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Nathan Manley
Professor Meghan Finley
Principles of Sociology
9 December 2016
Service Learning: Food Insecurity
	For my service learning, I decided to focus on a rather important topic of hunger, or food insecurity. Food insecurity is when people, whether it be one person, or a whole family, do not have access to enough food, as well as enough nutritious foods. I think this links amazingly with some of the topics discussed in our books, such as social class, and main the varying differences of social stratification. food insecurity is much more prevalent than most people think, and is more or less thought of as hunger rather than “food insecurity.” The fact is, food insecurity is just a way of saying that people are starving, and need help from those more fortunate to help meet their daily living standards. This ties in heavily to our book’s lessons in chapter 7 on social stratification. The main idea to be looking at here would be social class. Social class is what divides us by our wealth and possessions, and decides where we stand in the world. I believe that due to the class system, we are forced to see people under such terrible conditions as food insecurity. If the world were perfect, everyone would have equal access to a large amount of healthy, cheap cost food, but that’s simply not the case. Those in lower social classes have issues with food insecurity, but people on the upper ladders can help them climb the social class ladder by helping them with food donations. It allows upper classes to interact with those on the lower level and help them gain social mobility (Henslin 192). Without help from the upper classes,
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many of the lower classes will likely suffer or worse if they remain on the lowest ladder for too long. According to a USDA report in 2015, 87.3% of households were food secure, leaving 12.7% of U.S. households food insecure (Jensen, 2013). While 12.7% seems like a small amount, turn that into a workable number and that’s approximately 15.8 million U.S. households. This of course doesn’t even factor in homeless people, as the survey households through their survey system. In total from this data, the USDA believes over 42.2 million people live in food insecurity situations. According to this data, it also shows food insecurity has decreased since last year, and I likely believe food pantry services and other non-profit organizations lend a hand in many cases.
	A large move towards helping the food insecurity issues in America started in 2007 with the introduction of food stamps or S.N.A.P. (Supplemental Nutrition Action Program) which took a huge step towards helping individuals and families during their tough time. 32 million people took advantage of SNAP to meet basic food needs by Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009 (Libal, K., Tomczak, S. M., Spath, R., & Harding, S. , 2014). Many setbacks since the 1980’s have caused the number of people to re-cross the poverty-hunger line, and once again the number of food insecure families rise. In response to this however, since 1995, the U.S. government now collects data on food insecurity every year to better treat “food insecurity” which some people see as a term to diminish the true nature we fight, also known as hunger (Libal et al., 2014). There is growing evidence that up until a decade ago, almost no work was being put towards hunger and food assistance programs. However, as of 2014 many organizations believe, “that the profession should participate in promoting rights-based
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organizing to address food insecurity and hunger within urban, suburban, and rural communities across the United States” (Libal et al., 2014). Communities are being rapidly built as of late to improve food insecurity in the United States. Places such as food banks, soup kitchens, and even programs where restaurants now give their leftover food to charity rather than throwing it away are a sign that these communities are a massive help to those who require assistance, and they are the lifeblood of some families. We call it “food insecurity” and yet why do we call it that and just not hunger? Food insecurity isn’t simply being hungry, many people are on food stamps and eat a decent amount of food using the stamps, however the food that is usually bought isn’t what most would call healthy or filling. Most of the time it’s cheap packages of instant ramen, soda, cheap foods with no value, just filler product. One perfect example of this comes from an article by Schroeder and Smaldone which gave an example of having unlimited access to soda, chocolate, and other foods, however these foods lack any nutritional value at all. You have enough to fill you, but they’re so unhealthy and lacking in needed nutrients that you may have a ton of food, but you’re food insecure due to that food being absolutely terrible for your body (Schroeder, K., & Smaldone, A, 2015). These operational food banks give out nothing but good wholesome food, and only take absolutely fresh or canned foods to ensure quality. So they provide the community who needs it with both healthy and plentiful meals, thus helping to stop food insecurity among families in their communities. A lot of detrimental effects happen to the families who suffer from food insecurity, such as type 2 diabetes, weight gain, and high blood pressure due to stress (Nguyen, B. T., Shuval, K., Bertmann, F., & Yaroch, A. L., 2015). These mainly come from the unhealthy foods they are able to buy. Imagine feeding your body, but
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feeding it the cheapest food possible off the shelf every night. You are fed for the night, however your diet takes its toll on your body. One of the many items that comes to mind is ramen blocks, easy to cook, 10 for $2-$3, and over 50% of your daily sodium intake per block. While the package says ~23%, it’s only counting you eat half the block (1 serving), which usually is not the case for most people. In addition to those numbers, through the research conducted in this group’s experiments, they noticed that people with food insecurity took in more sugars, and more calories, however those calories were empty calories, which are not the kind of calories you want to be consuming large amounts of (Nguyen et al., 2015). Many studies also question why some families even on SNAP, otherwise known as food stamps are still in such a sorry state of food insecurity, and a leading idea may be that possibly these people don’t know how to shop cheaply while shopping for healthy meals. Others also believe it’s because people who get food assistance eat too much too fast and possibly over eat what they have (Nguyen et al., 2015). Overall all 3 of these peer reviewed journals show that food pantries like the one I did my service at improve the overall quality of life for people battling food insecurity, and they do the best they can to help keep everyone supplied with fresh healthy food, rather than what they might normally buy. I believe with enough community efforts like food banks, we could make a massive dent in the millions of Americans who are food insecure.
