Welcome to Divine Spark's website!
We provide support & guidance for people in-need without regard to gender, race, creed, age, or calling to activate the divine spark within each of them. We offer a Weekly Meal Program, allocation of donated Motor Vehicles & Bicycles, Pet Food & Veterinarian Care, Legal & Job Referral Help, and Meal/Food Vouchers are just a part of the assistance we provide. Here's the latest happenings...
Once a week Divine Spark and volunteers offer a prepared meal from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon on Sunday mornings at the front steps of the Divine Spark office at 308 Main Street in Nevada City. Food Vouchers, which has been donated from local merchants & eateries for meals, are offered to the hungry as well. Gently-used clothing, and food for Pets, is also available.
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VISITORS/GUESTS: Please read Divine Spark's Sunday Morning Guidelines...>>
by Alan Riquelmy
18 September 2015
The Union Newspaper
Justin Wilkison, left, and Jim Rose enjoy the air conditioned dining room
at Hospitality House in Grass Valley Thursday afternoon.
Photo by Laura Mahaffy, lmahaffy@theunion.com, The Union Newspaper
There's no question Nevada County has a homeless population.
Homeless people visit local nonprofits for food and shelter, and receive other services from them as well.
The real question, according to a consultant on the issue, are how many homeless people are in the community, if they're local or from outside the area and how long they've been here.
Homeless consultant Robert Marbut drew hundreds of people to a town hall forum in Grass Valley earlier this month. He gave several suggestions, which included compiling a central database of information he said the community lacks.
In the area for a few hours, Marbut said he asked several people for statistics on the homeless. He said everyone had a different answer, and emphasized the need for a communal database.
Someone he didn't ask for that information was Cindy Maple, executive director of Hospitality House.
“Data is a really big deal to me,” she said.
Maple and other nonprofit leaders compile information about the homeless population they serve, though the number and variety of questions differ.
Hospitality House, for example, keeps a list that includes its guests' genders, ages and races. It also details if they're veterans, have physical or developmental disabilities as well as substance abuse issues, among other criteria.
Marbut also didn't ask for data from Lt. Sid Salcido, commanding officer over the Salvation Army's social services for Nevada County.
The local Salvation Army maintains the area's Homeless Management Information System, a database that pulls information from a number of nonprofits and that is required to receive certain grants.
The Salvation Army keeps records for its Booth Family Center and Rapid Rehousing program. It knows its guests' ages, races, genders, physical and mental conditions and veteran status, among other items.
“It would be helpful to add certain things that Marbut mentioned,” Salcido said of his database.
Nonprofit leaders like Maple and Salcido heard things they like and oppose during Marbut's town hall discussion. What all nonprofits agree on is homelessness is an issue in Nevada County and steps must be taken to solve it.
Marbut spelled out possible goals for the community, a 24/7 shelter with day programs and feeding sites next to other homeless services among them.
Shirley Kinghorn, executive director of Divine Spark, likes much of what she heard. Marbut did ask Kinghorn for data about the homeless she serves.
Kinghorn, whose organization feeds about 55 to 75 people a week, asks how long people have been homeless, where they live, if they have access to mental health services and their greatest need.
“A lot of people said their greatest need is to find work and a permanent shelter,” Kinghorn added.
Divine Spark provides nutritious, hot meals for the homeless. It also tries to connect them with services such as medical needs, Kinghorn said.
The group has no building to feed people, an issue for Marbut. Responding to critics, he said he doesn't want organizations only feeding the homeless.
Instead he suggests food to be distributed in a spot near services they can use. If that proves impossible, an online network should be established to connect the homeless with necessary services.
Maple said that aspect of Marbut's suggestions isn't feasible here.
“Our program is 100 percent about providing services to people where they are,” she said.
Janice O'Brien, president and founder of Sierra Roots, likes the idea of feeding the homeless while connecting them to services.
O'Brien's group collects information from the people it serves, though it doesn't ask everything Marbut is looking for. She knows their names, genders and veteran status, but not how long they've been homeless.
“We serve a lot of people who are not counted by Hospitality House or the county because they don't go in for the count,” O'Brien said.
O'Brien said Marbut is right about solving the root causes of homelessness. Many homeless people want jobs. They need jobs. However, if needs such as housing and a place to shower aren't met, they can't get those jobs, she added.
O'Brien said she likes the idea of a central facility for the homeless that provides safety, security and stability. Agencies would come to them. A place to sleep along with access to showers would put them in reach of a job.
“It's a flawed, fragmented system right now,” O'Brien said.
According to Salcido, the Continuum of Care – the group of nonprofits and individuals who provide services to the homeless – already has achieved some of Marbut's goals.
Salcido pointed to the Homeless Management Information System, which has some, but not all, of the answers Marbut wants.
The Continuum of Care meets once a month to discuss the agencies' programs and update each other.
“I think his talk helped us to know we've got to get better,” Salcido said.
According to Salcido, the key to ending homelessness is working together in the most efficient way.
Maple also said she wants the Continuum of Care to become more involved.
She'd like to see people who want to join the effort work with that continuum, as opposed to forming subgroups that aren't coordinated with it.
