What began as a small clothing giveaway has grown into a far-reaching community effort providing food, clothing and emotional support to families across East Contra Costa County.
Gracefully Broken, a nonprofit founded by Antioch native Randi Garcia, has spent the past three-and-a-half years serving residents in need through resource distribution, family events and volunteer outreach rooted in dignity and compassion.
Garcia, born and raised in Antioch, said her connection to the community runs deep, having attended local schools before eventually settling in Oakley. The inspiration for Gracefully Broken came during her first clothing giveaway. Alongside clothing, Garcia assembled small “blessings in a bag” filled with hygiene essentials.
“A young boy about 8 years of age asked if he could have one,” she said. “He yelled across the room, ‘Mom, I got a new toothbrush.’ I had to walk away … the most basic item anyone can have, and here a small boy is so excited about it.”
That same day, a grieving mother approached Garcia, unsure how she would afford school clothes after losing her husband months earlier. The encounters reshaped Garcia’s vision.
“Although basic needs are important, the emotional support is needed as well,” she said. “I began to meet people one-on-one … and have conversations.”
Gracefully Broken originally operated as part of Antioch Covenant Church (antiochcovenant.org), where Garcia hosted outreach events. As attendance grew, she saw the need for expansion. Last July, the organization became an independent nonprofit — a move Garcia said was intentional.
“We saw such a great need … not only basic needs but love, support, kindness and respect,” she said. “Many people tend to shy away from a ‘church.’ We want our community to see us as a safe place that welcomes all.”
Though still based at a church, Gracefully Broken does not require religious participation.
“We do not force any kind of religion on our participants,” Garcia said. “That’s where the respect comes in.”
Garcia says the nonprofit group’s name reflects the shared humanity she sees in those they serve.
“I feel we have all been broken … but we are given grace,” she said. “People tell me how lost, scared and broken they feel. As we meet and talk … it helps them feel more comfortable and I hope less broken.”
She says the group’s core mission is simple: “To treat people with love and respect. To serve them with a happy heart and compassion.”
Gracefully Broken hosts quarterly clothing giveaways and seasonal events such as Easter egg hunts, trunk-or-treat celebrations and “Christmas with the Grinch.” Plans are underway for a community baby shower and school supply distributions.
Garcia said outreach happens through social media, school partnerships and word-of-mouth within the congregation. The nonprofit is funded entirely through donations, including food, clothing and financial gifts. Local businesses can sponsor events, and the group is beginning the grant-writing process.
Community partnerships include the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, Sweet Beginnings Diaper Bank and Antioch’s CIWP (Community Integrated Work Program) center for disabled adults. For recipients, the impact is tangible. Barbara Blaser, 80, of Pittsburg, first encountered Gracefully Broken through Antioch Covenant Church.
“There is such a feeling of warmth and connection there,” Blaser said. “I may be able to get a salad mix, a few potatoes … eggs … hair products if I need them — but what I value most are the volunteers … who learned my name and welcomed me.”
Blaser now volunteers alongside her daughter.
“It has strengthened our relationship,” she said. “We have a common goal … to show love and compassion without prejudice.”
She recalled the happiness she has witnessed at events — from back-to-school giveaways to holiday celebrations at which children receive birthday party kits.
“I have seen the joy in children’s faces,” Blaser said.
Pittsburg’s Danika Phillips is both a volunteer and former recipient. A single parent living in public housing, she said food distributions were vital during difficult periods, including the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We rely heavily on food donations,” Phillips said. “I was a recipient for years until I began volunteering.”
Philips praised Garcia’s leadership as demand increased.
“She acted quickly to secure permits, attend meetings and manage an ever-evolving crew of volunteers,” Phillips said. “She doesn’t stop. She says, ‘Who else can we help?’ ”
Garcia said what moves her most is seeing stigma dissolve into community.
“It is a very humbling experience to come for free food and clothes,” she said. “You feel vulnerable … I want to put an end to the negative stigma of receiving help.”
Garcia said prefers not to call those served “clients.”
“To me they are friends,” she said.
Looking ahead, Garcia envisions classes on couponing, meal preparation and family nights designed to build connection alongside resources.
“We would love to build a place that people will tell others about,” she said. “Where they feel safe and welcomed no matter their circumstances.”
Her personal philosophy guides her work.
“Outside appearances do not matter, we all have a back story,” Garcia said. “We are all given a gift, and we have to do our best to use it.”
Cars are submerged in mudin Petit-Goave, Haiti.f ollowing Hurricane Melissa’s torrential rains.
CLARENS SIFFROY
AFP via Getty Images
A month and a half after Hurricane Melissa killed dozens of people in Haiti, the country is still struggling with its aftermath.
Haitians, who were already going hungry because gang violence has blocked highways and cut off commerce, are grappling with even more shortages and the loss of crops, the regional director of the United Nations’ World Food Program said Thursday during a visit to the country.
As she spoke via video, a helicopter, still the only way humanitarian aid workers can get in and out of Port-au-Prince and into storm-ravaged areas, flew overhead.
“We cannot forget Haiti,“ Lola Castro said, adding it remains one of five countries in the world where people “don’t have enough to eat every day.”
Among the places she visited, Castro said, was the coastal town of Petit-Goâve, where a river overflowed its banks, killing at least 25 people. Along with homes and livelihoods, residents also lost their crops.
“They have lost their families, their livelihoods, their crops, their cattle, their houses, and now they are trying to rebuild their lives,” she said.
At least 43 storm-related deaths were reported in Haiti, even though Melissa did not hit the country directly and U.N. agencies tried to prepare the public ahead of the storm.
There are ongoing efforts by the ministry of agriculture and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations “to see how these communities can replant and rehabilitate their livelihoods,” she said.
Castro said the U.N. agency is working on recovery and rehabilitation in a number of ways, including school feeding programs and working with the government on a system that registers everyone affected.
The World Food Program provides over 600,000 children a hot meal every day in many schools in Haiti. Castro noted that with up to 90% of Haiti’s capital under gang control, the agency has created a large logistics operations to help get access to vulnerable communities.
The World Food Program is equally active in Jamaica, where fishermen have lost their boats, and in Cuba, where the loss of almost all crops on the easter end of the island and an ancient, trouble-plagued electrical grid has made for “a very difficult situation.”
Jacqueline Charles has reported on Haiti and the English-speaking Caribbean for the Miami Herald for over a decade. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for her coverage of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, she was awarded a 2018 Maria Moors Cabot Prize — the most prestigious award for coverage of the Americas.
Denver food banks are bracing for Saturday, when the federal government plans to cut off access to SNAP benefits, leaving thousands of residents uncertain how they will get food on the table.
Mayor Mike Johnston estimates nearly half of those affected are children.
“That means when you have kids showing up at your house tomorrow night to trick-or-treat, one out of seven of those kids … will not know where they’re going to get food when they go back home the next day,” he said on Thursday morning.
He suggested residents put out packages of ramen and mac-and-cheese along with candy. But he didn’t stop there. Johnston and other city leaders say they have plans to address the hunger crisis.
Johnston said the city will accept food donations at some rec centers, and a new web page will help people find assistance, donate and volunteer. Meanwhile, nonprofits are staffing up for an onslaught of requests and asking the community for additional support.
What’s happening with SNAP in Denver?
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is meant for low-income families, providing a card that is loaded monthly and can be used to buy groceries at certain stores.
On Saturday, SNAP benefits (also known as food stamps) are set to be suspended as part of the larger government shutdown. It would be the first pause in the program’s history. Twenty-five states, including Colorado, have sued to keep the program running, especially since the federal government has contingency funds for this purpose.
If the benefits are suspended, recipients could find their reloadable SNAP debit cards suddenly stop working.
“We are in that battle because we are grateful that Democrats in Washington are refusing to cave on what will be a threat to double the health-care costs for Coloradans in the proposed legislation of Trump’s budget-busting bill,” Johnston said.
The federal government has a $5 billion rainy-day fund to float SNAP during emergencies. But President Donald Trump’s administration is refusing to release the funds, potentially leaving tens of millions of residents unable to buy food. The Trump administration has blamed Democrats for the shutdown, saying it was the “Far-Left” that is denying help to “mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us.”
