Movie screening March 27 to promote hunger project in Fannin County

The food issue most in the news these days is America’s battle with the bulge. While people may be healthy at different weights, poor diet is resulting in epidemic levels of health problems. With the spotlight on obesity, we tend to think of hunger as a problem that exists in other countries but not here at home. Food insecurity is an invisible problem in many ways, but is very real for the people who deal with it on a daily basis.

This issue is of particular concern here in Fannin County. 6110 people, or 18% of the population, are food insecure. That’s almost one in five people. That doesn’t mean that everywhere you go in the community you will see someone who is starving, but it does mean that you will probably see someone who has trouble putting food on the table, someone who is not always sure where their next meal is coming from or how they are going to feed their children. You in fact might be one of these people.

As with many problems, children and the elderly are our most vulnerable. Joan Robbins of Meals on Wheels sees the problem of hunger among our elderly population in an up close and personal way. Joan says, "There are many seniors whose only meal for the day is the one we deliver to them."

According to Joan, seniors are especially vulnerable to not getting enough nutritious food to eat because of lack of mobility, lack of transportation, ill health, and not knowing how to get assistance or assuming they don't qualify. Seniors have a tendency to accept less and subsist on things like peanut butter and crackers.

Tere Curtis who is a Victim Advocate for the Fannin County Family Crisis Center says the problem is so great that The Crisis Center runs a small food room in an attempt to help, even though their number one priority is serving victims of crimes. Many times the two issues overlap. A woman in the process of escaping a domestic violence situation, for example, may find herself and her children food insecure during the transition to a new life. The Crisis Center also provides food baskets at Christmas, but Tere says the problem is at its worst in the summer because people tend to give at Christmas or Thanksgiving but not in the summer months. This is also the time that many students, especially those who live in the country, lose their access to school lunches.

Another group that has tackled the issues of poor access to healthy food and food insecurity is CORE. Many people may not have access to healthy food even if they are not missing meals. The local environmental group has organized a community garden in Catron Park in an effort to help people be able to grow their own healthy food. Interest in the garden has been high and many people have participated. Among those who have, many do so as a way to supplement their food budget and even to have food to freeze and can for later use.

There are many other organizations and churches working on this problem in the community. Simply giving people food is a stopgap solution, but it sometimes can make a huge difference for a person who is just trying to get through a rough patch. But the greater problem must be addressed by looking at the issues behind it. Why do we have this problem in Fannin County? A new organization is looking to do just that. The Fannin County Hunger project is seeking to bring together all of the local organizations that deal with food insecurity and anyone else who is interested to create a unified plan to end hunger in Fannin County.

Red River Regional Hospital is partnering with CORE and other community organizations to spearhead this initiative.

David Conejo, CEO of Red River Regional Hospital said, “It is imperative that we heighten the awareness of hunger in Fannin County to learn multiple avenues to help the undernourished and teach them how to help themselves. Fannin County ranked in the top one-third of Texas counties for hardship in 2011. Red River Regional Hospital contributed $4,782,561.00 in indigent and uncompensated care to our citizens in 2012. There are an estimated 1,840 children in Fannin County who are 'food insecure' and the food pantries deliver 471,000 pounds of food per year. With statistics like these, we must band together to bring our community out of this downward spiral. We need to return to our American roots and lift each other up."

Conejo went on to say, “A Hunger Project, by definition, seeks to end hunger and poverty by empowering people to lead lives of self-reliance, meet their own basic needs and build better futures for their children. The Hunger Project carries out its mission through three activities: mobilizing village clusters at the grassroots level to build self-reliance, empowering women as key change agents, and forging effective partnerships with local government.”

The Hunger Project’s first event will be a screening of A Place at the Table on March 27 at 7:00 p.m. at the TEAM Center in Bonham. A discussion will follow the movie, and everyone who is interested in the well being of the county is invited to come.