Solving Food Insecurity with WhyHunger

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They're inspiring stories and expert insights. No topics of limits on our show. We power women on the road to success with expert and celebrity interviews and information you need. I'm Shelley and Kathy's on assignment. Hunger is one of the most urgent challenges of our time.

But today's guest believes it's not inevitable. In fact, she says hunger is a solvable problem. Ginny Jones knows this not just as an advocate, but from lived experience. Growing up in Harlem during the crack epidemic, she was raised by her grandmother, and saw firsthand how broken systems can leave entire communities struggling

to access basic necessities like nutritious food. Those early experiences ignited a passion that would shape her life's mission. Ginny has devoted her career to strengthening communities and fighting hunger through innovative leadership and partnerships. She began her public service career with the New York State Senate,

and later worked in education, building community partnerships before spending more than a decade at City Harvest. There she helped guide the organization through major growth, technological innovation, and crises, including Hurricane Sandy, and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Today, Ginny serves as executive director of "Why Hunger."”

The global nonprofit that was founded in 1975, by musician Harry Chapin, and radio host Bill Ayers, on a powerful belief. Access to nutritious food is a fundamental human right. Ginny is now leading the organization back to its founding mission

while expanding its visibility and funding to advance sustainable solutions to hunger. Along the way, she's helped launch award-winning tools like the Pletiful App, strengthed donor and corporate partnerships, and built strong, engaged teams committed to making nutritious food accessible to more communities.

From her base outside Washington DC, Ginny is helping lead a worldwide movement, tackling hunger at its roots. In just the past three years,

"Why Hunger" has connected more than 3.5 million people

to nutritious local food, and invested nearly $7 million globally to support sustainable agriculture and community-driven solutions that empower people to feed themselves and their communities. Ginny, this is inspiring work.

And I'm so excited to learn more. Welcome to our show. Thank you for having me. I need to take you everywhere to introduce me, I'm pretty impressive.

Didn't even know it. Oh, well, thank you, Ginny. Your story, too. Growing up in Harlem and seeing firsthand, how systems can fail communities,

and when it comes to something as fundamental as food, that is just a grieges.

“How did those early experiences shape your understanding of hunger?”

What's interesting is, where our first learned at systems broke down was actually around the education. And the reason around that was, my family, my grandmother, particularly,

fought for me to always be in the top class,

go to the best schools, because we lived in a neighborhood that did not have the best school system. And years later, seeing friends, that I know were just as smart as I was.

If not smarter, who were not in the same place that I was in my life as an adult. And really recognizing that it was the fact that, you know, my grandmother knew how to kind of play the system, or how to navigate it,

and they had parents who did not. And just realizing that that's not the way that we want our world to be. Yeah. And then, at that time,

I was also, you know, I was still living in Harlem. I was working in a school. One of the schools that I would have gone to, which had been a very low performing school,

had my grandmother not done the things that she had done. And I met a young lady who had, you know, a lot of health problems or family was very poor. And her and her sisters had come to school

because it was the place that they were guaranteed to get to meals. And so that is where I really began to see, again, how the system and how things are set up with that inequity and that inequality, because the idea that a child who, you know,

is basically depending on either the school system

or the hospital, because those are the two places she pretty much spent her time for most of her daily meals. That's not, not in the richest country in the world, absolutely not.

That just that did not sit right with me.

you know, working in education or politics to wanting to be in the food space to try to make, you know, changes. Absolutely.

“You know, I think that we have seen in recent decades”

more and more children depending on the schools for their meals. Why is that happening?

You know, what I always say is that hunger is,

it's a policy choice. We had, there is enough food actually on this planet to feed every last person probably two or three times over. So, you know, when I worked in the food bank, a large portion of the food we received was from farmers

who basically they're incentivized in some instances to plow the food over, you know, not to sell it. Or maybe it's a machine, or you know, they're not going to get top dollar

and they would donate that food. And then the food banks would come and they would take it. But just imagine if that food was just given out to folks. If that food is just made readily available, even without the kind of food banking system

because not everyone goes to a food pantry.

Not everyone knows that food pantry is even exist

or people are too proud to go to a food pantry or they don't understand that they can go to a food pantry or they're open, you know, there's so many different reasons. But what if that food was made available to people? And so I just think that that's a policy we could change

so that there wasn't that incentive to plow the food over. I think that we could say that things like not benefits were based on your income where you would because what we know is that I think for a family of three in New York City,

“you have to make around $28,000 a year to qualify for SNAP.”

But a single person cannot live with sustainable life in New York City, so that's not even a family of three. A single person cannot live a sustainable life in New York City, like I think it's like $75,000 a year. In New York City.