For my service learning project, I worked alongside a group of representatives from the Hockanum Valley Community Council, who are responsible for a very large amount of the food that feeds hundreds of families in the Vernon, Ellington, and Tolland areas. The offer many programs including transportation, food service, and they make very large efforts to help families
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in tough times. During Thanksgiving and Christmas, they have special drives where they look to make Thanksgiving Dinners and Christmas Dinners. (as well as a toy drive for kids during christmas) Without their help, many families would go without a proper Thanksgiving, Christmas, or even a normal dinner every night. They do all of this work simply to help others in
need, and the reason I love working with groups like Hockanum Valley Community Council is that they are a non-profit organization and everything is given away. Without help, they simply cannot function without donations and other outside sources to keep them going, so they depend on the community, so they may help the community in return.  I do a lot of work with the Vernon Police Explorer Post 800, which prides itself on teaching proper respect and authority required by any law enforcement job. Very often we do community service for the Hockanum Valley Food Pantry at Stop and Shop over in Rockville. When I did the service for Hockanum Valley this time it happen to be the Thanksgiving drive where we collect frozen turkeys, stuffing, cranberry sauce and other Thanksgiving dinner related items. I was in my explorer uniform and as we normally do, we hand out fliers with Hockanum Valley’s requested food items and contact information to try and get people to donate even a single item to help a family in need. This isn’t my first time donating my time to help the community, and I’ve likely given 1,000 hours of my free time to the explorers and similar organizations like Hockanum Valley. Throughout both this experience and all of the numerous other times I’ve helped Hockanum Valley, I always realize one key thing. I realize a dollar, a can of soup, that spare handful of pocket change that rattles while you walk, can make a difference. I absolutely love giving my time to something as important as a Hockanum Valley food drive, and I know they make a huge impact on those less
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fortunate and who don’t have enough income to buy decent food for their families. One of the very few things that I don’t like to see however, is that one truly ignorant person. Every single time there’s at least one person who just doesn’t seem to realize that even a dollar could help someone out, yet instead they completely ignore us. I understand the people who came in and
said, “Oh we donated yesterday.” or, “I give food to Hockanum Valley through my church.” because those are very common occurrences since the food drives tend to run multiple days in a row, especially the Thanksgiving drives. I’ve been in the explorers for so long I’ve learned how to read people and know how they may be feeling and there was one woman who came in with that kind of “get out of my face” look, and trying to hand her a flier seemed to offend her as if I broke a norm or committed a crime in front of her. Overall, I see all food drives like this an amazing experience and something that brings people together. I talk to well over 300 people or more throughout each of these drives, and that Thanksgiving was no different, with many people making their last minute dashes for anything they may have needed for their big dinner. What does make this experience just feel amazing is the fact of how much is actually donated. We fill a massive box about the size of a transport van full of food, and usually have to empty it 2-3 times a day. In addition to this group donating, I really like it when someone has a true heart. A man came in on the weekend before Thanksgiving during our food drive, and told us he would come back once he was done, because he had no cash on him at the time. Over 2 hours later, he comes out with a cart loaded to the brim, at least 3 of the bags go into the box with a turkey, and $100 in cash as a straight donation. It was just phenomenal to see someone that giving and caring, and before he left, he explained that at one point in his life, he was in a less than wanted situation,
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and Hockanum Valley was his supplier during those tough times. It’s amazing to think someone who got help from the Hockanum Valley Food Pantry would later be back on his feet, and be willing to donate so much. My overall say on this experience is that it will always bring a smile to my face. We are making a difference in the lives of others who battle food insecurity, and due
to how much effort groups like the explorers and Hockanum Valley put towards the battle, I believe that food insecurity is beatable. What feels great about Hockanum Valley to me is that there are so many dedicated people who work their, all day, every day, for months without a break at times, and MANY of them are volunteers. They give their free time multiple times a week just so that they can be the sort of “knights in shining armor” for these people who desperately need our help. Bill Cole and David Engelson are 2 of the main people whom I’ve given my time to, David being the now retired CEO of Hockanum Valley Community Council. There isn’t a day that David wasn’t working just to see people happy, and Bill came in during some periods where he was told to absolutely NOT work because he was injured. Dedicated People like David and Bill are the type of people we need more of in the world. They use most of their personal lives, devoted to helping others without a whim of thought for their own health. Future work on these food drives and food pantries is absolutely something that should and will continue on until the phrase “food insecurity” and the word hunger vanish from the world. If people were to put their minds more towards ideas like these, I see it possible in the near future, and the more people open their eyes and give just a single can of food, or that little bit of pocket change rattling around, the better everyone will be and feel. After my service learning, and making the connections to food insecurity, I believe that non profit organizations like these are
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what truly make a difference in a very large percentage of communities around the U.S. and the rest of the world.






































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Works Cited


Jensen, A. C. (2013). USDA ERS - Food Security in the U.S. Retrieved December 09, 2016, from https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/




Libal, K., Tomczak, S. M., Spath, R., & Harding, S. (2014). Hunger in a 'land of plenty': A renewed call for social work action. Social Work, 59(4), 366-369. doi:10.1093/sw/swu029




Nguyen, B. T., Shuval, K., Bertmann, F., & Yaroch, A. L. (2015). The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, Food Insecurity, Dietary Quality, and Obesity Among US Adults. American Journal Of Public Health, 105(7), 1453-1459. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302580




Schroeder, K., & Smaldone, A. (2015). Food Insecurity: A Concept Analysis. Nursing Forum, 50(4), 274-284. doi:10.1111/nuf.12118