For Maple, the solution is rooted in what causes homelessness. In that respect she agrees with Marbut.
“I honestly believe homelessness isn't the crisis,” Maple said. “Housing is the crisis.”
Nonprofits should focus on helping the homeless with mental illness and substance abuse. When they have opportunities for recovery, and affordable housing, the community will see the homeless population decrease, Maple said.
“If you don't address that, nothing will ever change,” she added.
Organization also is paramount for O'Brien, who said nonprofits must work with law enforcement and elected officials to solve homelessness. Many people have good ideas, but the system remains too fragmented to properly implement any of them.
O'Brien suggested the formation of a task force to oversee the collection of data about the homeless. Armed with that information, it could then spearhead potential solutions.
“It has to be united, otherwise it won't work,” she added.
Kinghorn echoed the others' desire to work together. She began calling the city managers of Grass Valley and Nevada City, as well as the Nevada County Board of Supervisors, after the town hall meeting in hopes of starting a discussion.
Everyone needs to help address the issue, Kinghorn said, or it'll eventually impact everyone.
“They're here because they have family here,” she said of the homeless population. “They're here because they're connected to the place. And they need help.”
To contact Staff Writer Alan Riquelmy, email ariquelmy@theunion.com or call 530-477-4239.
A Community Lunch is now being offered at the First Baptist Church located at 300 Main Street in Nevada City from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm two days a week on Mondays & Wednesdays...All Are Welcome!
New ways of dealing with the massive amounts of excess food which exacerbates drought and climate change.
By Ari LeVaux
24 July 2015
Ron Clark is no stranger to food waste. After more than 20 years of working to supply fresh produce to California's food banks, he knows every point along the route from farm to table where produce gets plucked from the human food chain, for cosmetic reasons, and composted, fed to pigs, or buried in a landfill. Clark was filling 60-80 truckloads per week with recovered food, bringing 125 million pounds of perfectly healthy produce to hungry food bank clients, by the time he left the food bank system. Today he looks on in awe at a new wave of innovators looking to tackle the problem of food waste. Most of them are 20-somethings fresh out of college, he told me. And they're using business models, rather than nonprofits, to get it done.
An estimated 40 percent of all food grown never gets eaten by humans, and hunger isn't the only consequence. Wasted food also represents wasted water, and contributes to global warming, thanks to the methane produced when it rots in the landfill.
But the movement to stop food waste is booming. In 2014, one of the France's largest food retailers, Intermarche, began selling "ugly" produce at a discount. Store traffic increased 24 percent. In mid-July a petition was initiated at Change.org calling on Wal-Mart and Whole Foods to do the same. At press time nearly 8,000 people had signed on to the petition, which was put forth by Jordan Figueiredo of Endfoodwaste.org. Figueiredo, whose day job as a municipal solid waste manager in the Bay Area, is an anomaly in the movement, both because of his advanced age—36—and because his web page is a nonprofit.
Many, if not most, of the newer efforts to end food waste are just as mission-driven as a food bank, but are sustained by sales of recovered produce, and products made from it, rather than grants and donations. And they are run by kids.
“It really is a millennial movement. It's so refreshing to see a whole generation of people so passionate and excited about this issue,” Clark told me. And he's impressed by their ability to bring in dollars, from sales and investors. “They're money magnets,” he said.
“They aren't interested in old organizations, which tend to be hierarchical and structured, like corporations. The energy in the new generation doesn't mix with that culture. They're going after the food waste issue in different ways, and for slightly different reasons. The millennials certainly care deeply about hunger, but are primarily concerned with saving the planet.”
Wasted food is responsible for about 45 trillion gallons of wasted water, according to 22 year-old Evan Lutz, CEO of Hungry Harvest in Baltimore. Hungry Harvest recovers surplus produce from farms and wholesalers, and sells it in CSA-style boxes at a steep discount to what non-cosmetically-challenged produce would cost. For each box sold, a healthy meal is donated to someone in need. Lutz sees his work as an inevitable result of a profoundly unsustainable situation.
“Our society can't sustain itself when 6 billion pounds of produce is wasted annually, while 51 million Americans are food-insecure,” he told me.
And despite his lofty ambitions, Lutz has no reservations about turning a profit on his work. “We are for-profit so we can scale in a sustainable way.” Hungry Harvest recently secured some investments that “exceeded our expectations,” Lutz says.
When speaking with these young, business-savvy entrepreneurs, you hear a lot of economic jargon, like “scaling,” “aggregate,” and “resource constrained.” You also hear words like “shocked, aghast, insane, and disgusted,” as they recount their first glimpse of the enormity of the food waste problem.
“It's appalling. It's insane. It makes you want to do something about it,” recalls Claire Cummings, 25, of her first farm-level glimpse of food waste. Cummings is the Waste Specialist for Bon Appetit Management Company, a national restaurant company that operates more than 650 cafes in 33 states. The Waste Specialist position was created for Cummings, who was fresh out of Bon Appetit's fellowship program. In partnership with Compass Group, the parent company, she quickly spearheaded the campaign called Imperfectly Delicious Produce, which searches for ways to recover cosmetically challenged produce that would otherwise have been wasted, and get it into the hands of its chefs. Just a year in, the program has been implemented in 10 states. And the plan is to bring recovered produce to all of their accounts, Cummings told me.