And those numbers are just as they're lower,

but they're also there, you know, some places in Mississippi that number is $45,000 in terms of sustainability. But again, the numbers for SNAP are still very low. So you have working people who are not able,

who are struggling, who are making the choice between food and rent, medicine and food, all of those things. So just imagine if we said, okay, we're going to advertise SNAP to the cost of living as opposed to like the federal poverty, you know, level.

So just those kind of things in what we could be doing to ring makes this a real impact on folks. Is it a fault of the bureaucracy, essentially? They haven't updated the numbers? Because when you think about what you're talking about,

those numbers are just super low. And food's not cheap. I, you know, I couldn't tell you. I don't know if it's, I do know that, you know, it's sometimes people when you are not in those circumstances.

You don't really understand it. It's why the SNAP challenge that they were doing everyone was doing a couple of years ago was so impactful because you had very well-off people who were trying to live on, what people get through the SNAP, you know,

a ramp and were mortified because they really understood what it meant. I think that, you know, we have a lot of people who make decisions around hunger and poverty. Who don't we, who you don't aren't experiencing those things

at the time or maybe, and if they have, they're so far removed from it that it's, it's, I don't think they truly understand what people are going through. Sure. I won't even say it's that they don't care.

I think it's, it's hard, you know, to, to, even for myself, you know, I didn't grow up making a ton of money or anything like that, but I have a much different level of living than now than I did as a child. And so there's, you know, there's certain things that I still remember,

but it doesn't resonate with me the way that it wants it. So I think, you know, we really have to make sure that the people who are the most impacted are part of the conversation. That's a big thing that we do at Y-Honger. You know, we believe that the communities that we are working in

are the ones who are best designed to come up with the solutions. And so I think that's a part of it. Let's bring, let's bring these folks into the conversation in your passing these bills and you're making these decisions. I think that's real important.

Oh, absolutely. Well, that makes only good sense. You can't be up in your ivory towers, making decisions for other people.

“You should have people who can give you the feedback”

who are there who are in the trenches, if you will, who are on the street, walking around saying, this is what's really happening because otherwise you have no idea. And I think that that's something that, unfortunately,

has gone with government bureaucracy for decades. I mean, when you're talking about plowing food under,

even around World War II.

So I mean, we're talking many, many, many decades before farmers were incentivized not to grow a certain crop and that kind of thing. So I mean, and it's a wasteful thing to do. Food should be provided for people.

That's why we have it. And no one, I agree with you, no one should go hungry in this country at all. And they should go hungry anywhere. I can agree more.

“And it's, I think that to me, food is the one thing we own.”

It's is why we believe it's a basic human race. You can go without a lot of things. Technically, you can, you can be stark naked. You can not have a home. You can have certain things.

But we need food and water. And so to me, those are just the, that should be the floor of what people have access to. I think that you, you know, we truly believe that food and nutritious food should be a human race.

I agree. Stay tuned for more of working road warriors. Come on up. Dear Michael, the tax doctor here. I have one question for you.

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Learn more at truckingmusamerica.com. Welcome back. To women road warriors with the Shelley Johnson that Kathy Tecaro. If you're enjoying this informative episode of Women Road Warriors,

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LinkedIn, YouTube, and other sites. And tell others about us. We want to help as many women as possible. Before the break, we introduced you to Janique Jones, Executive Director of Why Hunger.

She's leading a powerful global effort to tackle one of the most urgent challenges of our time, hunger.

But here's what makes this conversation different.

Janique doesn't see hunger as inevitable. She sees it as solvable. From growing up in Harlem during the crack epidemic, to now leading an organization that's connecting more than 3.5 million people to nutritious food in just the past three years.

Her journey is both deeply personal and incredibly impactful. Let's dive back in with Janique and talk about what it really takes to address hunger at its roots. And why access to nutritious food is a fundamental human right. Janique?

Now your organization was originally founded by Harry Chaypin and Bill Ayers. Could you give us a little brief history on that? Because I'm not sure everybody knows that. Yes, so you know, Bill, far the bill was what we call them on this side of the world.

But Bill and Harry, they, you know, they became friends partially because, you know, Bill was a radio DJ and Harry was a performer. And Harry would go around and tour. And he would see the hunger and kind of the ways in which people were struggling. And he was someone believed, you know,

his models, when in doubt, do something. And so, you know, and Bill who, you know, had got who had actually been a priest. And so he still held on to a lot of those beliefs about, you know, being a good person and helping your fellow man.

And the two of them, you know, around a kitchen table, around Harry's kitchen table started why hunger. And the idea was that there is enough food for everyone. And this is solvable. They called it why hunger year at the time,

because they actually thought they were going to solve this thing in a year. And, you know, 50 years later, here we are. But, you know, the ideas behind it are the same.

how we were really able to have fine arms, success as an organization is Harry was coming off of the success of cats in the cradle. And so he really gave him both the financial ability, but also just the name recognition and the platform. To be able to speak about these issues and kind of put it out there in the forefront.

