Beans and Cornbread D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
October 2009
Hunger: Harvest of Hope
Page: 2In another sociology class called Social Equality, students are organizing a community dinner set for this fall in which some people at the table get small portions of rice and beans and others a hearty meal of steak and potatoes. The varied menu is meant to highlight the discrepancies in our society and help participants experience inequality at its most basic level: Why am I still hungry and the person next to me is not?
Ten other WNMU faculty members are using service learning in their classrooms, from basic fundraising to organizing public forums. This outreach into the community is not limited to students: WNMU's Board of Regents recently passed a resolution giving university employees three hours per month of paid leave to volunteer at local organizations working on issues of hunger.
The Food Security Initiative also includes the discussion group Literary Gardens, which meets monthly in Miller Library to talk about books related to hunger and food, and Hungry Words, a university-wide campaign to generate student writing on the same topics. These explorations are meant to illumine the complexities of hunger and the range of solutions. A political science major might focus on raising the minimum wage in America or changing the federal definition of poverty. Someone in the nursing program might point to health care reform. A history student might discuss the culture of generational poverty or the unexamined assumptions of the middle-class.
Faye Vowell, WNMU vice president of academic affairs, describes the project "as a wonderful way to demonstrate WNMU's commitment to our community and to encourage our students to put theory into practice as they pursue their education. In the process, we all work to make our world a better place."
(Vowell will be leading the Literary Garden's discussion of Michael Pollan's bestseller In Defense of Food on Oct. 23 in the Miller Library from noon to 1 p.m. Everyone is invited.)
Food Security Centers
For the director and staff at The Volunteer Center, the two proposed Food Security Centers are at the heart of their vision of ending hunger in Grant County. Alicia Edwards says, "We need short-term solutions. People need food now. But we also want to address long-term community sustainability. We want to redirect how people look at resources."
In Edwards' vision of the Food Security Centers, the single mother who learns how to grow tomatoes will also learn how to use a rainwater catchments system and solar oven, how to make compost and to can food for the winter. She will use the center's commercial kitchen as a place to launch her own small food business and sell her products in the center's retail store. She'll take classes in marketing and graphic design, taught by professors from WNMU at the center's classroom and meeting space. She may find herself reviving an agricultural tradition she rediscovers in her own family — when her great-grandfather farmed in the Mimbres Valley or rural Mexico. Her children will start their vegetable garden at the center or in one of the nearby community gardens — or at their school, as the idea catches on — and so the next generation will also learn about gardening, nutrition and the joy of working outside, in the sun and soil and fresh air. As a family, they will learn to value and protect these natural resources even as they develop and expand their personal resources of competence and creativity.
Moreover, they won't be doing this alone. "Growing food is so much more than planting a seed and harvesting the product," Edwards says. "There is so much opportunity for connection here, for building community. Families can be so isolated today. My idea of a community garden is that as people work together they start taking care of each other. They know if someone's child is sick or someone is having trouble getting to the grocery store. A community garden is about getting people engaged in something bigger than themselves."
Like all visions of a healthy world, this one is synergistic, with each part enhancing the other. Food insecurity in America, for example, is linked to a rise in obesity because poor people often do not have access to fresh fruits and vegetables and do not have or take time to exercise. Obesity, in turn, is linked to a rise in diabetes and other serious diseases. The habit of gardening is both physically and emotionally healthy, and learning how to grow, cook and process food can also save money.
The Food Security Centers will emphasize green technology and energy-efficiency — another synergy of health and economy. Above all, as Alicia Edwards says and gardeners around the world agree, "There is something healing and energizing about growing food." The sum of this vision is more than its parts.
The Food Security Centers come with a price tag of $1.2 million, including capital and operating costs. The Volunteer Center has already received a federal grant that will kick in $425,000 for the purchase of land and construction of buildings in Silver City. Additional grants are being pursued now for the center in Bayard, as well as to successfully run the two sites and support The Volunteer Center's existing work — the food pantry, Alimento para el Nino, services for the elderly, and other projects.
Unfortunately big grants do not usually cover operating expenses like paying people's salaries and actually running The Volunteer Center. This fall the center is launching a campaign to raise money for all these costs.
Judy Williams, president of The Volunteer Center's board, says, "The responses from the community so far have been positive. I would hope that the people of Grant County see their role in helping the Food Security Centers become reality. This is more than a million-dollar campaign. It is a campaign to bring us together as a community."
Contact The Volunteer Center at 388-2988 or visit 915 Santa Rita St. in Silver City. Donations can be mailed to PO Box 416, Silver City, NM 88062.