Kitchen is one on-campus organization committed making healthy foods more accessible to local residents. Every week volunteers from Campus Kitchen cook about 200 meals from mainly repurposed, home-grown or donated food for Allied Churches and the local senior center.
- Melanie Seidman, director of Campus Kitchen at Elon University
Melanie Seidman is the director of Campus Kitchen and said she got involved because she wanted to pair her love of cooking with a way to give back to the community.
“I don’t know how much we’ve impacted but I know that every time we deliver meals the senior centers and Allied Churches are so thankful that we come and bring them this much food,” she said.
According to Seidman, Campus Kitchen has so far harvested more than 1,000 pounds of food from Loy Farm to cook into meals and the organization has had even more success providing food for the community through past food drives.
“Last spring we had a huge Greek Week food drive. It was extremely successful,” she said. It was so hard to transfer that food just because there was so much of it.”
Fighting food insecurity — can these organizations change the community?
Despite the work of these nonprofit organizations and government workers, no one is expecting food insecurity to go away anytime soon.
Green said that’s the nature of trying to conquer big picture issues.
“When you talk about policy, systems and environmental changes these things don’t happen overnight,” she said. “It could take years for us to have a huge impact on this.”
Still, according to Turpin-Saunders that’s the only way a true impact can be made.
“When we look at those very broad social determinant things of health and start to tackle those as a community and not just I tackle them and United Way tackles them in their own way, that we all come together in a collective way to look at them and figure out how we’re going to tackle these things, that’s when you have the greatest impact for your community.” she said.
And Seidman said it’s important for her and other Elon students to volunteer in and see the food insecurity in the community, because outside of Elon and across the country this is the reality for thousands of Americans.
“The real world is not the Elon Bubble,” Seidman said.