The shutdown began because Congress failed to pass a new budget or temporary funding bill in time. Republicans in Congress want to pass a so-called “clean resolution” to keep the government funded for now at current levels, while Democrats are pushing to include extension of tax credits that make health insurance cheaper. Without those credits, costs for many Coloradans are set to double.
“It’s so frustrating,” Councilmember Kevin Flynn said.
But communities across the Denver metro aren’t just waiting for federal assistance. They’re preparing to navigate the local crisis largely on their own — and the needs extend beyond SNAP.
Nonprofits are bracing for another surge of hunger.
Nonprofits are already being bombarded with requests for help, and they lack other federal support they previously depended on.
For example, during the pandemic, the federal government provided 50 percent of the food supply for the Food Bank of the Rockies. Now, it’s less than 15 percent of the supply. The rest is coming from donations.
“The rates of food insecurity are at a 10-year high, and that’s mostly due to wages not keeping pace with inflation, the rising cost of living, the rising cost of housing,” Erin Pulling, the food bank’s CEO, told Denverite.
All financial donations to Food Bank of the Rockies are currently going straight to food purchases, she said. The organization can buy large quantities of food and hygiene items wholesale, making cash donations more effective than food donations, she said.
The United Way’s 211 crisis hotline has seen a 20 percent increase in calls this week and plans to increase hotline staffing if SNAP is cut. Most of those calls have been related to food insecurity.
“I had the privilege of sitting with a call navigator yesterday who took a phone call from a grandmother who understood that her benefits were running out,” Mile High United Way CEO Christine Benero said. “She is responsible for her 10-year-old granddaughter, and she just wanted to know if we could help her get milk and eggs.”
The issue goes far beyond SNAP.
Veronica Byrne, the development director at Denver Inner City Parish, met on Thursday with a group of seniors at a technology class. She worried that in two days they could lose the food assistance they depend on.
Many seniors she works with are facing homelessness.
“Older adult funding is rapidly shrinking in the state and also at a federal level,” she said.
Since the pandemic, her organization has seen a 50 percent drop in funding from foundations that now have shifting priorities. Yet needs are higher than during the peak of COVID-19, she said.
SNAP is a crucial way to keep people on their feet and recovering and getting what they need so they could build a happy and healthy, sustainable life, she said.
Brian Loma, an advocate with Green Latinos Colorado, is pushing business owners to quit throwing out food and instead ensure residents eat.
“Part of the systemic solutions that the mayor’s office talked about today is eliminating the food that goes to the landfill,” Loma said. “Forty percent of the food that is grown or prepared in the United States is thrown away.”
Ruben Gregory, the acting executive director of Denver Inner City Parish, said long-term hunger solutions need more than just charity.
“Our charitable food system isn’t really the answer,” he said. “It’s a Band-Aid. What we really want, and what we’d like donations to eventually help with, is a systemic solution to hunger and poverty.”
Here’s what Denver is doing.
The city is collecting food donations at rec centers and connecting people with both services and volunteer opportunities online.
Councilmember Darrell Watson, whose family depended on government assistance when he was a child, is co-chairing a team to address hunger in the city.
He’s optimistic that residents will take care of each other, with support from the city and hunger-prevention groups.
“When our backs are to the wall, we have always come together,” Watson said. “We’ve always ensured that we put our people first.”
Councilmember Jamie Torres remembered waiting in lines at food pantries with her mother. Now, she leads a district where a fifth of the city’s SNAP recipients live — seniors, children and people with disabilities.
For her, ensuring Denver’s residents are fed is an investment in the future.
“What we’re talking about is supporting the families and children who will grow up to be the leaders of this city,” she said.
How to get help – and give it.
You can call 211 or visit 211colorado.org for a comprehensive list of more than 4,000 food pantries and other resources in the area. That number works whether you need services or want to offer help.
Meanwhile, recreation centers across every city council district will begin accepting and distributing food donations this weekend. Those include:
Aztlan Recreation Center: 4435 Navajo St.
College View: 2525 S. Decatur St.
Rude Recreation Center: 2855 W. Holden Pl.
Eisenhower Recreation Center: 4300 E. Dartmouth Ave.
Montclair Recreation Center: 729 Ulster Way
Cook Park Recreation Center: 7100 Cherry Creek S. Dr.
Athmar Recreation Center: 2680 W. Mexico Ave.
Hiawatha Davis Recreation Center: 3334 Holly St.
Glenarm Recreation Center: 2800 Glenarm Pl.
Carla Madison Recreation Center: 2401 E. Colfax Ave.
Green Valley Ranch Recreation Center: 4890 Argonne Way
The city also set up a website where residents can find out how to get food in their neighborhoods, where to donate, and how to volunteer.
SALEM — The Salem Pantry will soon lease a 20,000-square-foot warehouse with five times the food storage capacity of the organization’s current warehouse with the help of a $2 million grant.
The new warehouse, strategically located on Highland Avenue at the border of Peabody and Lynn, will provide warehouse space, cold storage, and distribution infrastructure for up to 20 additional emergency food distribution partners in lower Essex County, according to the Greater Boston Food Bank.
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The U.S. Department of Agriculture said on Saturday that food benefits under one of the country’s biggest social assistance programs will not be issued next month amid the ongoing federal government shutdown.
The shutdown is now in its 25th day, with Republicans and Democrats in Congress remaining at an impasse over how to fund and reopen the federal government.
“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a post on its website. “At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 01.”
More than 41 million depend on the monthly payments, according to the USDA. In some states, like New Mexico, dependence on the program is as high as 21 percent of residents, it said.
The agency’s announcement came after more than 200 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday called on USDA to draw on its emergency reserves to fund November food benefits.
However, according to a memo seen by Reuters, the department indicated that it would not do so.
Governors in Louisiana and Virginia declared states of emergencies this week to make funds available to help with hunger relief in anticipation of SNAP benefits not being issued next month.
A few weeks ago, Soliman Zyad, a young health-care worker in northern Gaza, told me that his family was near starvation. On some days, he and his uncle AbdulKareem walked in search of food from 3 A.M. until the afternoon. “We swore we would not return home without finding flour,” Zyad told me. “People were ready to risk their lives for a single sack.” Almost forty per cent of the population was going days at a time without eating, according to the World Health Organization. Sometimes AbdulKareem would vomit from hunger and fatigue. His wife, pregnant with twins, was severely anemic.
The latest food shortage in Gaza began in March, when Israel ended a ceasefire and imposed a blockade on all aid that lasted eleven weeks. After that, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which was backed by Israel and the U.S., began distributing limited amounts of aid; around three thousand Palestinians were killed while seeking food. This month, a United Nations study published in The Lancetreported that more than fifty-four thousand children are malnourished in Gaza. “Every family, by now, has been affected,” John Kahler, a pediatrician and a co-founder of MedGlobal, a humanitarian organization that operates in Gaza, told me. About one in five babies was born premature or underweight. MedGlobal cared for one infant, Rafeef, who weighed just four pounds at birth. Her mother was too malnourished to breast-feed; the baby cried constantly, began losing weight, and developed ulcers and infections. On August 18th, she died.
“We live day by day,” Eyad Amawi, a father of four who works as an aid coördinator in Gaza, told me in September. “We have just enough to survive, but not enough to carry out our normal activities.” On the black market, the price of a kilogram of flour—about ten cents before October 7, 2023—had risen to thirty-five dollars, when it could be found at all. Amawi often saw malnourished children who lacked the strength to play. He worried that months of famine had already inflicted irreversible damage. “We are losing the next generation,” he said. “They will suffer for all their lives from this.”
Now that a ceasefire is in place, aid is trickling in. Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, six hundred trucks a day are meant to enter Gaza. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East reports that it has stockpiled three months of food for everyone in the territory. There is reason to hope that, for all the lasting destruction in Gaza, the immediate crisis of hunger will come to an end. “As this famine is entirely man-made, it can be halted and reversed,” the Famine Review Committee, an international body that monitors food insecurity worldwide, wrote in August.