And, you know, it's why we still work with so many musical artists today, because they have a voice and they have a way of amplifying this work. That is, that's really significant. But, you know, in your still living by Harry's words, you know, when in doubt do something and trying to,

to continue to continue what I think is a really important legacy. I love that hunger is solvable. But how do we solve it? I think a lot of people don't know. And maybe some people say, well, it's going to happen.

And that's the wrong attitude, too.

I mean, the truth is, there's no one way, right?

I think that, you know, we've really been leaning into agroecology and people going back to growing food and empowering smaller farmers all over the world to be able to, you know, do that work. And that can look a lot of different ways from, you know, being able to provide for their own families to, in some cases, being able to provide for communities,

being able to sell that food in a more reasonable price that people can, you know, afford. So both providing food for their families and then also making money. Because we also still live in a world where you have to buy things.

“But I, so I think that that's what I have a new,”

but I also do think, you know, one of the things I'm really excited about is to move more into, you know, doing policy and advocacy. We used to do that, you know, years ago before I was at why hunger. But I think that, you know, having people, like, us at why hunger at some of those tables and being able to even bring

some of our community members as we were just talking about to speak to these issues. I think could be really powerful. I think we should have our federal minimum wage is not gone up since 2009, I believe. I mean, it's 2006 and it's been 725 for all of those years. So I mean, if you just think about, if we, if the minimum wage had kept up with the cost of living,

we would be at like 20, 20, some odd dollars an hour, that alone could be transformational for people. I think that if we, like I said, if we change some of the rules around who is and is an eligible for, for a snap and other benefits that could be really impactful. But I think we have to remember as hunger isn't actually, the reason hunger exists is not just about the access to the food.

“It's about so many of these other systematic issues, right?”

It's in a bad school system. So you don't get a good education. So you don't get a good job. It's all of those different societal issues that we have to kind of tackle. And now granted, why hunger is not out there, you know, changing the school system.

Many are doing all of those things.

But we want to always connect that for people that, you know,

yes, it's it's food access and it's you know money, but it's all of these other issues that underlie as well. Well, certainly when you're living in an area where you can't grow food. I mean, obviously many, many decades ago, we were more of an agrarian society. We were farmers a lot of us unless we lived in major cities.

If you're in a major city, you need money to get food. You can't just go in and say, give me something. I mean, people expect money for the food. And then in a lot of cases, you've got what they call food deserts. Where maybe people are, they're not able to get the kind of food they need. Nutrishes food.

And I think that even people who may be making what would be considered a decent living, food is where they cut. Yeah. And unfortunately, children suffer because they end up a lot of the food that's cheaper is not nutritious. And you have to have nutritious food.

Whether you're a child or an adult for us to function, you need good food. And think you're, you're absolutely right. Food is your most elastic budget.

“You know, you have to keep the lights on, you have to keep the heat on.”

Make gas to get to work. But food is the most elastic budget. And it's, it's one of the reasons why I used to run an nutrition education program at one of the,

at the Food Bank where I worked and I really made people focus on because the idea was always,

"You just gotta teach people how to eat healthy." And I said, "No, you don't know how to eat healthy." It's about money. The healthier the food, typically, the more expensive. But also, and you can bear this out.

If you go to a supermarket in a wealthier neighborhood, the food is often a bit cheaper. And it's better quality. And then you go to the supermarket in the poorer neighborhood.

And I, you know, and I lived in, you know, when I lived in New York, I lived in Flatbush, which is a changing neighborhood right now. But my supermarket was not the best.

And I would never buy produce from the supermarket because you get home.

And it's bad in two days. I had, I had the means that then go to somewhere else. And by my food or order it's from someplace. But most people don't have that. So when you're making that choice, what you do is you buy the canned stuff.

With the sodium. Or you, you know, or think about this a container of orange juice is $7. But you can get three to three to so does for five. Yeah. So it's, it's those kind of choices.

And people often say we'll just drink water or just do this. Because there's also this like shaming of people who don't have money that they should not have treats or they shouldn't have this. You know, it's, we've ever shamed rich people for eating junk food. But we do it with poor people.

Yeah. Why would you say food in a poor neighborhood was typically more expensive and the produce was not as fresh. That doesn't seem right at all. I mean, it looks like that they're the last to be delivered

the fresh produce or something.

I honestly, I've never understood it.

I mean, you know, I can probably sit here and have the exercise.

“I think that there is a stigma on poor people.”

And sometimes there's, I remember once there was a man who worked at the food bank. He didn't work there at all because he was kind of a jerk. But one of the trucks was late to the food pantry. And what he said was, people can wait for their free food. What else they got to do?

