Get Local and Get Giving, All Year Long

While we're all looking forward to chowing down for charity at the Taste of the Nation event this August, there's plenty you can do to help combat childhood hunger in Chicago year round. We're still learning more about what's out there, but here are two local non-profits that are providing some pretty amazing food services to their communities.

Eden Place Nature Center

Photo by Katherine Millett for Chicago Wilderness Magazine

Some argue that food tastes better when you work for it, and Eden Place Nature Center aims to prove that theory. Located in Chicago's Fuller Park neighborhood, the center is a lush nature preserve nestled amongst gritty concrete and freight train tracks. Through partnerships with local schools, Eden Place offers Fuller Park children the chance to experience nature firsthand, teaching them to compost dirt, tend to farm animals, and sow sees for planting. The organization has exposed over 20,000 children to urban agriculture and the importance of getting nutritious food to eat. The children's farming efforts haven't gone to waste, either - Eden Place sells homegrown produce and eggs at a Saturday Farmer's Market throughout the year.

How to get involved: Volunteer to work with Eden Place's plants and animals, or help out with one of their events. You can also donate to Eden Place directly, helping to sponsor projects such as a permanent building for student groups and the ongoing MonarchLive project.

First Slice

First Slice Pie Cafe

While Eden Place promotes a back to nature approach, First Slice shows that nutritious can also mean delicious. The Ravenswood not-for-profit was founded by Chicago chef Mary Ellen Diaz and its mission is to provide high quality meals to families in need. To do that, Diaz enlists the help of a robust Chicago population: resident foodies. Buy some pie at the pie cafe, hire First Slice's community supported kitchen to cater your next event, or subscribe to receive three chef-prepared meals a week - each tasty option fuels First Slice's community outreach efforts. The organization provides meals to the Howard Area Alternative High School, Broadway Youth Center, The Center on Halsted and more. Each meal prepared by First Slice comes with fresh vegetables, fruit, and organic meat. And their pies - which I can attest to from recent firsthand experience - are a true slice of heaven, with options ranging from traditional apple to the more adventurous tabasco cream.

How to get involved: If you'd like to go further than just buying their food, First Slice also offers ample opportunities to volunteer. Contact them directly for information on serving local meals or helping to prepare food for the kitchen and the Soul Food Pantry Bus. They also accept donations.

Taste of the Nation Kicks Off With Food Network Documentary "Hunger Hits Home"

The Taste of the Nation Chicago team is back, and more ready than ever to take on Share Our Strength’s goal of ending childhood hunger by 2015. A big part of that – in addition to planning our annual gala benefit – is working to educate the public on the realities of childhood hunger here in the United States.

Our message got across in a major way last week when The Food Network aired a documentary co-produced with Share Our Strength called "Hunger Hits Home." Narrated by Hollywood actor Jeff Bridges, the film profiles three American families who have unexpectedly found themselves struggling to put food on the table.

Their stories are startling. "I've gone about three days without eating," says one bespectacled boy from Norfolk, Virginia. "I've been able to do that," he says, adding, "sometimes." The children featured here all come from hard-working, loving homes and the desperation their parents feel at not being able to provide for them is palpable.

Sadly, they’re not alone. Childhood hunger affects as many as 16 million children in this country – that’s 1 in 5 kids you see on the street. It's become such a growing problem that current Agricultural Secretary Tom Vilsack has labeled it an issue of national security.

What’s encouraging is seeing how both private citizens and politicians have become energized around this issue. On the local level, food pantries like Minnie’s in Plano, Texas, help make the choice between cooking dinner and going without a little easier for families in the community. Share Our Strength has also successfully partnered with governors in Maryland and Virginia to help make ending hunger a priority in their states.

The message here is simple. Whether it’s donating to your local food pantry, writing your state legislator, or simply taking the pledge to end childhood hunger, this is a goal we can all get behind.

We hope to do our part here in Chicago. Join us, and buy your ticket to the 2012 Taste of the Nation event today.