Yet numerous experts warned that not all consequences of famine can be undone. “People don’t realize that one doesn’t just recover from starvation,” Dana Simmons, a historian and the author of “On Hunger: Violence and Craving in America, from Starvation to Ozempic,” said. For the severely malnourished, simply starting to eat normal meals again can cause sickness—even death. And survivors of starvation are at risk of chronic diseases and mental-health conditions for decades after they regain access to food. “You’ve stunted a generation,” Nathaniel Raymond, the director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale, told me. Ruth Gibson, a scholar at Stanford’s Center for Innovation in Global Health, spoke in even starker terms. “Can this be reversed?” she said. “The answer is, it can’t be.”
Much of what we know about the toll of starvation comes from the Warsaw Ghetto, where the Nazis forcibly resettled about half a million Jews starting in 1940. German authorities in occupied Poland restricted provisions to “less than the minimum to preserve life”; a ration card from October, 1941, allotted most Jews roughly three hundred daily calories. Deaths eventually climbed to five hundred per day. Under these horrific conditions, twenty-eight Jewish doctors who had been sent to the Ghetto, led by a dermatologist named Izrael Milejkowski, recruited seventy adults and forty children for research into what they called pure starvation, meaning that those afflicted had no additional infections or diseases. As the physician Leonard Tushnet wrote, in 1966, the researchers—who were themselves going hungry—conducted “an exhaustive and precise study of the effects of starvation.” The study continued until deportations to the Treblinka extermination camp, where many of the researchers would ultimately perish, began, in 1942. They hurriedly compiled their charts and graphs into a manuscript, which was then buried in a steel jar. It was recovered after the war and published, in Polish, in 1946.
In the forties, exactly how the body dealt with starvation remained a mystery. The doctors used equipment that had been smuggled into the Ghetto to measure capillary circulation, examine bone marrow under microscopes, and record electrocardiograms. The quality of their scientific work was “amazing,” Merry Fitzpatrick, a scholar of malnutrition and famine at Tufts University, told me. They wrote that muscle melted away, skin acquired the texture of cigarette paper, and swelling often afflicted the legs, scrotum, labia, heart, and lungs. In a cemetery shed, the doctors performed more than three thousand autopsies, which revealed that starvation softened the bones and atrophied vital organs. Starving children stopped playing and appeared sluggish or apathetic; cognitive development seemed to halt or even regress. Some looked like “skin-covered skeletons.”
A nurse attends to two starving children at a hospital in the Warsaw Ghetto, in 1942.Photograph from United States Holocaust Memorial Museum / Maladie de Famine / American Joint Distribution Committee
One of the study’s most important findings was that the body has sophisticated ways of saving energy and sparing critical tissues and functions. Reserves of glucose in the blood, liver, and muscle quickly run low. Then the body shifts to burning fat in three different ways. Some of the fat molecules can be used to create glucose; some can be used to create ketones, an alternative energy source for certain tissues, including the brain; and some can be directly broken down inside the mitochondria to create adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, the primary energy source for our cells.
If you are wondering how to vote on Proposition 50 gerrymandering, look no further than who is funding the “yes” campaign. Billionaires Tom Steyer and George Soros are pouring millions of dollars into it. These are far-left-wing elites.
They are not interested in the people or what is good for the state of California. They are only interested in increasing their stranglehold over voters. They are the power-hungry force behind all the terrible policies that are destroying California.
Gov. Gavin Newsom conjured up this gerrymandering scheme. He has created this costly special election, hoping that turnout will be low and that people won’t care.
We do care. We need to say no. Vote no on Proposition 50.
My first reaction to this news was, “Who the hell cares what this guy thinks?” Do only billionaires’ voices matter? If Donald Trump rigs future elections, is peaceful protesting the only power we have? Not by a long shot.
Even as Trump tries to sabotage the power of the vote, we have the power of the purse. It worked on Disney during the Jimmy Kimmel fiasco. It will work on any company that sells to consumers. Www.goodsuniteus.com tracks corporate political donations. When, collectively, people stop shopping and subscribing to the brands that do not share their values, companies notice in a hurry. Trump may not listen to us, but he does listen to his billionaire buddies.
It may be time to start keeping corporate leaders up at night, watching their market shares tank. It may be time to remind billionaires that the money that drives this country comes from us.
Janice Bleyaert El Sobrante
Cal must do more to support students
UC Berkeley is regarded as the No. 1 public university. However, the students who make Berkeley great are facing hunger at an unacceptable rate. The 2022 UC Basic Needs Report shows that 47% of UC students have faced food insecurity.
I’m grateful for the opportunities this university has presented to me. However, a reason I and many other students hesitated in committing to Berkeley is due to the city’s basic cost of living. Attending Berkeley for most will be their greatest investment, so it should be on the university to support students contributing to the legacy of such an institution.
Currently, students can only visit Berkeley’s Basic Needs Center once a week, which is not enough for the students who rely on this resource the most. Working to expand on this resource could make a significant difference in the lives of thousands of the great minds we have at Berkeley.
Kennedy Jones Berkeley
Medical community must loudly denounce RFK Jr.
After eight months of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doing his best to unravel decades of advances in medicine and the development and use of tested and proven vaccines and medications that have saved millions of lives, saved millions of people from years of suffering, and prevented epidemics of many deadly and debilitating diseases — culminating in Donald Trump’s unhinged and unsubstantiated medical advice to America’s pregnant mothers not to take Tylenol because it causes autism in their children — I have one question: Where the hell has the medical community been?
The medical community in this nation has to stand up loudly to condemn and stop this devastation of what has allowed us all to live longer and healthier lives.
DENVER — As part of our 7 Days To Help End Hunger campaign, Denver7 is highlighting the Food Bank of the Rockies’ program that ensures older adults in Colorado are fed.
The Food Bank of the Rockies is battling an increase in demand due to the high cost of living and reduced federal support. Denver7 is stepping up to help our neighbors facing food insecurity with our 7 Days to Help End Hunger campaign.
Denver7 is teaming up with Food Bank of the Rockies and CommonSpirit to take action on this issue – and we need your help. From Sept. 22-28, this week-long campaign will raise crucial funds to address food insecurity in our state.
Click here and select ‘7 Days to Help End Hunger’ to donate today.
Through the Everyday Eats program, older Coloradans in need receive food boxes with nutritious items to support them throughout the month. The program is in partnership with the state’s Department of Human Services.
Participants must be 60 years old or older and must meet certain income requirements.
Colorado Department of Human Services
“About 15 to 16% of all of our Everyday Eats program is delivered to people’s homes, and the reason for that is we have a lot of neighbors who face transportation challenges,” said Monica Buhlig, chief impact officer at Food Bank of the Rockies. “They aren’t able to get out of their house because of medical issues, or they may not feel comfortable going out into the community.”
Buhlig said 6,100 neighbors are supported each month through the Everyday Eats program, and volunteers are “instrumental” in packing and dropping off boxes.
Maggy Wolanske
“Our goal is to remove all barriers to people who are aging in our communities to receive the food that they need and the food that they deserve,” Buhlig said.
Volunteer Bruce Parker said he drops off anywhere between nine to 13 boxes and sees how thankful people are for the extra food. He also shared his own personal connection, which makes volunteering even more meaningful.
“When I first came to Denver, I lost 20 pounds in three months because of my need of food, so I know how it is,” said Parker. “Now, I’m very fortunate, and I don’t need that assistance, and so I know exactly what they’re going through, and so it just fills my heart when you can see how thankful they are for what you do.”
Maggy Wolanske
From 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, Denver7 will be holding a call center in order to collect donations toward ending hunger. To donate, simply call 303-777-7492 between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 25.
“Now more than ever, it takes Coloradans coming together to care for people who are aging in our communities,” said Buhlig. “We are so thankful to be able to team up with Denver7 as part of the 7 Days to Help End Hunger, to bring people together so that we can nourish our communities.”
7 Days to Help End Hunger is sponsored by CommonSpirit.
You can donate to our 7 Days to Help End Hunger campaign using the secure form below. Select “7 Days to Help End Hunger” from the drop-down menu.
BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey has created a task force aimed at helping the state fill an expected gap in federal funding for food insecurity programs.
