Ideas: "Lesson in Hunger - Food Bank
recruits volunteers through a dose of reality "
by
Carolyn Said, San Francisco Chronicle, April 6, 2002
"Excuse
me, if anyone could spare a little bit of food, I'd appreciate
it."
John
Gluck is reduced to begging for something to eat.
He
approaches people asking for handouts, to no avail. He makes
a sign seeking help. Finally, a single mother who lives in
her car takes pity on him and gives him a few dollars.
Gluck
isn't actually hungry. He has a steady, full-time job doing
quality assurance for Brisbane's Walmart.com. Instead, he's
role-playing in "Hunger 101," a crash course on
hunger that the San Francisco Food Bank runs for corporate
workers, schools and religious groups.
The
game is simple. Workers are assigned the character of a low-income
San Franciscan struggling to make ends meet. Everyone's task
is to get enough food to make it through the day. They are
allocated a predetermined budget, given Monopoly money and
can visit a "store," a "soup kitchen"
and the "food stamps office" -- all tables operated
by visiting Food Bank staffers.
It's
like a "Sesame Street" skit on Getting Groceries,
but instead of being warm and fuzzy, the lessons are stark.
Like
most nonprofits, the Food Bank relies heavily on volunteers,
who put in almost 4,000 person-hours a month, helping to sort,
inspect, package and label food donations.
Hunger
101 is essentially a recruitment tool to attract corporate
volunteers. By giving people a visceral sense of what it's
like to be hungry, the organization says it creates a cadre
of volunteers who are more motivated.
Besides
donating their time, graduates of Hunger 101 have become advocates
for legislative change, for example, urging California's senators
last fall to support the farm bill that expanded the food
stamp program, according to Cindee Billings, Food Bank education
and advocacy manager.
"When
a company does a food drive, sometimes you wonder where that
food goes," she said. The course gives participants a
clearer view of the issues beyond "just putting food
in bins."
Programs
like Hunger 101 "put the work volunteers are doing into
a broader context," said Julia Love, director of corporate
services at the Volunteer Center of San Francisco. "That
makes a big difference in making a successful connection so
people will want to come back, not just do a one-time project."
Corporate
volunteerism has increased nationally in recent years. At
least half of Fortune 500 companies sponsor workplace volunteer
programs, according to the Points of Light Foundation, a Washington,
D.C., organization created in 1990 to encourage corporate
volunteerism.
"Corporate
volunteers are increasingly more valuable to nonprofits,"
Love said.
"Not
only are they bringing the resources of their companies through
matched donations, but they bring families and friends as
well. It's a great way for corporations to show their community
spirit while giving a nice social benefit to the employees
and giving back to the community they're working in,"
she said.
Companies
such as McKesson Corp., Gap, Bechtel, Levi Strauss, Fleishman
Hillard and Charles Schwab have participated in Hunger 101
and gone on to actively volunteer at the Food Bank.
At
Walmart.com, a dozen dot-com workers gather in a conference
room. They're young, hip, casually dressed.
Each
gets a character to play. It may be a single mom living in
a car, a preteen who must shop for a disabled mother, a construction
worker injured on the job who now lives on the street.
The
characters -- all based on composite Bay Area residents --
have anywhere from $1 to $6 for a day's food for their family.
That means they usually don't have enough to get all their
food at the "store." They must apply for food stamps
(filling out the actual, 19-page application), which give
them just a few dollars more.
In
real life, the food stamp office is open only during working
hours, which would mean taking time off from work, so it typically
takes two or three visits to complete the paperwork.
Even
with food stamps, some players come up short, so they visit
the "soup kitchen" for a meal -- which in real life,
might mean a two-hour round trip on the bus, not practical
because most of the simulated characters are working.
It
is the fact that they're employed that is most striking.
"This
dispels the illusions that people who are hungry are all living
on Sixth Street," said Erin Callahan, Food Bank spokeswoman.
"There are lots of working families."
Gluck
is given the character of Penka Ivanovskaya, a Russian immigrant
living in Richmond with her husband, Boris, on $1,100 per
month. After rent, utilities and other expenses, they have
$150 left -- that's $5 per day for food.
After
being turned down for food stamps, Gluck gets creative and
goes begging. "It was amazing to see the amount of time
it takes just to figure out how to eat," he said. "It's
really eye-opening."
Cynthia
Lin, Walmart.com head of public relations, said she felt the
course "put a face on this problem." Many of the
characters had less than $120 per month for food, she noted,
while "some people in this town blow $120 for one meal
at a nice restaurant."
E-mail
Carolyn Said at csaid@sfchronicle.com
 |