“We are not exclusively going after foods that already have a secondary market, such as tomatoes or lemons for juice,” she told me. “We are looking at the food that is truly getting wasted.”
With the funding and organizational clout of a major corporation behind her, Cummings has made impressive strides. And while there are definitely cost savings in going this route—they average about 38 percent, she says—that isn't why they are doing it. “We are driven by the desire to put money back in the pockets of farmers and save this perfectly good produce from going to waste.” Nonetheless, those favorable economics are nonetheless an important part of why such a diversity of new food recovery startups are flourishing.
On the other coast, a Bay Area start-up called Revive Foods began making jam out of recovered produce about a year ago. Co-founder Zoe Wong came from a nonprofit background, where, she says, "I felt frustrated constantly having to rely on donations in the nonprofit world and wanted to have the ability to be financially sustainable so I could get stuff done."
The business was going well, but she and co-founder Kay Feker weren't satisfied.
“We realized that remaining a consumer product food business was going to be tough to scale from an impact perspective,” Wong told me. “By pivoting to focus on selling recovered produce to food businesses, we would be by diverting so much more produce from going to waste streams.”
In their new model, recovered produce will be sorted and stabilized—for example by freezing—for sale to food businesses like caterers, juicers, and restaurants. One yet-unnamed “major baby food company,” she told me, is “super interested in the possibility of building out a dedicated product line made from our recovered produce.”
Wong and Feker share space with another Oakland-based startup called Imperfect, which aims to create the first national brand of ugly produce. A major step in that direction was recently taken in the form of a pilot project called Real Good. On July 11, ten outlets of the Sacramento-based supermarket chain Raley's began selling cosmetically-challenged produce at a discount. If it goes well, they hope to expand the program to all 127 Raley's stores, Imperfect co-founder and CEO Ben Simon explained. Ultimately, they want their Imperfect produce in every store, nationwide.
Ari LeVaux writes a syndicated weekly food column, Flash in the Pan.
1 December 2014
by Olga Khazan
The Atlantic
Wasted groceries are a big, expensive problem. Here are the items Americans are most likely to throw away.
No matter how fond we are of turkey Monte Cristo sandwiches or even turkey tamales, there comes a time when even the most beloved Thanksgiving leftovers—yes, even grandma's cornbread stuffing—must make their way into the garbage. For most Americans, that time will come sometime this week, if it hasn't already.
Thanksgiving remnants are just one drop in the American food-waste bucket, though. The amount of food we throw away year-round is adding up to be a bit of a problem. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, food scraps make up 20 percent of our landfills, and each year Americans toss 35 million tons of uneaten groceries. That's nearly enough to feed the population of California.
Restaurants and businesses are responsible for about half of food waste, and consumers for the other half, according to the EPA. All that garbage costs American households $124 billion each year.
So what are we most likely to dispose of? Fresh fruits and vegetables, which tend to give up the ghost rather quickly, are one major culprit. Americans throw away 31 percent of all tomatoes they buy, for example, or 21 tomatoes per year per person.
Here's a more detailed breakdown, via the USDA's food-loss estimates among consumers for 2010:
Percent of various food items, in pounds, thrown out by consumers (Olga Khazan/Atlantic)
Fish is the most likely food item to end up in the trash, followed by added sugars and sweeteners—likely because they're in a lot of the treats that we're casting off.
Economically, it's meat, fish, and poultry that costs the most when you add up food waste from restaurants and households combined, as the USDA did in 2012:
The EPA recommends a number of strategies for reducing waste, like making shopping lists, eating older groceries first, and learning the proper way to store fruits and vegetables.
Value of food wasted by both consumers and businesses, in billions of dollars (USDA)
The agency recently designed a program called "Food: Too Good to Waste," that aims to get consumers to buy what they need and eat what they buy.
One reason that food-waste advocates' message of "Just eat it" hasn't quite taken off, though, might be that nutritionists are simultaneously putting out warning messages about the dangers of past-their-prime groceries.
Jill Roberts, a professor at the University of South Florida College of Public Health, recently told Tampa's Fox 13 that people should even be wary of milk and eggs left out sweating on the counter while the coffee brews. And don't even think about that Wednesday-after-Thanksgiving turkey tetrazzini:
"Five days after Thanksgiving," she said, "you should not be eating that turkey."
12 November 2014
by Keri Brenner
The Union Newspaper
Nevada County residents, leaders, volunteers and other stakeholders in the issue of housing the homeless came out in force this week to hear a proposal for a microhousing village in Nevada City.
“Half the damn town is here,” said Nevada City Councilman Robert Bergman, surveying the crowd of almost 300 people that filled the Nevada City Elks Lodge Monday night. “The support is there, but the follow-up will be difficult.”
Bergman was referring to a plan to create an Opportunity Village of 30 to 40 microhousing units based on a successful model in Eugene, Oregon, Andrew Heben, an organizer of the Eugene project, showed a video and slide presentation on the Oregon homeless community, whose one-year lease on city-owned land was extended last month by the Eugene City Council to June 1 of next year.