President Donald Trump’s newly minted domestic policy bill extends federal tax cuts and implements his agenda to improve border security, cut taxes and slash government spending, but it also calls for deep cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.
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OKLAHOMA CITY, OK, October 16, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– Nonprofit believes everyone has a right to foods for a better life and a better future
Everyone can agree that healthy, nutritious food is vital for good health. In fact, this resource is defined as the third most basic human need after air and water. Feed the Children, a leading nonprofit committed to ending childhood hunger, is expanding efforts to provide children and their families access to safe, healthy food. This work happens across the U.S. and in eight countries around the world, including El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Malawi, the Philippines, Tanzania and Uganda.
The nonprofit believes that everyone deserves access to adequate food. Fundamental rights like access to food, life, liberty, work, and education are also recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Internationally, Feed the Children provides food, resources and education through their Child-Focused Community Development (CFCD) program.
For families like Frasiko Kamchuwa, his wife Felita, and their four children whose ages range from 6 months to 10 years old -Takwonda, Malaki, Martha and Yamikani – this program proved to be life-changing.
The family lives in Chilenga village, in the rural heartlands of Malawi, where over one-third of households are below the poverty line. The family’s primary source of food was their maize crop, but it was not sufficient to meet the family’s nutritional needs.
“We used to go to school on an empty stomach. When we came back, sometimes we also would find no food and go to sleep hungry,” said Takonda.
Through Feed the Children’s Child-Focused Community Development (CFCD) program the family received vegetable seedlings, fruit trees and training on how to maximize the yields of their new garden. This comprehensive support not only addressed the family’s immediate nutritional needs but also laid the foundation for long-term stability.
The impact was immediate. The family’s diet diversified, and they started enjoying nutrient-rich vegetables like Bonongwe and Mpiru.
Their new garden didn’t just improve their diet-it opened new financial opportunities for the family. Frasiko began selling bananas and orange-fleshed sweet potatoes, using the money to buy school supplies for his children and any other food they couldn’t grow themselves.
The CFCD program not only had a significant impact on the Kamchuwa family, but also had far-reaching effects throughout the community. According to an official from Malawi’s Ministry of Agriculture, the intervention significantly improved the community’s economic outlook.
“Now, my family and I can enjoy three meals a day, and our health has greatly improved,” Frasiko said.
In the U.S., Feed the Children has expanded programs including Food & Essential Hubs, Resource Rallies and recently opened their first Partner Market to increase access to shelf-stable food and other resources.
For moms like Sabina, the items she received at a Feed the Children event helped provide her three children with a sense of normalcy.
“You can look like you’re fine. You don’t look like you don’t have money. Appearances are a lie,” she said. “And you’re still willing to help me without knowing my real struggles. For the kids to still have what they need, I have an immense appreciation, because I don’t know how we would have survived.”
Sabina said she received cartons of shelf-stable milk, peanut butter, tomato sauce and spaghetti.
“My kids were so happy just to have the noodles and sauce and to be able to have dinner at home,” she said.
In the U.S. and around the world, Feed the Children distributed approximately 94.3 million pounds of food and essentials valued at approximately $399 million in fiscal year 2023. Through its partnerships and programs, the nonprofit’s outreach to children and their families benefited approximately 15 million people globally.
“Feed the Children is taking action to ensure our neighbors aren’t forgotten. We understand that many families are facing challenges, and we are working diligently with our corporate and community partners to ensure that as needs rise, children and their families continue to receive the food and supplies they need,” said Travis Arnold, Feed the Children president and CEO.
For more information on how you can help support Feed the Children’s World Food Day efforts, visit feedthechildren.org. Each dollar given delivers much-needed food and programs to families in the U.S. and around the world.
About Feed the Children
Feed the Children is a leading nonprofit committed to ending childhood hunger. The organization believes that no child should go to bed hungry, and so it provides children and families in the U.S. and around the world with the food and essentials kids need to grow and thrive.
Through its programs and partnerships, the organization feeds children today while helping their families and communities build resilient futures. In addition to food, Feed the Children distributes household and personal care items across the United States to help parents and caregivers maintain stable, food-secure households. Internationally, it expands access to nutritious meals, safe water, improved hygiene, and training in sustainable living. As responsible stewards of its resources, Feed the Children is driven to pursue innovative, holistic, and child-focused solutions to the complex challenges of hunger, food insecurity, and poverty.
For children everywhere, the organization believes that having enough to eat is a fundamental right. Learn how you can help create a world without childhood hunger at feedthechildren.org
There are two types of people, those who eat to live and those who live to eat. The later focuses on the enjoyment and taste of food and the culture around eating. Think Italians, French, Japanese where food is central to life, relationships and even business meetings. Americans love to eat and portions reflect it in the US. Europeans are often stunned at the size of portions in American restaurants. But for some, it may not be enough and they feel they can continue to consume. Here are 5 reasons you’re always hungry.
Too much stress
Almost 38% of adults say they have overeaten or eaten unhealthy foods in the past month because of stress. Half of these adults (49 percent) report engaging in these behaviors weekly or more. Consider some stress relievers include a walk, listening to relaxing music or a long bath. Physical activity is a great way to distract you body while gently releasing endorphins.
Not sleeping enough
Sleep is the best and only way of giving your body some rest and of regulating some important hormones, like those that regulate your hunger. A report by the American Heart Association found that the hormone Gherlin, the one that regulates hunger, is decreased when sleep is disrupted.
Sodas and alcohol, along with packing tons of calories, alter your system. The former contains a lot of corn syrup and fructose. This compound, when consumed, blocks the brain’s ability to determine when you’re full, tricking you into eating more when even if you are full. Alcohol also tricks your brain into thinking you’re hungry, with a 2017 study finding a link between alcohol consumption and specific brain neurons that cause a desire to eat. Think of alcohol as the liquid munchies.
Photo by Dan Gold via Unsplash.
Breakfast isn’t filling enough
There is an emphasis on breakfast for a reason. The first meal of the day can predict how you’ll eat for the remainder of it. Different studies have proved having savory foods in the morning increases the odds of eating healthy through the day and people who ate less than 300 calories for breakfast gained more weight than those who consumed 500 calories or more. Listen to your grandma and have a balanced breakfast in the morning.
Leafy greens (some of the most maligned foods ever) provide vitamin K, a nutrient that helps regulate your insulin and control your cravings. People should consume around 120 micrograms of vitamin K daily, which can be obtained from a simple cup of kale.
stu_spivack/Flickr
Boredom
Have you ever noticed that when you have nothing to do you always end up checking what’s inside your fridge? According to a study, boredom is a huge contributor to weight gain, causing people to overeat simply because there’s nothing better you can do.
A recent study has unveiled a fascinating liver response triggered by the mere sight and smell of food, showcasing the body’s intricate connection between sensory input and metabolic processes.
Food Cues and Rapid Liver Response
Have you ever wondered what happens inside your body when you’re hungry and suddenly see or smell delicious food? Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research have discovered a fascinating process in mice that begins in the brain and reaches the liver in just minutes. Their study, recently published in Science, could have significant implications for understanding and treating type 2 diabetes.
When hungry mice were exposed to the sight and smell of food without eating it, their liver cells underwent rapid changes. The mitochondria, crucial for metabolism and energy production, adapted quickly to prepare for sugar metabolism. This reaction was triggered by the activation of specific nerve cells in the brain known as POMC neurons.
The Science Behind the Sensory Influence
The researchers focused on how the liver’s mitochondria changed upon just seeing and smelling food. This process involves a specific phosphorylation—a chemical modification important for regulating protein activity—within the mitochondria. Phosphorylation appeared to increase the liver’s sensitivity to insulin, an essential hormone for controlling blood sugar levels.
Sinika Henschke, the study’s lead author, explains the significance of these findings. “We already knew that our bodies prepare for food intake by producing saliva and digestive acids,” says Henschke. “But now, we’ve seen how the liver, too, prepares rapidly through changes in the mitochondria.”
