Presidents Message

By President

Edie Lee

edie.lee@lifetime.oregonstate.edu

Edie’s Notes—Hunger at Thanksgiving

Text Box: November is the time for warm and happy thoughts of family and close friends coming together to celebrate Thanksgiving, with its abundance of delicious food. It’s not a coincidence that the week before Thanksgiving is National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, co-sponsored by the National Coalition for the Homeless and the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness. This year the event is November 11-17. OSU’s Student Committee on Hunger and Poverty has been active by sponsoring Hunger Awareness Week on campus. The committee has been working with the Oregon Food Bank on the events. Here are some hunger statistics, taken from an OSU Barometer news article from October 16, 2006 (http://media.barometer.orst.edu/media/storage/paper854/news/2006/10/16/News/Hunger.Recognized.In.Week.Of.Awareness-2351476.shtml): According to America's

Text Box: Second Harvest Hunger Almanac 2006, Oregon has the seventh highest unemployment rate and the 17th highest food insecurity and hunger rates.

As well as this week being Hunger Awareness Week, Gov. Ted Kulongoski proclaims this week to be Oregon Harvest Week and National Food Bank Week.

It is estimated that about one billion people in the world suffer from hunger and malnutrition.

For the 2002-2004 period, 11.9 percent of Oregon households were "food insecure," and 3.8 percent of Oregon households were deemed "hungry." The national averages are 11.4 percent and 3.6 percent respectively.

An OSU study explored the USDA Current Population Survey on hunger and food insecurity data to determine what populations were most impacted by hunger and food insecurity in Oregon. Researchers found that two-adult households with children and households with at

Text Box: least one person employed are far more likely in Oregon than similar families in other states to be food insecure with hunger.

Although Oregon is rated high in hunger rates, it has shown improvement over the last couple of years due to food drives and other events. Hunger is not a seasonal problem. Hunger occurs all year long. You can help with this problem by donating money or food to organizations such as Oregon Food Bank or Linn-Benton Food Share. You might also donate your time to organizations such as Stone Soup or Community Outreach, or donate your excess garden produce to groups like Mid Valley Gleaners. Let’s improve the hunger and food insecurity statistics in Oregon. When we sit down to enjoy our Thanksgiving dinner, it could be with the knowledge that we have helped make some other people’s lives just a little bit easier, by alleviating their hunger.

Hunger is not a seasonal problem. Hunger occurs all year long. You can help with this problem by donating money or food to organizations such as Oregon Food Bank or Linn-Benton Food Share.

-Edie Lee