Fighting Hunger with Three Days To Go

(In a grocery store, this table of food would cost $63.

If obtained through the Greater Chicago Food Depository programs? $5.41)

So here's the thing. In all of the hooplah of throwing together such a large event with an overwhelming cast of chefs, it's easy to loose sight of what this event is all about. Who are the recipients of the money raised? How much food does your ticket buy for a family? How many kids are impacted by this one event? Internally at Taste of the Nation we call the answers that reveal what's beneath the surface of these questions, Hunger Messaging—and our own Chuck Sudo is the Bruce Wayne of Hunger Messaging. Next Thursday night, you'll see Hunger Messaging all around you.

But we're not talking decorations and fancy words that might convince you to throw in some extra money because that's what you're supposed to do—we're talking serious issues that just aren't forward enough on our consciousness. Take a look:

• In Chicago, 1 in 4 children are food insecure.
• 82 percent of Chicago Public School Students qualify for free or reduced lunches.
• The Greater Chicago Food Depository distributed 62 million pounds of food to pantries and shelters throughout the Chicago area last year.
• 780,000 Illinois families received food stamps in June 2010, an 11.9 percent increase over June 2009.
• Over 200,000 children in Chicago live in "food deserts."

And this is barely a fraction of the messaging Chuck has put together for us. But I'm treading a fine line here when I group these messages together and use phrases like "barely a fraction." I remove the reality, the weight of what's being said in each message.

Think about it. In Chicago, 1 in 4 children are food insecure.

How many kids are on a youth baseball team? A ballet class? 1 in 4 is a dangerous ratio that hits far too close to home for all of us, and yet I think we don't see it. Did you have any idea that nearly 800,000 families received food stamps this June? Let alone that it's an almost 12% increase from the year before? What a painful blow to the goals of Share Our Strength—which is to wipe out childhood hunger by 2015.

2015. That's pretty darn soon.

And yet, we're not backing down from this goal. That top photo to this post is pretty staggering when you take in how much those groceries cost you and I when we shop at the super market. Because, for us, $63 makes a lot of sense. That's not staggering. It's the impact that organizations like the Greater Chicago Food Depository have on communities that have my jaw continually dropping the more involved I get with Share Our Strength. To think that those groceries could cost a family just $5.41—well, there's some difference making going on there. Big time.

And then there's Near North Health Services, another beneficiary of Taste of the Nation. Their Operation Frontline participants are taught how to shop for groceries on a budget, utilizing the most with minimal resources—the Chicagoist's Megan Tempest wrote a great feature on this program last May. 

And the Illinois Hunger Coalition, too.

(A common site in Chicago of an abandoned market via Chuck Sudo)

And as markets continue to close in Chicago, the food stamps that are given out to help families through this tough time become less and less helpful. In his research leading up to Taste, Chuck's unearthed this problem. It increases the need and demand for the $5.41 assistance that the Greater Chicago Food Depository provides, which increases the need for further assistance from donors and events by the surrounding community. Hence, Taste of the Nation is as important as ever this year.

Because what Chuck's seen is that as the grocery stores close, families turn to corner convenience stores for their food—where they can buy liquor, cigarettes, and whatever processed foods are available at these stores as their nutrition, and in that order. They're using their food stamps to buy junk food.

(A main grocery source for much of Chicago via Chuck Sudo)

Taste of the Nation is as big as it is because the battle we're fighting requires it. These organizations won't continue to make an impact without our support.

Sure. There are still free tickets to be had as the days tick away leading up to the event—but if you've just been waiting for the right moment, unsure to buy or to wait for another shot at a give away, well don't you think that right moment is now?

Come next Thursday in this little town of ours, for those few hours, there won't be a greater gathering of food and drink in the world. Think about that—which, my friends, is saying something.

Buy your tickets. Write them off. And get your tushy over to what might just be one of the most unforgettable moments of your life. And help us start hitting the delete button on our Hunger Messaging, bit by bit, in the process, yeah?

There are 800,000 families waiting to thank you.