The study further reveals a direct link between sensory perception of food and insulin sensitivity adjustments in the body. Jens Brüning, head of the study and director at the Max Planck Institute, emphasizes the importance of this discovery. “Our study shows how closely connected sensory experiences of food are to adaptive processes in the mitochondria and insulin sensitivity. This understanding is crucial, particularly because insulin sensitivity often diminishes in type 2 diabetes.”
Implications for Diabetes Treatment
These insights into the liver’s immediate response to food cues through brain signaling open new avenues for treating type 2 diabetes. By harnessing the body’s natural response mechanisms, researchers hope to develop methods to enhance insulin sensitivity and manage diabetes more effectively. Therefore, understanding these rapid adaptive processes in the liver can help in designing interventions that mimic or enhance the body’s natural responses to food stimuli, potentially offering a novel approach to diabetes care.
In conclusion, this groundbreaking research not only deepens our understanding of the body’s interconnected systems but also offers hope for new treatments that could one day benefit millions of people with diabetes. As we continue to uncover the complex relationships between our senses, the brain, and metabolic processes, the potential for innovative therapeutic strategies expands, potentially transforming how we manage and treat metabolic diseases.
Happy December, Polygon readers! It’s the last weekend before the Christmas holiday, and we’ve got a whole sack full of exciting new releases on streaming and VOD for you!
This week, Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire, the first installment of Zack Snyder’s epic space opera starring Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service) finally comes to Netflix along with Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro. Gareth Edwards’ sci-fi action thriller The Creator finally comes to Hulu, and the black comedy thriller Saltburn arrives on Prime Video. There’s plenty of new movies available to rent this week as well, including The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving, and much more.
Here’s everything new to watch this weekend!
New on Netflix
Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Netflix
Genre: Epic space opera Run time: 2h 15m Director: Zack Snyder Cast: Sofia Boutella, Charlie Hunnam, Michiel Huisman
Zack Snyder returns to Netflix with an all-new, Star Wars- and Seven Samurai-inspired space opera in the form of Rebel Moon — Part One: A Child of Fire. Set in a far-off galaxy besieged by a brutal interplanetary empire, the film follows the story of a soldier-turned-farmer who must recruit a band of warriors to fight alongside her against the regime she once served. Also, Anthony Hopkins shows up as a robot and Doona Bae (Cloud Atlas) has cool definitely-not-lightsaber butcher swords. Neat!
The best that can be said about Snyder is that he’s at least capable of a kind of manic brouhaha that’s not unbecoming in this kind of genre filmmaking. Despite the lack of character or emotion in his films, he certainly can be one of the best filmmakers at capturing the pure excess of a piece of lurid fantasy art, or the distinct flair of a Frank Miller drawing. But in Child of Fire, the results couldn’t even be called stylish. The CGI seems to degenerate as the running time goes on. The production and costume design had this Dune agnostic bumping that film up half a star on Letterboxd. And Tom Holkenborg’s score sounds like Space Enya.
Maestro
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Photo: Jason McDonald/Netflix
Genre: Biographical drama Run time: 2h 9m Director: Bradley Cooper Cast: Carey Mulligan, Bradley Cooper
Bradley Cooper directs and stars in this biographical drama about the life of the acclaimed American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein and his complicated relationship with his wife, Felicia Montealegre.
Maestro takes on new shades when compared with Cooper’s directorial debut, that Star Is Born remake. It’s the inverse of Maestro in a lot of ways. In A Star Is Born, singer Jackson Maine (Cooper) sees something magical in Ally (Lady Gaga), and struggles to cope as they fall in love and her career eclipses his. Conversely, Maestro is built around Leonard Bernstein’s marriage to Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), who Bernstein is captivated by and devoted to — at least, part of him is. Felicia, who first appears on camera in a black-and-white sequence, illuminates the screen with her talents and ambitions, then is ironically suffocated as Cooper widens Maestro’s aspect ratio and fills it with color. Leonard’s ambition, his dueling appetites, and his affairs with men like David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer) edge her out and dim her world.
Operation Napoleon
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Magnet Releasing/Magnolia
Genre: Historical thriller Run time: 1h 42m Director: Óskar Þór Axelsson Cast: Vivian Ólafsdóttir, Jack Fox, Iain Glen
An Icelandic lawyer (Vivian Ólafsdóttir) finds herself drawn into a deadly international conspiracy after her brother accidentally stumbles upon a German World War II plane buried beneath the snow. Hunted by ruthless criminals and a unrelenting CIA director (Iain Glen), she’ll have to get to the heart of the mystery if she has any hope of surviving.
New on Hulu
The Creator
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Image: 20th Century Studios
Genre: Sci-fi action Run time: 2h 15m Director: Gareth Edwards Cast: John David Washington, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe
John David Washington (Tenet) stars in Rogue One director Gareth Edwards’ latest sci-fi adventure as an undercover operative in the far-future searching for the mysterious creator of a rogue-artificial intelligence. After being entrusted with the care of a human-like robot named “Alphie” (Madeleine Yuna Voyles), the pair embark on a journey in search of answers and salvation.
The Creator would be a wonderful video game. I mean that earnestly — video games are terrific for interacting with lore, with the bits and bobs of world-building that all storytellers spend years developing, but leave as subtext in the story proper. That can also be true of video games, but games of larger scope often flesh out their virtual worlds with said lore, which players are often free to roam and engage with. There are all sorts of ways that lore can become text — optional conversations with characters, diary and book excerpts to read, video or audio ephemera, all ambient and non-compulsory, a substrate where the player can find meaning whether the main narrative is fulfilling or not. The Creator is a fully realized future in the service of a rote story and flat characters that only gesture in compelling directions; I’d rather not bother with that story at all.
New on Prime Video
Saltburn
Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video
Image: Prime Video
Genre: Psychological thriller Run time: 2h 11m Director: Emerald Fennell Cast: Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Archie Madekwe
‘What if The Talented Mr. Ripley, but set in a palatial Oxford-family estate with young adults in the mid-2000s?”
That’s essentially the premise of this black comedy about class and privilege starring Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Jacob Elordi (Euphoria), from Promising Young Woman filmmaker Emerald Fennell.
Genre: Surrealist tragicomedy horror Run time: 2h 59m Director: Ari Aster Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan
A24 horror maestro Ari Aster returns with a different kind of project in this horror-comedy about a man confronting his fears after the death of his mother.
Genre: Biographical drama Run time: 1h 40m Director: Guy Nattiv Cast: Helen Mirren, Camille Cottin, Liev Schreiber
Helen Mirren stars in this biographical drama about Golda Meir, the 4th Prime Minister of Israel, and her role during the Yom Kippur War of 1973.
New to rent
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Photo: Murray Close/Lionsgate
Genre: Dystopian action Run time: 2h 37m Director: Francis Lawrence Cast: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage
Francis Lawrence returns to the world of The Hunger Games to tell the story of the early years of Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), who would go on to become the president of Panem and the nemesis of Katniss Everdeen.
Set 60 years before the events of the first film, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes recalls the fateful meeting between Coriolanus and Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from District 12 who would leave a profound impact on his life and worldview.
Collins’ book and Lawrence’s movie don’t redo the action of the Hunger Games events; they dissect them, then force us to sit on the Capitol side of the equation. They demand to know why we were even drawn to the love triangle, the pretty dresses, and the themed arenas in the first place. We’ve always been the spectators, after all, watching Katniss’ story from a safe distance. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes shows us what happens if we get too carried away by propaganda, luxury, and the promise of safety. In that way, it’s a fitting end to the franchise — and a fitting end to the way the genre evolved into a beast of its own.
Trolls: Band Together
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: DreamWorks/Universal
Genre: Adventure comedy Run time: 1h 31m Directors: Walt Dohrn, Tim Heitz Cast: Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Kenan Thompson
The Trolls have returned, and they’re getting the band back together! After Branch’s brother Floyd is kidnapped, he’ll have to team up with Poppy to reunite with his other brothers in order to find the culprit and save the day.
Thanksgiving
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Photo: Pief Weyman/Sony Pictures
Genre: Slasher horror Run time: 1h 46m Director: Eli Roth Cast: Patrick Dempsey, Addison Rae, Gina Gershon
Just in time for Christmas, Eli Roth is back with a brand new holiday-themed slasher! After a tragic Black Friday riot, the quiet town of Plymouth, Massachusetts is terrorized by a Thanksgiving-inspired killer wearing a ghoulish John Carver mask.
