Food insecurity is a huge problem in Broome County. There are many cases of food blight in the lower socioeconomic and rural parts of the southern tier of New York where people don't have access to fresh, unprocessed foods. So, there are neighborhoods where there are 3 McDonald's but no supermarket or places to buy groceries are moving out and farther away, which makes not only hunger but malnutrition a more prevalent problem. And we all know the repercussions of being hungry, you're cranky, distracted, and can't work to your full ability, furthermore obesity is a problem in areas of food blight since the only access to any kind of food is fast food. And so forth, before anyone can fully contribute in our society, I believe everyone needs a good meal to begin and end their day.
Now, back to CHOW, this wonderful organization has a warehouse full of all kinds of food and toiletries for the people of Broome County. Everything is donated and every year they have a Hunger Walk to raise money to keep the warehouse going. Something that I found the most interesting about CHOW is that if you call the office, they will refer you to the nearest church soup kitchen and if you need baby formula, they will provide that too. CHOW addresses the issues of food head-on by directly providing food to those in need. And something else I love that they do is they hire a lot of recovering addicts, those recently released from prison, and some elderly; they provide jobs and food to te community to help stop the cycle of poverty.
-Chelsea Desruisseaux
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ReplyDeleteChelsea I think that your passion for CHOW is admirable and I hope to feel as strongly as you do about a local cause in the near future. CHOW helps out the community in a way that can make a huge difference in many people's lives.
ReplyDeleteWe are so blessed to be able to come to a great institution like Binghamton and not have to worry about the misfortunes that others suffer from every day, but for me this course has popped the bubble between the campus that we live on and the struggles of the outside world that are so close to us. I would like to see some data on just how bad the food issues are in the area, but I am sure they are not very pretty. Organizations like CHOW can really do some good out in our community, and I think that when we look for where we should be donating our money for this semester, we need to look towards organizations that aim to fix major issues in our community and reach the largest number of people.
We can only do so much for the people of Binghamton, but knowing that there are great organizations like CHOW that put food on a table for a hungry family is a great benefit to the community. I hope that when we look at places to give our money away to, organizations like and including CHOW would be towards the top of the list, because it is an integral part of a community to provide good and healthy food for everyone.
I find CHOW’s approach to distributing healthy food to the people of Broome County very interesting. I did some research into CHOW to find out more about the way that the organization operates. CHOW is a network of over 30 food pantries and 30 soup kitchens in throughout Broome County. This approach seems to be effective, as there is one centralized food distribution program. In class when we talk about the effectiveness of an organization, we often bring up that before starting a new organization, one should see if a similar organization already exists in a community. Focusing on an issue that is already being addressed is not particularly efficient. Though there are other food kitchens and pantries in Broome County, CHOW’s network allows itself to be efficient, as the organization can address the needs of a larger area without wasting resources.
ReplyDeleteI really like CHOW’s network strategy, but, like Ryan, I would like to see more data concerning hunger in Broome County and the effectiveness of CHOW. When I searched CHOW online, very little information came up. A few short videos and a brief summary of the organization’s work were my only sources of information about CHOW. Perhaps my search was not thorough enough, but CHOW’s information should be easily accessible.
My other main concern is CHOW’s church affiliation. CHOW is a program run by Broome County Council of Churches. This larger council has several outreach projects besides CHOW. My fear is that the Council of Churches does not spend enough time on any of the individual projects. CHOW would probably be more effective if it were the main focus of the Broome County Council of Churches. However, I cannot make any assumptions until more information about CHOW is released.
I respect the passion you have for CHOW. I agree with you that everyone needs a good meal to begin and end their day. With out proper nutrition people will not have the energy to make it through there work day or take care of their families. I am saddened when I think that the only food people can afford or get to are fast food places such as McDonalds. Fast food tastes good everyone once in a while but to eat on a daily bases is unsatisfying. I am reminded of a movie a watched (and many of you probably heard of) called "Super Size Me." In this documentary Morgan Spurlock decided to eat nothing but three McDonalds meals a day every day for 30 consecutive days. Before starting he was in top physical condition but by the end he was in danger of serious health issues. Things like this show us why people need healthier sources of food. (if you want to know more here is a link http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/super-size-me/ )
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Ryan that this class has opened my eyes to the problems of the community around us. As for CHOW they sound like a great organization and I would like to learn more about them. You mentioned a warehouse full of food and toiletries. Do people go to the warehouse or are the products delivered to places like soup kitchens or families in need? CHOW definitely has potential in our class and I feel that we should look into them. I know they have not received any money from us in the past few years, maybe you will be able to make a good argument for our class to choose them.