“It’s going to take a few people who are willing to take leadership on this,” said Bergman, who said he was optimistic. “I have never had a conversation with anyone who does not want to find a solution (for homelessness).”
Heben’s presentation was cosponsored by Sierra Roots, a Nevada City-based organization that serves the homeless and offers weekly meals at Pioneer Park, and Charles Durrett of Durrett & McCamant Architects in Nevada City.
Sierra Roots President Janice O’Brien said anyone interested in getting involved may attend one or all of three follow-up meetings, on Nov. 20th, 25th, and Dec. 10th at private homes. For more information, call 530-265-5403 or visit www.SierraRoots.org.
Durrett said he is continuing to explore various locations and to meet with groups interested in helping to build the units.
“I think this is a win-win,” said a teacher from YouthBuild, a Nevada County program that teaches construction to area youth. “What do you need?”
Durrett said he met Monday with YouthBuild students, who seemed eager to help with the project.
“As Andrew said, this has to start with a collaboration between the housed and the unhoused,” Durrett said. “This doesn’t work for everyone, but it does offer an opportunity to set up for success for some people.
“A sleeping bag in the woods is a setup for failure,” he added.
He added that it would be “so much easier to provide services at a central location in a village-like setting. It’s easier for all of us, instead of the incessant difficulty of searching for people in the woods.”
Cindy Maple, executive director of Utah’s Place, Hospitality House’s 54-bed homeless shelter in Grass Valley, said she would like to see a more collaborative and cohesive approach to the whole issue of affordable housing in Nevada County.
“In the absence of enough affordable housing units and emergency shelter beds to meet the need for the number of homeless people in our community, we need to be looking at creative solutions,” Maple said earlier on Monday.
“My hope is community leaders and agencies serving homeless people will also invest in developing more permanent solutions, such as forming an affordable housing coalition to address the affordable housing shortage and funding a Housing First model, both of which will help provide a more permanent solution to homelessness.”
She said the model of Housing First centers on providing homeless people with housing quickly and then providing services as needed.
“What differentiates a Housing First approach from other strategies is that there is an immediate and primary focus on helping individuals and families quickly access and sustain permanent housing,” she said. “This approach has the benefit of being consistent with what most people experiencing homelessness want and seek help to achieve.”
Hospitality House, which offers programs such as cooking classes, self-esteem workshops and guitar lessons, has been highly successful in finding long-term housing placement for its guests, with almost 200 people housed in about the last 15 months.
“Utah’s Place is a blessing from God,” said Steve Pratt, 46, who was homeless for 20 years before coming to Nevada County two months ago and staying at Hospitality House. “They have the best food ever.”
His stay at Utah’s Place gave Pratt, who is on disability, and his sister Geneva Bigelow, time to find a permanent and affordable housing situation in the last week or so.
“With an application for Section 8, there’s a two-year waiting list,” said Bigelow. “Meanwhile, he’s outside.”
She said a place such as Opportunity Village would offer her brother “at least some shelter, a shower, and a place to store stuff so it doesn’t get stolen.”
Pratt said he appreciated the self-governing aspect of Opportunity Village. In order to be a resident, homeless people must sign a five-point contract agreeing to: 1. No violence to yourselves or others; 2. No theft. 3. No alcohol, illegal drugs or drug paraphernalia; 4. No persistent, disruptive behavior; 5. Everyone must contribute to the operation and maintenance of the Village.
“For Opportunity Village Eugene, our policy is no drugs or alcohol within 500 feet of the site — and this really hasn’t been an issue for us,” Heben said. “We do not regulate what residents do elsewhere. But if someone comes back intoxicated and creates a disturbance, any other villager can write an incident report, and then the council decides what the proper disciplinary action is.
“If there is an altercation, the general protocol is to ask that person to either go back to their house and stop creating a disturbance or leave the site,” Heben said. “If someone refuses to leave, the village will call the police, but that has happened less than a handful of times in the first year.”
Pratt said he likes the idea of the villagers acting as a self-regulating community — both to aid and to police each other.
“One person helping another person is insurmountable,” said Pratt, who said he has lived in tent cities and in sleeping bags in the woods. “This is remarkable.”
Heben, author of “Tent City Urbanism,” said he is now working to build Emerald Village, a slightly more upscale version of Opportunity Village that, unlike the homeless community, has bathrooms and kitchens in the units and utilities.
In Opportunity Village, utilities are only available at a central bathhouse and yurt. Emerald Village is seen as being for people who are downsizing from more expensive housing as well as people working their way up to more stability, Heben said.
Greg Zaller of Nevada County said he recently received approval from Nevada County officials for an Emerald-Village-like microhouse.
“We call this building the Foothold House because it gives a foothold to home ownership,” Zaller said. Nevada County Chief Executive Rick Haffey featured the new concept in his Friday Memo on Nov. 7.
Bergman, meanwhile, said he believed that residents with “persistence, patience and motivation” could succeed with Opportunity Village as they did in saving the Bridgeport Historic Covered Bridge.
“The hardest part is project management — who’s going to organize it and get materials?” he said. “Who will take the lead? That’s my concern.”