Comedic slashers where both halves complement each other are rare, even among the genre’s most entertaining offerings. Movies like Totally Killer or Happy Death Day are too funny and lighthearted to ever really earn a genuine scare, while a movie like House of 1000 Corpses is so dark and gross that the humor isn’t likely to land on a first viewing. Few movies have ever struck that balance quite as well as Craven’s four Scream movies. Thanksgiving doesn’t quite reach that series’ meteoric heights, but it comes far closer than anything else in recent years — including the Scream franchise itself.
Silent Night
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Photo: Carlos Latapi/Lionsgate
Genre: Action thriller Run time: 1h 44m Director: John Woo Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Scott Mescudi, Harold Torres
After nearly 20 years, action movie legend John Woo has returned with a Christmas-themed revenge thriller starring Joel Kinnaman as a vigilante who embarks on a mission to exact vengeance on the gang who murdered his son in a Christmas Eve drive-by. Polygon spoke to Woo about the process that went into this film and why he was first attracted to the unique project.
Anatomy of a Fall
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
This Palme d’Or-winning French courtroom drama follows the story of a writer trying to prove her innocence following the mysterious death of her husband outside of their home. Was it murder or was it suicide? Beyond a simple interrogation of guilt, the film is a psychological thriller that delves deep into the complicated circumstances behind the couple’s relationship.
Dream Scenario
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: A24
Genre: Horror comedy Run time: 1h 42m Director: Kristoffer Borgli Cast: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Nicholson, Michael Cera
Nicolas Cage (The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent) continues his streak of meta self-referential projects in this horror-comedy about a mild-mannered biology professor who inexplicably becomes famous overnight after appearing in the dreams of people around the world.
Dream Scenario’s vague, nebulous type of fame gives Borgli an avenue to comment on celebrity and its price without taking a specific stand. He’s just exploring the cost of being highly visible, being up for endless interpretation by total strangers, and being disconnected in the public eye from any actual real-world intentions or actions. Once Paul starts deliberately taking a more active role in people’s dreams, the script takes a Charlie Kaufman-esque approach, playing with the ideas around so-called cancel culture as part of the world of instant fame. He also keeps the visuals refreshing and interesting, fully veering into dream-sequence horror, with enjoyably weird results.
Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson’s performances as Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark defined the original Hunger Games movies. But the prequel movie, set 64 years before Katniss and Peeta’s story, needed a new set of actors who could hold their own.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is an origin story for Panem’s dictator, President Coriolanus Snow. It takes fans back to a time when Coriolanus was just an ambitious young student who had not yet become the cutthroat politician we see in the main books and movies. His story is entwined with that of Lucy Gray Baird, the District 12 Tribute he’s assigned to mentor, whose natural flair for showmanship and captivating songs inspire him to turn the brutal Hunger Games into more of a flashy spectacle.
Director Francis Lawrence tells Polygon the filmmakers were looking for fresh faces when it came to the lead roles. A lot of actors auditioned for the role of Snow, specifically, but Lawrence says Billy the Kid star Tom Blyth immediately “blew everybody out of the water.”
“Part of it is physical,” he admits. “He has those great blue eyes — [you] could see in his face, Okay, I could buy that maybe 65 years later, he could turn into Donald Sutherland.”
Image: Lionsgate Films
Image: Lionsgate
But it wasn’t just about how feasibly Blyth could look like a younger Donald Sutherland. Whoever landed the role had to walk a line between being charming and conniving, someone you want to root for, yet aren’t surprised when they end up turning into a villain. Blyth brought his acting chops to the role, and Lawrence was continually impressed throughout filming.
“Telling a story about a young man’s descent into darkness, you have to have somebody that can earn the audience’s empathy, but then believably also descend into that darkness,” Lawrence says. “[Blyth] is really, really good. This sort of charisma continued to astound me. His sense of control in his performance and nuance also astounded me. That really caught me off guard and surprised me in a fantastic way.”
Blyth stood out in auditions, but when it came to casting District 12 songstress Lucy Gray, Lawrence had a first choice in mind from the get-go. Rachel Zegler’s acting and singing in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story made her Lawrence’s top contender for the role.
“So she and I met, I think, for four hours or something the first time, and had a great chat about the book and about the character and about the music,” Lawrence says. “I just knew she was the one right away.”
Photo: Murray Close/Lionsgate
A big part of Lucy Gray’s character involves music. She’s a member of the Covey, a traveling band of musicians inspired by similar performing groups from turn-of-the-century America. Her passionate outburst of song at her Reaping immediately sparks something in Snow, who recognizes that her performing talent is key to getting her to survive the games. So Lucy Gray’s singing had to be life-savingly good and fit in a specific genre.
“I had high expectations, because I think she’s a great actor and a great singer, but the singing blew me away,” Lawrence gushes. “The fact that she could shift right from theatrical kind of singing — something you would do in West Side Story or on stage — into the exact genre of country bluegrass that we were doing in this movie that feels like it’s from the turn of the century to the [19]20s-30s Appalachia. To be able to hit that style and do it so effortlessly, and sing live every day, that was pretty mind-blowing.”
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is out in theaters now.
Researchers at UCL have discovered that hunger hormones produced in the gut can directly influence the decision-making areas of the brain, thus affecting an animal’s behavior. This study, conducted on mice and published in Neuron, is groundbreaking in demonstrating the direct impact of gut hormones on the brain’s hippocampus, a region crucial for decision-making.
The Role of the Ventral Hippocampus
A recent study from University College London (UCL) has unveiled a fascinating insight into how our gut directly communicates with our brain, especially when it comes to food-related decisions.
During the study, scientists observed the behavior of mice in an environment with food, analyzing their actions when hungry and full. They focused on the neural activity in the ventral hippocampus, a part of the brain associated with decision-making and memory. What they found was remarkable: activity in this brain region increased as animals approached food, but this was only the case when they were full. The activity inhibited them from eating.
Conversely, in hungry mice, there was less activity in this area, allowing the hippocampus to stop inhibiting eating behavior. This change in brain activity correlated with elevated levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin in the bloodstream. The researchers further manipulated this process by either activating these ventral hippocampal neurons or removing ghrelin receptors from them, resulting in altered eating behaviors in the mice.
Hunger Hormones: Ghrelin’s Role
The study sheds light on the role of ghrelin receptors in the brain, demonstrating how the hunger hormone can cross the blood-brain barrier and influence brain activity. This discovery is significant as it shows that ghrelin directly impacts the brain to control a circuit that inhibits overeating. This mechanism, which likely exists in humans as well, ensures that the body maintains a balance in food intake.
Continuing their research, the UCL team is now exploring whether hunger can affect learning or memory. This line of investigation could reveal if mice perform tasks differently based on their hunger levels. Such research could have broad implications, potentially illuminating mechanisms involved in eating disorders or the relationship between diet and mental health risks.
Potential for Eating Disorder Research
This groundbreaking discovery opens new avenues for research into eating disorders and the prevention and treatment of such conditions. By understanding how the gut’s signals are translated into decisions in the brain, scientists might uncover new strategies to address imbalances in these mechanisms. The study’s lead author, Dr. Ryan Wee, emphasized the importance of decision-making based on hunger levels, highlighting the serious health problems that can arise when this process is disrupted.
The UCL study highlights the complex interplay between the gut and the brain, underscoring how our bodies’ internal signals can profoundly influence our behavior and decisions. As research in this field continues to evolve, it could lead to significant advancements in understanding and treating various health conditions linked to our eating behaviors and mental health.
WASHINGTON, December 6, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– Today, Central Union Mission accepted hundreds of dry-cleaned suits, shirts, ties and shoes from Advanced Advocacy that were donated by local congressmen, senators, lobbyists and other DC professionals. For six years, Advanced Advocacy has consistently partnered with Central Union Mission to support the rehabilitation of our residents by supplying them with suits as they prepare to enter the workforce. International Franchise Association also played an integral role in the success of this suit drive.