I really like that you choose to write your blog about an organization that you are passionate about. Interestingly enough, I just learned a bit about CHOW during a discussion that took place during one of my Dean of Student’s internship meetings. CHOW came up in discussion because we were talking about hunger amongst Binghamton University students. Off-campus students can actually access the food bank that CHOW supplies. Off-campus students and Binghamton residents also have the opportunity to donate to chow when shopping at Weis grocery store, that’s one place where I first noticed the presence of the organization. Students can also donate occasionally in the dining hall through Sodexo. Ultimately, it seems like CHOW does a lot of great work and puts in a lot of effort to expand their food bank.
ReplyDeleteGoing back to the discussion I had during a meeting for my Internship, we began by discussing the tactics that CHOW takes to try to feed the most amount of people and the ways it gains its donations. We then began to talk about the food bank we have on our Binghamton campus, which is located in the Financial Aid office. I bet most of you did not even know about this, I for sure didn’t. We were discussing how to get the word out about this food bank. It comes in handy when student’s meal plans run out and they do not have the option to get more money from their parents to refill their plan. Beth Riley, the case manager in the Dean of Students office came to discuss our food bank with us and brought up some good points about how it isn’t utilized to its full capacity. She mentioned that students might feel too ashamed to use it, so we were trying to come up with better marketing options to make the food bank on campus more appealing. My feeling was that students simply do not know about it, also the food bank may be kind of small because students do not know about hunger amongst students. It just isn’t common mentality amongst the student body to think that students are actually hungry, since everyone has the latest iPhone and can just go to the dining hall, but what happens when your meal plan runs out and your parents simply do not have the money to refill your plan? Hunger is in fact a real problem amongst students towards the end of each semester when everyone’s meal plans are practically empty, I know I’ve had that problem, but I have been lucky enough to have my friends support me through their meal plan.
To conclude, hunger in Binghamton is a real thing, there are many poor residents that reside in Binghamton that face this problem and CHOW does a great job at addressing it. Hunger is also an issue amongst Binghamton students and I think everyone needs to become more aware about this problem as well as more aware of the resource of the food bank in the financial aid office, in which EVERY student can use.
Chelsea: from your post, one can clearly see how passionate you are about this organization and about the benefits it provides to the community.
ReplyDeleteCHOW seems like an organization that would prove to be very useful in Broome County, for their are many families that don't have meals on the table each day. In addition, from Martha's research, the 30 soup kitchens around Broome County helps to prove the organization's efficiency. With this many kitchens, the organization is able to serve many people at once, instead of just having one kitchen that would not be able to serve as many people in the same amount of time.
I believe many people take for granted the advantage of always having food on our tables. Going to a university, especially, food is always right in front of us and we never have to wonder when our next meal will be. Personally, hunger is one of the main problems that I want to solve, and supporting CHOW's organization with a portion of our $10,000 would prove to be extremely beneficial to Broome County.
For those that were interested in seeing more data, a quick Google search turned up some statistics from Broome County in 2012.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.foodbankst.org/usr/FBST13Broome.pdf
I've lived in Binghamton my entire life, and only in the last few years have I learned about the poverty that exists in the area. While it saddens me to see that there is so much need in my hometown, I'm proud to be a part of a class that exposes the needs of the community and inspires young people to give back in some way.
Chelsea, I really admire your passion for CHOW. Your explanation of the organization gave a concise argument of the impact that CHOW has on this community. I think what this organization is doing is great. In general, I believe that organizations like food pantries aren't using their funding in the most positive way. I believe that using their money to buy food to give away as handouts is effective in the short run, but it supports the continuation of hunger by not offering a long-term solution. CHOW, on the other hand, proves to be effective in the long run. Despite being a food pantry-esque organization, CHOW offers jobs to people who struggle in the job market, which supports the movement out of the cycle of poverty. I like that while they are providing a short-term solution, they are also focused on solving the problem in the long-run.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I generally think of hunger as an issue more prevalent in developing nations abroad, I do believe CHOW is having an great impact on the issue locally. Having the hunger walk gets the community involved, aware, and supportive of the cause, providing jobs to community members in need supports the transition out of poverty, and supplying meals to people in need targets the problem head on. This "triple-threat" type of organization gets has me thinking about the decision we will soon be making about donating our money as a class. Should we be thinking about the number of problems the organization is solving? Chow does a great job of using every aspect of the organization for good, should that be a criterion for our decision?