To contact Staff Writer Keri Brenner, email kbrenner@theunion.com or call 530-477-4239.
by Cat Johnson
29 July 2014
www.shareable.net/blog/23-food-sharing-projects-that-are-disrupting-hunger
Food is one of our most basic needs. And yet, for over 800 million people, food insecurity remains a daily issue. While top-down programs that address hunger certainly exist, more efficient, immediate solutions are sometimes found on the community level, where neighbors directly help neighbors.
We've rounded up 23 food projects that are transforming communities by feeding the hungry, educating people about healthy eating and food justice issues, and providing opportunities for people to grow their own food.
1. Reverse Food Truck (finnegans.org/reverse-food-truck/)
Bringing an altruistic twist to the food truck trend, Finnegan's Reverse Food Truck in Minnesota collects food and donations to give to the hungry. The team is currently working to collect $50,000 in non-perishable food by November. Read more.
2. Food is Free (foodisfreeproject.org)
Demonstrating the value of both growing food and building community, the Food is Free project in Austin, teaches people how to grow food in their front yards using raised garden beds made from salvaged materials and drought-tolerant, low-maintenance vegetable plants. The resulting harvests are free for anyone in the community. Read more.
3. Plant a Fruit plantafruit.org
Working to make Kenya a food secure, environmentally friendly country, Plant a Fruit, well, as the name suggests, plants fruit trees. In addition to providing food using smart, ecologically-sound techniques, the organization trains “agripreneurs,” serves as a network, and increases the amount of organic food consumed in Kenya.
4. Milk Not Jails (milknotjails.wordpress.com)
This cooperative, comprising formerly incarcerated people, dairy farmers, criminal justice advocates and more works to end upstate New York's investment in mass incarceration. By selling the Milk Not Jails brand of dairy products, sourced from farmers who support the transition of the area's prison industrial complex into a revitalized agricultural economy, the organization creates income for struggling dairy farmers, cooperative work for formerly incarcerated people, and food for New Yorkers.
5. Green Hands Project (greenhandsproject.com)
The Green Hands Project in Sacramento, California provides food solutions and gardening training to disadvantaged people by turning unused lots into organic gardens.
6. The Kitchen Library (thekitchenlibrary.ca)
The first of its kind in Canada, the Kitchen Library in Toronto is a library for kitchen appliances including mixers, juicers, dehydrators, pasta makers, ice cream makers and more. Photo: Colin McConnell/Toronto Star
7. Rust Belt Riders Composting (rustbeltriderscomposting.com)
Based in Cleveland, this bicycle-powered, worker owned cooperative picks up food scraps from your home, business or event and pedals them off to be composted. The project supports 300-plus community gardens, a tool lending library and 15 local farmers' markets.
8. Ujamaa Freedom Market (ujamaafreedommarket.wordpress.com)
A worker-owned cooperative mobile market, the Ujamaa Freedom Market sells local produce and healthy prepared foods to under-served communities in Asheville, North Carolina. The vision for the project is to feed and nourish the whole community and to promote social, economic, environmental, and food justice.
9. Santa Barbara Food Independence Co-Operative (foodindycoop.com)
The Food Independence Co-Operative (Food Indy Co-Op) is a worker-owned cooperative that provides educational work and food sharing opportunities in local gardens, orchards and farms. Members are paid in Santa Barbara Missions, the local complementary currency, which can be used to buy produce as well as meals at local restaurants and cafeterias.
10. grOCAD (grocad.tumblr.com)
grOCAD is a group of Ontario College of Art and Design (OCAD) students, faculty and staff working to “increase healthy food accessibility, encourage discourse about how plants improve quality of life, and heighten awareness to urban agricultural practices.” They do this by cultivating areas in and around OCAD’s campus. Projects include an aquaponic window farm, a learning zone hydroponic farm, a vertical farm and various workshops.
11. Burrito Riders (burritoriders.org)
The Burrito Riders have provided over 10,000 breakfast burritos to the homeless in Huntington, West Virginia. But the burrito is just a way to meet people--the real goal is to “connect with the people...and to show them, through a building of relationships, that they are valued and respected.”
12. Food 4 Social Change (www.food4socialchange.com)
With a vision to “create jobs by assisting food entrepreneurs to fulfill their dreams of a bold and vibrant business community,” Food 4 Social Change is a Bay Area kitchen incubator, described as a business incubator with a kitchen attached. Services offered include culinary skills training, life skills classes, entrepreneur workshops and more. There's a particular focus on helping the homeless, ex-cons and at-risk youth.
13. Shore Soup (shoresoupproject.org)
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, Shore Soup was created as a grassroots way to get food to those who needed it. A network of over 400 volunteers was created to serve meals to homebound seniors, families without access to healthy food, individuals living in public housing and those who were displaced by the storm. The project continues to thrive and has, since its inception, delivered over 50,000 free healthy meals throughout the Rockaway community.
14. People's Kitchen Detroit (www.peopleskitchendetroit.org)
The People's Kitchen has a mission to provide access to affordable, healthy, local and bulk foods, to share skills and knowledge about preparing healthy meals, to demonstrate the health benefits of healthy eating, and to support local growers. By doing so, they increase food security, encourage community involvement, and deepen people's connection to the earth. Projects include skillshares and cookshares, a member-owned cooperative food buying club, and a healing garden. Read more.