Central Union staff members, along with Andrew Kovalcin of Advanced Advocacy and David Smith from IFA, sit with the recipients of new suits from the Workforce Development and Education Program
According to Joe Mettimano, Mission President & CEO, “When you look good, you feel good, and because of Advanced Advocacy and this amazing suit drive, our program graduates can head to their job interviews with confidence, equipped to display their new competence and skills.”
According to Andrew Kovalcin of Advanced Advocacy, “We’re dedicated to making a positive impact in people’s lives as they make the journey from homelessness to self-sufficiency. Over the past six years, we have provided over one thousand business suits to eliminate one of the barriers men face when looking for employment. We’ve witnessed firsthand how equipping an individual with the right clothes can empower them in their transformation and be critical for their personal growth. The continued success of the annual suit drive shows that even a small company, combined with the help and donations of others, can make a big difference in someone’s life and in our local community.”
Beyond the core services of nutritious food and safe, clean beds, Central Union Mission offers several life-changing programs for men. The Restoration & Transformation Program helps them overcome addictions, reconcile with family, study the Bible and take responsibility for their attitudes and actions. Men can also join the Workforce Development & Education Program, which offers employment readiness training and soft skills, actual hands-on, wage-earning work in a mentored setting and finally, placement in an outside job and independent living situation.
“IFA is a proud partner with Advanced Advocacy to support Central Union Mission and all they are doing to help disadvantaged men in the greater D.C. community enter the workforce,” said Rikki Amos, Executive Director of the IFA Foundation. “One suit can go a long way in helping establish confidence and pride, and we thank IFA member ZIPS Cleaners for making this effort possible. Serving the community is central to the work of local franchises, like ZIPS, and we are grateful for the opportunity to further this mission and give back to those around us.”
For interviews and photos, please contact Deborah Chambers, VP, Development & Partnerships, at 202-534-9965 or dchambers@missiondc.org.
About Central Union Mission:
Central Union Mission is a faith-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and the oldest private social service agency in Washington, DC. In addition to its emergency shelter, which provides more than 60,000 bed-nights each year, the Mission operates holistic, Christ-centered transformation and workforce development programs for men, provides benefits for veterans, helps people overcome addictions, operates a food and clothing distribution center which provides food for over 4,000 people each month, runs a camp for underprivileged children, and offers a ministry to families and senior citizens. Charity Navigator has rated Central Union Mission a three-star charity, Candid awarded Central Union Mission a Gold Seal for our financial transparency, and GreatNonProfits has given Central Union Mission a Top-Rated award.
About Advanced Advocacy:
Advanced Advocacy is an independent advocacy and public affairs firm that specializes in issue campaigns, coalition management, third parties and alliances, grassroots activation and community engagement.
About The International Franchise Association:
Celebrating over 60 years of excellence, education, and advocacy, the International Franchise Association (IFA) is the world’s oldest and largest organization representing franchising worldwide. IFA works through its government relations and public policy, media relations, and educational programs to protect, enhance and promote franchising and the approximately 775,000 franchise establishments that support nearly 8.2 million direct jobs, $787.7 billion of economic output for the U.S. economy, and almost 3 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). IFA members include franchise companies in over 300 different business format categories, individual franchisees, and companies that support the industry in marketing, law, technology, and business development.
NEW YORK, November 29, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– TABLE FOR TWO (TFT) USA, a non-profit organization that aims to tackle obesity and worldwide hunger, organized its 8th annual social action campaign called ONIGIRI ACTION to commemorate World Food Day. This year we were able to provide 1,560,260 school meals to children and far surpassed our goal of 280,000 total photos with 283,461. During the campaign, every photo of onigiri posted to the campaign website or social media with #OnigiriAction helped provide five school meals to children in need. For TFT USA, a 25-cent donation is used to upgrade meals by adding nutritious elements such as fruits and vegetables in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods. TFT funds one school meal to a child in East Africa and Southeast Asia with the same 25-cent donation. This year we saw many beautiful Onigiri photos posted from 37 countries around the world. We continued the theme – Unite the States with Onigiri – into 2022 as well and had participation from 43 states. Our global effort to help children connects us and continues to grow every year. Nine “Best Onigiri Awards 2022” were selected to commemorate this success and announced on the campaign website.
The ONIGIRI ACTION 2022 campaign is generously supported by our partner organizations in the U.S.:
J.C.C. Fund/Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of New York, JFC International/Nishiki, JCAW Foundation, Zojirushi America, San-J, ITOCHU International, SMBC Global Foundation, Misuzu Corporation, MUFG Union Bank, N.A., Zensho Employees Association Network (ZEAN), Mishima Foods U.S.A., BentOn, Onigilly, Sunny Blue, Omusubee, Onigiri Kororin, Obon Shokudo.
The ONIGIRI ACTION Events United the States!
Kids to adults from 43 States supported Onigiri Action and made great contributions to the cause through their efforts. By posting photos of onigiri, elementary students through the university level were able to help children in need. JFC International generously provided Nishiki rice and Mishima Foods USA provided rice seasoning, while MUFG Union Bank, N.A. and JCAW Foundation participated in in-person events at schools. Thank you to all partner organizations for supporting the events.
This year, a “Creative Onigiri Competition” took place between students from universities in Japan and the United States with Halloween onigiri. For students at partner schools, we offered a special Mini Wa-Shokuiku -Learn. Cook. Eat Japanese!- lessons that focused on making onigiri and bento. “Onigiri Action Kits” were provided to organizations again this year that included basic ingredients and materials to make onigiri as part of our Japanese inspired food education class for students. Kits were provided through the partnership between TFT USA, The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of JAPAN (MAFF) and The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) Los Angeles.
TFT USA is grateful to partner donor organizations and all the schools, organizations, individuals, restaurants, onigiri shops, and more that came together with onigiri to make a big impact in providing meals for children in need.
CAIRO — Egypt’s imprisoned hunger-striking activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah has started drinking water again, his family said Monday, in the first communication from the prominent dissident in over a week amid fears for his life.
The announcement came in a letter the family received from Abdel-Fattah through the prison authorities, dated on Saturday. Last Thursday, the authorities said they had “medically intervened” in Abdel-Fattah’s case, without providing details and raising concerns that he was being force-fed.
Abdel-Fattah’s Lawyer, Khaled Ali, was blocked three times from visiting him in prison since news of the medical intervention was announced, despite being granted permission from Egypt’s state prosecutor.
One of Egypt’s most prominent pro-democracy campaigners, Abdel-Fattah had intensified his hunger strike on Nov. 6, at the start of the U.N. climate conference, known as COP27, in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, to draw attention to his case and those of other political prisoners. He began a partial hunger strike in April limiting his intake of food to only 100 calories a day.
Then, he stopped taking food altogether and later stopped drinking water to coincide with the start of the summit. The announcement of the medical intervention last Thursday raised fears among the family that he could die in prison.
Laila Soueif, Abdel-Fattah’s mother, told The Associated Press that the letter did not mention his hunger strike, but the family’s assumption was it was ongoing.
“He didn’t ask for food,” she said. “He asked for … salts and vitamins,” said Soueif.
Prison authorities had allowed Abdel-Fattah to communicate with his family through weekly letters. Monday’s letter is the first proof of life the family received since he began refusing water eight days ago.
Every day since he stopped drinking water, Soueif has been waiting outside the prison of Wadi el-Natroun, north of the Egyptian capital of Cairo, seeking proof of her son’s life. On Monday, Ali, the lawyer, was also there, waiting to be allowed to see Abdel-Fattah.
Later Monday, an extract of Abdel-Fattah’s letter was posted on Facebook by a group lobbying for his release. In it, he confirms “he is drinking water” and “receiving medical attention,” without revealing any other specifics.
On Twitter, one of Abdel-Fattah’s sisters, Sanaa Seif, confirmed the letter was in her brother’s handwriting.
Abdel-Fattah’s hunger strike has drawn attention to Egypt’s heavy suppression of speech and political activity. Since 2013, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi’s government has cracked down on dissidents and critics, jailing thousands, virtually banning protests and monitoring social media.
