This recent article from the Greenfield Daily Reporter gives us some promising news... along with hard-to-swallow facts about Central Indiana. One of the most important national statistics cited are these:
According to the latest 2012 research compiled by Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic food relief
network, nearly 8,000 county residents – 11.3 percent of the population – struggled with food insecurity.
Food insecurity is defined by the United States Department of Agriculture as the sporadic lack of access to
enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members and limited or uncertain availability of
nutritionally adequate foods.
When I was in middle school, I had been working on the problem of homelessness for a social studies class and I hadn't come up with many good solutions on my own. So, my mother encouraged me to join our county's Coalition Against Homelessness. We sat through Board meetings. We attended group sessions. We read articles and listened to people talk. But what did we really do? The intent was there and the belief in success was present... but did the plan on paper really make a difference? As a kid, I did not understand that to serve people well, you need a plan. I didn't grasp that in order to plan, you need time... and access to funds. Unfortunately, my attention was short and I didn't stick around to learn more. (Those lessons for me came much later.)
The big push at a solution from our family really came with my sister, who my parents involved in our local Community Kitchen. She worked there for years cooking for people who needed meals. Because of her work there, she continues to serve others in her job in food prep/waitressing, but she has a different perspective than most. My sister understands that in order to succeed in life, she is part of a bigger picture of serving the public. In her case, it's by way of a business that serves food 24/7. She is an honest businesswoman and she is smart with the modest amount of income she takes home. She takes satisfaction in the interactions she has with customers and she makes the most of her job.
All in all, to serve the public is work, and most often we don't get paid to serve.
In Hancock County, many organizations have collaborated in order to serve the public. This has involved planning, coordinating, and sharing of services. The amazing thing about this effort is the level of collaboration between different organizations, as Jim Mayfield expresses in his article above. The county not only had a successful Summer Meals program that served hot lunches to children and youth, but the United Way of Central Indiana, Hancock Regional Hospital, Gleaners Food Bank, and the city parks department brought in local organizations to educate families about available support services in the area. Also,
Other joint enterprises established a new food pantry out of Mt. Vernon High School to serve families in that
district; a weekend food program that will get shelf-stable food to qualifying kids in the Eastern Hancock
school district; and collaboration between Hancock County Senior Services and the Hancock County Food
Pantry that gets food boxes to seniors who need it.
You can take a look at the distribution of income in Hancock County for a bigger picture view. According to 2011 income data accessed through the IUPUI Polis Center's SAVI.org, almost 40% of the households in the county had an income below $50,000. Almost 15% of households made below $24,000 in 2011.
Looking at the pie chart above, you may not be able to tell that beyond 50% of the population between the ages of 18 and 64 were living in poverty in 2011 (below), which may be an indicator of the need that exists today in this county.
In Westchester County, NY in 2000, I worked with families who, despite their efforts at finding and securing housing, were unable to stay afloat in the economy. Many of my families had multiple health and employment issues that kept them from being able to make enough money in one of the areas of the country where the income gap remains very, very high. It was also financially difficult for me to live there as a poor student and young professional. About one third of Westchester County families brought in less that $50,000 per year 10 years before this, in an area where the cost of living is much higher than in Hancock County.
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