15. Los Angeles Urban Fruit Trail (fallenfruit.org/news/fallen-fruit-and-hola-grow-las-first-urban-fruit-trail)
In an effort to transform the neighborhoods surrounding downtown Los Angeles, organizers are creating the Urban Fruit Trail, a walkable network-in-progress of fruit trees. The trees, along with accompanying art created by local youth, will be geotagged and available in a free app. Read more.
16. Boulder Food Rescue (www.boulderfoodrescue.org)
With a vision to create a more just and less wasteful food system, Boulder Food Rescue recovers perfectly good food that would otherwise go to the landfill and distributes it to local agencies that feed the homeless and low-income communities. The cherry on top is that 80 percent of the project's pickup and delivery is done by bicycle. Read more.
17. Cropmobster (sfbay.cropmobster.com)
Food waste is not just a problem with grocers and food stores; it can be an issue on farms as well. Nick Papadopolous, general manager of Bloomfield Farms in Sonoma County, Ca. decided to do something about that. He founded Cropmobster, a platform designed to connect farmers with extra food to organizations that can use it. A double-win, Cropmobster addresses hunger and food waste and strengthens the connection between farmers and the local community. Read more.
18. Open Food Foundation (openfoodfoundation.org)
The Open Food Foundation, based in Australia, aims to "develop and protect a commons of open source knowledge, code, applications and platforms for fair and sustainable food systems." What this means is that they're working to build and strengthen networks and organizations dedicated to food justice and sustainability issues using the open source ethos. Read more.
19. New York Green Carts (www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/living/greencarts.shtml)
Mobile carts that sell affordable fruits and vegetables in areas of New York City considered food deserts, Green Carts were introduced in 2008 to help fight high childhood obesity rates. The carts bring culturally-appropriate fresh foods to people who otherwise have limited access to them. Read more. Photo: Illumination Fund
20. Gardening for Good (ggardeningforgood.com)
Based in Greenville, South Carolina, Gardening for Good is a network of community gardens whose members work together to further the community garden movement, create better neighborhoods and improve community health through gardening. By doing so, the network builds stronger communities, encourages civic engagement and provides access to healthy, affordable, culturally appropriate foods.
21. Food Recovery Network (www.foodrecoverynetwork.org)
A quickly-expanding, multi-university project, the Food Recovery Network redirects campus food headed for the landfill and distributes it to local organization working to address hunger. Originally formed at the University of Maryland, College Park, the network now includes nearly 100 colleges in 26 states. Read more.
22. Agrihoods (www.shareable.net/blog/12-agrihoods-taking-farm-to-table-living-mainstream)
Neighborhoods intentionally created around community farms, agrihoods build community, promote healthy and sustainable food production, encourage the sharing of resources and more.
23. Yard Sharing Network (letsgochicago.org/projects/yard-sharing-network)
A project of Let's Go Chicago, an organization that brings gardening and community-based programs together, the Yard Sharing Network connects people with under-used land with community members looking for a place to grow food. Growers and homeowners divide the produce with local food distribution organizations.♥
By Tracie McMillan
17 July 2014
Civil Eats
As I report in next month’s National Geographic feature, “The New Face of Hunger,” millions of American families are struggling with a new kind of hunger. Some of the increase can be traced to a change in definition; in the 1960s, America equated hunger with physical starvation. By the 2000s, though, researchers started asking whether people were skipping meals because they couldn’t afford to eat, coining the term “food insecurity” to replace hunger. And with wages stagnating and public support of commodity crops far exceeding that for produce, the number of food insecure Americans now far outstrips the number of those who were ever counted as “hungry.” But don’t take my word for it: The numbers speak for themselves.
HOW BAD IS THE NEW AMERICAN HUNGER?
• Millions of people hungry in the U.S. in 1968 10
• Millions of people food insecure in the U.S. in 2012 49
• Ratio of hungry Americans to fed in 1968 1:20
• Ratio of food insecure Americans to fed in 2012 1:6
WHICH AMERICANS ARE HUNGRY?
• Share of American children who receive food assistance by age 20 1:2
• Percent of food insecure households who were white in 2012 53
• Percent of food insecure households who were black in 2012 21
• Percent increase in suburban food stamp use from 2007 to 2012 200
WHY ARE THEY HUNGRY?
• Percent decrease in inflation-adjusted federal minimum wage since 1968 34
• Percent of food-insecure households with at least one full- or part-time worker 75
• Share of food-insecure households that did not receive public food assistance in 2012 2:5
WHAT’S GOVERNMENT DOING ABOUT HUNGER?
• Percent of USDA budget spent on food and nutrition programs 72
• Maximum per-meal food stamp benefit, in dollars, for a single person 2.38
• Per-meal increase, in dollars per addition person, for food stamp benefits 1.79
WHY IS PROCESSED FOOD SO COMMON?