Abdel-Fattah rose to prominence during the 2011 pro-democracy uprisings — known as the Arab Spring — that swept through the Middle East. In Egypt, the uprising toppled the country’s long-time autocratic President Hosni Mubarak.
Abdel-Fattah has been imprisoned several times and spent a total of nine years behind bars, becoming a symbol of Egypt’s sliding back to an even more autocratic rule under el-Sissi.
Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, told the AP that President Joe Biden raised Abdel-Fattah’s case during his meeting with el-Sissi on Friday at the climate summit. Sullivan could not provide any update on Abdel-Fattah’s condition.
At the summit, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also raised the activist’s case in their talks with el-Sissi. Abdel-Fattah gained British citizenship earlier this year through his mother who was born in London.
At the climate summit, Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, talked down the global attention surrounding Abdel-Fattah’s well-being and said on Saturday that the priority of the conference should be focused on “the existential challenge related to climate change.”
Also Saturday, Sanaa Seif, took part in a protest march in Sharm el Sheikh that saw hundreds of activists demand action on climate change, human and gender rights. The protesters have called for the release of Abdel-Fattah and all political prisoners detained in Egypt.
Meanwhile, the United Nations said it was investigating allegations of misconduct by Egyptian police at the summit, following claims that attendees were being photographed and filmed at an event at the German pavilion.
In a statement Sunday provided to the AP, the U.N. climate office confirmed that some Egyptian security officers were working in the part of the venue designated as United Nations territory.
Several human rights groups have accused Egypt of using the climate summit to whitewash the country’s poor human rights record.
Ahead of COP27, the Egyptian government sought to improve its international image, releasing dozens of high-profile detainees under presidential pardons in recent months and establishing a new “strategy” to upgrade the country’s human rights conditions.
Amnesty International in September described the strategy as a “shiny cover-up” meant to gain favor with foreign governments and financial institutions.
Egypt is among the world’s worst jailers of journalists, along with Turkey and China, according to 2021 data produced by the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Human Rights Watch estimated in 2019 that as many as 60,000 political prisoners are incarcerated in Egyptian prisons.
———
This story has been corrected to say that Abdel-Fattah’s sister took part in a protest march by climate activists but did not lead it.
Maiduguri, Nigeria – One afternoon this August, Kaka Modu was wheeled into the emergency ward of the Umaru Shehu Stabilisation Centre in Maiduguri, the capital of the northeast Nigerian state of Borno.
The three-year-old had been brought in earlier that day from Konduga, a town 25km (15.5 miles) outside Maiduguri. She had shrunk in size and whimpered whenever her mother, Yagana Modu, adjusted her sitting position.
“She started by stooling for some days,” said Modu. “I was hoping it would stop. Then I noticed the belly and body were swollen.”
Kaka, who suffers from severe acute malnutrition (SAM), is one of more than 1.3 million children below five who are likely acutely malnourished in northeast Nigeria, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO’s) acute malnutrition analysis.
Food shortages and bouts of famine have affected the region for years as Boko Haram, which has been wreaking havoc since 2009, remains on a rampage. Thousands have been killed and millions displaced by the conflict.
Across the region, some 8.4 million people, primarily women and children, need humanitarian assistance, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Many are on the edge of death, experts say.
In 2019, Boko Haram attacked the Modu family’s village of Takari in Konduga, destroying Modu’s family home and livelihood. Her family of eight was held captive for months until Nigerian soldiers recaptured the town and transferred them to Konduga to join thousands of others displaced by the conflict.
Yagana Modu consoles her daughter, Kaka, as she whimpers at the emergency ward in a stabilisation centre in Maiduguri, Borno, Nigeria [Festus Iyorah/Al Jazeera]
‘Health facilities … overwhelmed’
Health authorities and non-profits say the situation is squeezing available resources.
Every week, one of the three ambulances operated by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) travels to outpatient centres in Konduga and nearby communities in Borno to transport patients like Kaka. Since May, admission of SAM cases, mostly children, has skyrocketed.
“This year, we are experiencing what we have not experienced in a long time,” Martha Budidi, IRC’s nutrition manager, told Al Jazeera. “Cases of children with severe acute malnutrition are beyond normal that even all the health facilities around Maiduguri are overwhelmed.”
Daily, 30-40 of those cases are admitted into IRC’s three stabilisation centres in the state – and about 200 people weekly, its officials said.
Elsewhere, the situation is bleaker.
The NGO Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF), which has been treating malnutrition cases in Maiduguri since 2017, says there has been a record number of admissions since May, when health officials say malnutrition cases peak annually.
“Since week 30 [the last week of July], we are admitting 330 patients per week on average. In the same period, last year’s average number of weekly admissions was 69 patients.” Htet Aung Kyi, the MSF medical coordinator in Nigeria, told Al Jazeera.
This August, more patients were admitted in one week than in the entire month in the same period last year, Aung Kyi added.
Deepening food crisis
Two years ago, before armed groups struck Takari, life was good for Modu, a maize and millet farmer like her husband. Every year, they would rake in enough profits to feed the entire family.
But her fortunes changed after the attack. “I had no access to food and healthcare in captivity, so my children died,” she told Al Jazeera.
At the garrison town in Konduga, where internally displaced people (IDP) live, food is rationed so the family get one daily meal off her husband’s meagre income as a construction labourer.
Across the region, deteriorating food consumption patterns over the last year are deepening malnutrition.
The FAO’s analysis showed that 42.1 percent of households across the BAY states – Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe – had insufficient food intake, compared with 37.8 percent in the same period in 2021.
According to the organisation, the regional armed uprising has denied 65,800 farmers access to farms and agricultural inputs leading to a surge in food prices and a food crisis.
Within the Maiduguri metropolis, IDPs formerly dependent on food donations from NGOs such as Action Against Hunger and Save the Children at the camps are stuck in host communities, hungry.
Recovery and relapse
Since 2021, the Borno state government has resettled about 200,000 displaced people from relief camps across Maiduguri. While their resettlement gives them relative peace and stability, thousands are reeling from hunger.
According to a November 2022 report by Human Rights Watch, the government’s camp shutdowns exacerbated hunger and malnutrition in the city. IDPs interviewed in the report said the Borno State Emergency Management Authority (SEMA) and humanitarian organisations like Action Against Hunger stopped providing monthly food rations and cash donations that helped them buy food in Maiduguri camps.
“Once people don’t have access to food rations, it’s [malnutrition] is expected,” said Anietie Ewang, Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch. “For children, that’s more concerning because it has a lifetime impact on them and how they grow.”
In Maiduguri for instance, Hauwa Ali has struggled to feed her two children since being relocated from the Dalori I camp back in July. The 25-year-old is jobless, and her husband’s new life as a car mechanic’s apprentice has not taken off quite yet.
In June – and again in August – she rushed her nine-month-old daughter Hadisa to the stabilisation centre in Maiduguri and got a diagnosis of SAM with complications, including oral thrush and diarrhoea.
“The first time she was stooling and was treated,” she told Al Jazeera. “This second time I couldn’t breastfeed her, she started decreasing in weight. I noticed the symptoms one night when I checked her mouth and realized it was swollen.”
Hadisa’s is a case of relapse, which according to Ibrahim Mohammed, an IRC doctor in Bama, happens when a child returns to SAM after a recovery period. “It [relapse] can be caused by poor health or hygiene, but most times it is often the case of severe hunger,” he told Al Jazeera.
At the stabilisation centre in Bama, relapse cases are frequent due to food rationing and limited dietary choices.
Thousands of families eat only one meal a day across the region and “about 5,000 children could die of hunger if there are no resources shared to save them in the next two months”, John Mukisa, a nutrition sector coordinator for UNICEF, told Al Jazeera.
In the past, the Ali family relied on the food donated by the World Food Programme (WPF) and other donor agencies. But since relocating to a host community on the outskirts of Maiduguri in July, the household of four now eats only one meal per day.
Meanwhile, Hadisa who is on F.100, a calorie and protein formula used for quick weight gain for toddlers suffering from acute malnutrition, is recuperating.
But Ali fears another relapse is coming. “There’s nothing (food) to go back home to,” she told Al Jazeera. “I can’t feed her properly and I’m afraid she might be admitted again.”
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