FFWD Weekly
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City
by Tom BabinIf you remove all the politics from the issue of poverty and forget about who is to blame for the problem and who should be dealing with it, all you are left with is hungry people. Boil it down even further, and you will eventually find yourself staring at the stark face of a hungry child. It's at that point the Feeding Calgary's Children Initiative is stepping in.
The people involved in the initiative aren’t trying to solve poverty on a grand scale, they are just trying to get food in front of the 6,500 Calgary children who go without adequate nutrition on a daily basis, as well as the 9,500 who have intermittent hunger needs, and the nearly 30,000 who live in households with incomes low enough that their nutritional requirements are unlikely to be met.
The simplicity of the program, but also its potential impact, is evident in its three goals: to feed kids now; to raise the profile of child hunger; and to plan and research the issue so agencies know what they are up against, and how to best address the problem. After the three-year mandate of the program comes to an end, organizers plan to step away, leaving it up to existing agencies to adopt their initiatives or not.
"We are trying to do some service co-ordination, but we don't want to create a new agency or anything. What we want to do is find some service gaps, find some new ways of feeding kids and create partnerships in the community. Once we do that, and after three years, we don't exist anymore," says project co-ordinator Bruce Anderson.
He adds that the initiative aims to take a broad look at the problem, and, rather than create a new agency with more bureaucracy, use existing resources to fill in the gaps where kids still go hungry. So far, that means getting Meals-on-Wheels to provide soup servings to the Boys and Girls Club, which uses its existing distribution program to provide the soup to schools and a family drop-in centre. Other projects involve companies like Safeway and the Good Earth Café, along with the YMCA and Calgary's Cooking Mobile Kitchen Program.
"There's lots of agencies out there, but they are very busy feeding kids, and they don't have the time to take a look at the overview," Anderson says.
"What we're trying to do is help with the overview, help along those lines, and then after we're finished that, then those agencies can either adjust their mandates to fill those gaps, or they can come up with new responses."
Critics could argue that the program is masking real, long-term solutions to poverty or homelessness, but Anderson says that would be missing the point. He adds that providing food to children regularly is a simple way to improve their lives, and help the long-term health of society.
"We know feeding kids makes them healthier, happier and better learners, and that has an immediate impact as well as a long-term impact as they become healthier, more motivated and productive citizens," he says.
"When we start to deal with poverty, the issue is so wide that it is difficult to focus on a specific action.... We want to ensure that all Calgary's children are well fed."
Though the program is barely out of its first year, Anderson said it's already making an impact. Programs to deliver donated fresh fruit and vegetables to schools and provide snacks to kids in the summer have already begun, and a project to bring Aboriginal families together to cook regular meals will commence shortly.
The program has also hosted some high-profile events, which has helped keep the issue in the Calgary spotlight, and research on the issue is already under way.
Though the legwork for all of the initiatives is completed by agencies who are already working hard against poverty, the Feeding Calgary's Children Initiative is helping to refine those programs. Anderson acknowledges that it won't solve poverty, but when one in 12 Calgary children aren't getting the food they require for healthy development, at least it's doing something.
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