• Percent of USDA budget spent on agricultural subsidies 16
• Billions of dollars in federal funding spent to subsidize commodity crops in 2012 10.8
• Billions of dollars in federal funding spent to subsidize fruits and vegetables in 2011 1.6
• Ratio of federal funding for commodity crops to fruits and vegetables 7:1
• Approximate ratio of recommended consumption of grains to that for fruits and vegetables 1:2
• Percentage increase in price of fruits and vegetables since 1980s 24
• Percentage decrease in price of sweetened beverages since 1980s 27
• Percentage drop in time spent cooking by working and non-working low-income women 35
• Percent of monthly food budget spent to cook at home by poorest American households: 70
• Percent of monthly food budget spent to cook at home by richest American households: 50
Tracie McMillan is the author of The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee's, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table, a Senior Fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University, and a Koeppel Journalism Fellow at Wesleyan University. You can follow her on Twitter at @TMMcMillan
The money to refurbish the bus came from private donations, including Google, whose employee buses in San Francisco have attracted protesters who view them as a symbol of economic inequality and gentrification.
by Haven Daley
The Associated Press
Originally published Sunday, July 20, 2014 at 5:49 PM
from The Seattle Times
SAN FRANCISCO — A nonprofit group is taking a novel approach to helping the homeless in San Francisco with a new bus that allows them to take a shower.
The former public-transit bus has been outfitted with two full private bathrooms and offers hot showers, clean toilets, shampoo, soap and towels free of charge.
The founder of the nonprofit Lava Mae mobile shower bus said she wanted to return dignity to those living on the streets.
“If you’re homeless, you’re living on the streets and you’re filthy, you’re trying to improve your circumstances, but you can’t interview for a job, you can’t apply for housing and you get disconnected from your sense of humanity,” Doniece Sandoval said. “So a shower just in of itself is amazing for people.”
Lava Mae says the bus can go to homeless people scattered throughout the city. And having a facility on wheels eliminates the potential for rent hikes and evictions in a city with high real-estate prices.
A homeless survey in 2013 counted more than 6,400 homeless people in the city.
San Francisco officials are testing a similar mobile toilet program in the struggling Tenderloin district, where complaints about human waste are common. The toilets will be available at three locations from 2 p.m. through 9 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, then removed and taken off site to be cleaned, the city’s public-works department said.
The $75,000 cost to refurbish the Lava Mae bus was provided by private donations, including from technology giant Google, whose employee buses in San Francisco have attracted protesters who view them as a symbol of economic inequality and gentrification. The city allows Lava Mae to use fire hydrants for water.
Ralph Brown, 55, a military veteran who has been homeless for about a year, took a shower on Lava Mae’s bus on its first day of service last month. It was his first shower in several days.
“When people move away from you on the bus, it’s time to take a shower,” he said.
Some homeless shelters in the city have showers, but they can have long waits. The Lava Mae bus also provides relaxing music.
“Being inside there is kind of a trip because it’s pretty high-tech and kind of ingenious,” Brown said. “Basically, I just feel a lot better.”
Sandoval said that’s the reaction she sees from many people who use the bus.
“Their faces are just beaming,” she said. “They’re so incredibly grateful. It’s a great feeling to just be able to offer people something so simple and yet so vital,” she said.
by Hilary Hodge, Gold Country Gleaners
Published on 14 July 2014
www.yubanet.com
The Gold Country Gleaners, an all-volunteer organization that pairs resources of excess food with people in need, had to hit the ground running this year. With the warmer-than-usual spring, many farmers and gardeners have seen a bumper crop early in the season. The Gold Country Gleaners are already picking up food from farms and delivering it to local food pantries and non-profit organizations that help those in need in Nevada County.
The Gold Country Gleaners in Nevada County is dedicated to feeding the hungry with local food resources. "The Gleaners", as they are often called, coordinate people who are willing to pick food with people who have fruits and vegetables to donate. Farmers, ranchers, and even individuals with a single tree or just a few extra zucchini plants are welcome to participate. The Gleaners will pick extra produce and donate the food to local organizations that support the hungry. Those organizations include The Food Bank, Women of Worth, The Salvation Army, Interfaith Food Ministry, the San Juan Ridge Family Resource Center, and more.
"We are used to working seasonally and donating whatever is in season," says Hilary Hodge, one of the core volunteers and pick leaders for the Gold Country Gleaners. "But this year is going to be interesting. We are already seeing donations of squash, something that usually comes later in the summer. I'm worried that this remarkably hot and dry year will be hard on food resources in Nevada County, especially toward the end of summer and into fall." Hodge has been a Gleaners volunteer and core member since she moved to Nevada County three years ago.
The Gleaners have donated nearly a ton of fruits and vegetables already this year but the need for donations is always present and growing. Most of the recipient organizations that the Gleaners donate to have been working to expand their scope. Women of Worth, which receives boxes of vegetables every week in the summer from the Gleaners, courtesy of Mountain Bounty Farm, is now serving more women and children than ever. The Interfaith Food Ministry, another donation drop-off for the Gleaners, moved to a new location this year, has more clients now than last year. The Gold Country Gleaners have relied on local farmers and gardeners, whose generosity has exceeded expectations in past years.
"We are very grateful to Hilary and the Gleaners for taking our extra produce and making sure it goes to people who need it," says Mountain Bounty Farm's John Tecklin. "As the largest vegetable farm in Nevada County, we generate a lot of extra produce. The Gleaners have arrived at our farm every week for the past 3-4 years, taking on the huge task of distributing all that food."
