Utah’s Hunger Problem

I’ve made posts here in the past year about Utah’s human needs issues and how our tax dollars are spent on those. While the U.S. government is spending tax dollars on building apartheid walls, illegally occupying other countries,confiscating people’s phone records in the name of national security and arguing over the definition of marriage, people in America, the United States of America, are suffering from poverty-stricken conditions and are going hungry.

Yesterday was the 5th National Hunger Awareness Day, a grassroots movement to raise awareness about the solvable problem of hunger in America. According to the National Hunger Awareness Day website, 38 million Americans aren’t even sure where they will get their next meal.

There is an article in today’s Deseret News about a creative display at the Gallivan Center, in conjunction with National Hunger Awareness Day, that portrayed the number of hungry people in Utah:

Michael Brandy, Deseret Morning News
Jeff Golden of the Food Development Office sets up 218 plates at the Gallivan Center during the rally for National Hunger Awareness Day.

The 218 empty dinner plates standing on the Gallivan Center lawn each represented 1,000 Utahns who live at or below the federal poverty level, joining more than 38 million people — including 14 million children — living in poverty across the country.

Gina Cornia of Utahns Against Hunger pointed out that there is plenty of food for people but that poverty creates condidtions whereby people do not have access to food.

Utah has the fifth highest rate of food insecurity in the nation and the 10th highest hunger rate.

Local organizations and activists are encouraging people to up their donations to local food banks this summer. Summer is a time when donations drop off and the demand for emergency food supplies increase.

As a person who has been represented by one of those plates above at various times in life with small children, I can speak from personal experience to this issue.

Please donate to your local food bank. Your neighbors may be depending on it.