6/6/07 Food Bank Targets Hunger Awareness

Andres Amerikaner - 06/06/2007



Food Bank Targets Hunger Awareness
BY ANDRES AMERIKANER aamerikaner@MiamiHerald.com


Fighting hunger in South Florida just got personal.

A South Florida food bank is asking people to skip a meal and donate the money to help people in poverty.

The program, launched by the Daily Bread Food Bank as part of Hunger Awareness Day, seeks to help feed the 450,000 people living in poverty in Miami-Dade County and 800,000 in Southern Florida, said Daily Bread Executive Director Judith Gatti.

Language barriers make the area harder to work in, Gatti said.

"I think that one of the strengths that we have in South Florida is our diversity, but it's also one of the challenges that we face," she said. "It's important that people understand each other."

The U.S. Department of Agriculture released a report yesterday that said participation in the food stamps program by eligible people jumped 20 percent from 2001 to 2005.

But Miami's rates, at less than 60 percent participation, lag behind the national average of 65 percent, said Daniella Levine, executive director of the Miami-based Human Services Coalition.

Roberto Salazar, the administrator of the USDA's Food and Nutrition Service, which runs the food stamps program, said efforts to engage Spanish speakers could help bring up the rates.

"We have to reach out to Latinos in Spanish," he said. "Nobody should have to choose between housing and food."

Maria Nieves, 54, who represented the nonprofit Abriendo Puertas, said food stamps helped her get through hard times after she left her family in Cuba. She receives $54 a month in food stamps.

"Here in this country you get opportunities and aid, but only if you know what you're doing," Nieves said, while volunteers carried bulging bags of onions and packs of green beans in the 33,000-square-foot warehouse that Daily Bread operates in Brownsville.

In 1982, the food bank was providing 360,000 pounds of food monthly. CORRECTION: 36,000 pounds Today, that number is up to 1.5 million pounds. To feed everyone living in poverty in South Florida, the bank would have to supply more than a billion pounds of food per month, Gatti said.

Miami ranked among the three poorest large cities in the country in 2004 and 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Gatti said it'll take efforts at the federal, state and local levels to curb hunger.

"If we all provide a small solution, we can really make a difference in the community," Gatti said.