{"id":390,"date":"2024-07-31T13:52:07","date_gmt":"2024-07-31T13:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/?p=390"},"modified":"2024-07-31T13:57:13","modified_gmt":"2024-07-31T13:57:13","slug":"community-based-solutions-to-food-insecurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/?p=390","title":{"rendered":"Community Based Solutions to Food Insecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"

An alarming overshadowed issue throughout the United States, specifically in the borough of Queens, is food insecurity: people’s lack of ability to obtain food. In 2022, 44.2 million people in the United States were food insecure. At the same time, according to the Zara Charitable Foundation, 25% of families in Queens lack access to nutritious foods<\/a><\/u>. Although the United States government has taken steps to provide more financial welfare, such as EBT and SNAP, to alleviate additional food insecurities during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are also local actions that can relieve the overcast circumstances revolving around food insecurity within the community.
\n For students, specifically, The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) provides low-cost or free lunches to students in K-12 public and nonprofit private schools, as well as childcare services. Because of a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) pandemic waiver that had meals free of charge to every student, the NSLP could provide 4.9 billion meals in fiscal year 2022, which expired in the summer of 2022. According to research by the USDA Economic Research Service,<\/a><\/u>  ⅓ of households with school-aged children in December 2022 stated that paying for school meals made them less able to pay other expenses. The NSLP was thus successful in reducing food insecurity during the pandemic, but the problem with programs like this is that they’re unsustainable, a short-term solution to problems that families have suffered with for generations.
\n Starting with usable leftover produce, the food industries should be encouraged to establish protocols that address unsellable products in good condition. For instance, cafes and bakeries prepare freshly baked goods daily. Videos have surfaced that Starbucks employees must throw out all the food left after the end of the day. Often, food industries dispose of the unsold items for the day because they are legally prohibited from selling them the following day. However, if these unsold products were wrapped and presented to individuals in need of a filling meal, there would be fewer cases of dumpster diving and food waste. Unfortunately, laws aren’t set in place to combat business food waste policies. New York State has a Food Donation and Food Scraps Recycling law that if an institution or business generates more than two tons of wasted food per week, it must donate excess edible food, but it doesn’t apply to New York City.
\n Stepping away from food waste is another way to combat food insecurity to provide students with opportunities to claim fresh produce from local or school gardens. Programs such as Grow NYC provide students with fresh bags of produce free of charge every few weeks. This means that students will have more options while enforcing the significance of fresh produce. That said, the more opportunities people have to learn about positive methods against food insecurity, the more awareness there will be towards food insecurity within the community and government. Some opportunities can be volunteering at food pantries: most pantries ask for volunteers at least 18 years of age. Additionally, having food opportunities within the school will increase the goods families are open to. Food Bank for NYC has created on-site campus pantries for over 50 kindergarten through 12th-grade schools. During the school year, it has been successful in providing canned goods, fresh produce, and frozen goods, particularly in P.S. 19Q in which a third of the children are below the poverty line.  Despite the struggle the community of Astoria, Queens with one of the largest elementary schools in the U.S. has faced with the ability to afford nutritious food, collaborating with schools and student’s families is an effective strategy to address the issue. Food insecurity can be a difficult issue to overcome, but reform doesn’t have to start in the government, it can begin in communities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An alarming overshadowed issue throughout the United States, specifically in the borough of Queens, is food insecurity: people’s lack of ability to obtain food. In 2022, 44.2 million people in the United States were food insecure. At the same time, according to the Zara Charitable Foundation, 25% of families in Queens lack access to nutritious… Read More »Community Based Solutions to Food Insecurity<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food-insecurity-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":394,"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions\/394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cesj.legaloutreach.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}