The Gleaners have a strong volunteer base and can serve almost every corner of Nevada County. To arrange a pick or to get more information, please call the Gold Country Gleaners at (530) 264-8680 or email goldcountrygleaners@gmail.com.
by Robbie Couch
22 May 2014
Updated: 23 May 2014
The Huffington Post
Letting homeless people sleep on the streets has never made sense morally. Now, more evidence has surfaced showing it doesn't make much sense financially either.
"The numbers are stunning," Andrae Bailey, the CEO of the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness, told the Orlando Sentinel. "Our community will spend nearly half a billion dollars [on the chronically homeless], and at the end of the decade, these people will still be homeless."
Bailey is referring to numbers recently found by Creative Housing Solutions, which tracked public expenditures on local homeless people in the Central Florida region. Because of costs like frequent emergency room visits, hospital admissions and repeated arrests for homeless-related crimes, the analysis estimated each homeless person costs taxpayers $31,065 each year. To put that into perspective, providing the chronically homeless with permanent housing and case managers to supervise them would be about $10,000 per person each year.
As astounding as those numbers may seem, the data isn't as groundbreaking as you might think.
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte released a study in March that found housing chronically homeless adults produced a 78 percent reduction in emergency room costs -- a price tag that would have eventually been passed on to the taxpayer -- the Charlotte Observer reported. The numbers also showed the previously homeless tenants in the study spent 84 percent fewer days in jail, largely due to a decrease in crimes like loitering and begging.
Caroline Chambre, director of HousingWorks for Urban Ministry, which runs permanent housing programs for the homeless, said the study was proof that perceptions of the homeless are not always accurate.
"You can’t argue with the statistics," Chambre had told the Charlotte Observer. "This approach was controversial at one time because of the stereotype of who the homeless are, and we had to change that stereotype."
Help Divine Spark assist People in need by making a donation of the following:
 The gift of a running vehicle can touch the life of a homeless/houseless person in many positive ways, such as providing basic security and shelter. Your donation of a car, van, or motorhome can also create a greater potential for job opportunities, and the possibility for relocation and/or reunion with friends and family members. Trish & Skip in front of their donated Home, A van donation will change someone's Life. |
by Sarah Barness
22 April 2014
Updated: 23 April 2014 11:59 am EDT
The Huffington Post
It's easy to love most everything about food -- its nutritional value and the tasty experiences it give us, and the way it bring us all together. But we must take this opportunity to apologize to our food.
Why?
For wasting it, squandering it in super markets, offering too much of it and throwing away leftovers and rejecting it for small imperfections.
Every year, Americans throw away nearly half their food, costing the country about $165 billion annually. According to an Natural Resources Defense Council report, an American family of four will end up throwing away an equivalent of up to $2,275 annually in food.
"Part of the problem is that on average, I spend a smaller fraction of my household budget on you [food] than in any other country or any other time in history," says a food lover in the video above. "…my spending is spread out over days or weeks so I don't notice the cost of wasting you. But my lack of noticing adds up."
Starting now, we must all take personal responsibility to be more mindful of our consumption and waste. If we all did this, perhaps food can eventually accept our collective apology.
by Diana Pasquini
San Juan Ridge Family Resource Center
April 2014 Newsletter
Made from excess food and simple ingredients, Gratitude Bowls are meals that are prepared at local restaurants and made available for free to people in need. Participating restaurants are reimbursed by fundraising efforts so that they can continue to buy, prepare, and serve nourishing food in our community. Gratitude Bowls founder Stormy May (pictured right) explained that the inspiration for this project evolved from her love of horses. “I work with horses. I spent many years training horses for sport and pleasure and eventually realized that the horses were being harmed by riding and training. I spent a few years promoting the idea of a sanctuary for horses so that they could live more natural lives, not controlled by humans, except for what's absolutely necessary for their safety and health. I tried to promote this way of being with horses. Then I realized that human consciousness would need to change. In a more peaceful world we would not be forcing horses to do what we want. The breakthrough came when I realized that I needed to help humans. If people feel cared for, they care for others and realize the kinship between all living things.”
Believing that the elimination of the fear of hunger by “providing a bowl of good food when needed” would help achieve her vision of a kinder world, Stormy “searched my mind to find a niche that hadn't been explored.” She realized that restaurants were “the perfect places to do this because they already have the ovens, the chefs, and the food.” As a result of her efforts, two Nevada County eateries now provide Gratitude Bowls to those who are in need of a meal. Participating restaurants are the Ridge Café in North San Juan, and Matteo's Public in Nevada City with other restaurants planning to start serving Gratitude Bowls in the coming months.
Those who wish to help support Gratitude Bowls will find prominently displayed donation boxes in each of the participating restaurants. Diners are encouraged to contribute any amount to help cover the additional costs of feeding the hungry. Stormy May is firm in her resolve. “We live in an abundant world and are channeling this into feeding people. We value kindness over money.” ♥
Nevada County Public Defender's Office
224 Main Street, Nevada City CA 95959
publicdefender@co.nevada.ca.us