Wow. I think that there's also this attitude of, you know, people who are in certain circumstances are there because of or life choices or they deserve it. And so, you know, that's, that's possible.

You know, I can't say that that's for certain, but I've definitely seen that attitude among a lot of people. So, you know, I would not be surprised if that played a bit into it. I do know that there is also the fact that often. And, you know, poor neighborhoods,

people like to talk about the crime or things like that or higher insurance rates or would have use. So, then they say they have to up the cost and, you know, those kind of things. It could be very well be a multiple. It's probably a combination of all of these kinds of things.

You know, I remember growing up my mother used to say that food is the best health insurance you can have. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nutricious food. If you eat well, you're going to have better health. You know, it just, it goes hand in hand. Well, obviously, when I was in college, I used to eat, you know, what ramen noodles and stuff like that.

You cut quarters because you got other stuff you'd rather be doing. But that's where the maturity has to kick in, too. But they're also delicious. But, you know, it's over right. But a lot of sodium.

You know, and you want convenience when you're 18, 19 years old.

“But, yeah, I mean, the education and I think that our school systems,”

I don't know if that's across the board, they used to have better home economics classes. I don't know if they're teaching. Like, not anymore. There's no homework.

There's no kids. I mean, kids with school now, they can't. They don't know anything about cooking. They can't want some budget. They can't shop.

All of those kind of things. I mean, they may still exist in some school systems or some schools. But on average, those are not things that that people are teaching anymore. Wow. You know, not at all.

And I worked in school. So I can tell you firsthand. So that's just amazing because I'd heard stories like during the depression, home economics teachers would actually teach the students how to make substitutes. If you didn't have any butter, you use this or this or this because people didn't have the food.

They didn't have the money with the depression. So they taught them how to make substitutions and various other things. And that's so essential. I mean, I'm, I'm going to be 49 and like a month and a half. And I did not have homework in school.

So it's been gone for quite some time. Yeah.

I never, I was fortunate that I had a family that really liked to cook.

So I learned that way. But I, you know, and how to kind of, and how to make healthier meals. Even, you know, I, if I did not have that, I would be in the same boat. So it's kind of a log of rhythm.

“And I think that people growing up that don't necessarily know how to cook healthy.”

They don't know how to do the things that they need to do. So I mean, then they can't even be their own best advocate either. I want better food in these grocery stores. And I mean, how do we make this change?

It's quite overwhelming.

And it's wonderful what why hungry is doing.

“I mean, I think it's, you know, until we can have large kind of policies.”

I think it's really taking the work of why hungers and the other organizations that are out there that are doing these things and trying to tackle it little by little. You know, I'm, but I'm really encouraged to see is that there's now a lot of organizations that are, you know, Yes, we might compete for fundraising dollars and things like that.

But that, you know, we're all willing to join together and come and cause, you know, when I worked at the food bank.

And you were a part of a coalition of a bunch of folks in New York City that advocates together and tried to really make changes to that system. And now that I'm at why hungry, I'm part of another coalition that's made up of different organizations like all leading America, share our strength. And that's called nourishing neighbors, there's a few other organizations in there as well. You know, and, and again, we might all be after the same fundraising dollars, but we come together multiple times a year to talk about how can we make these changes together.

And you know, and you know, we do this really well. So we're going to tackle this party and this other organization does this really well. So we're going to tackle that part.

“I think that we have to get out through some of this together. And I think we have to start to even expanding our coalition.”

Even if not through that particular group, but just in general, two organizations that are doing work around income inequality or gender discrimination because what we also know is women are more food insecure than men. Yeah, which also goes back to money. And, and then, you know, that's when we talk a lot at why hungry about, you know, marginalized communities because what we also know is that, you know, they racial issues involved in that, you know, because even within think about women make less than then.

And then it's followed by, you know, it's so there's also de-those type of issues. And we know, then we also want to support, you know, really coming in coalition with people who are doing work around kind of LGBTQ issues because, you know, that, you know, transgender women are are really, you know, at the lowest end in terms of food insecurity and indigenous women. So there's just all of these different intersections that, you know, we all have to come together and it doesn't have to be why hungers kind of area of expertise, but really working with and in solidarity with those organizations.

And it's why a lot of the farms that we support are bi-pop farms, LGBTQ women farms women farm, you know, we really try to lean into that idea, even within the work that we're doing. Stay tuned for more of women road warriors coming up.

Dear Michael, the tax doctor here, I have one question for you. Do you want to stop worrying about the IRS? If the answer is yes, then look no further.

“I've been around for years. I've helped countless people across the country and my success rate speaks for itself. So now you know where to find good honest help with your tax problems. What are you waiting for?”

If you owe more than $10,000 the IRS, or have it filed in years, call me now at 888-557-4020 or go to myTaxELBMD.com for a free consultation and get your life back. Industry movement, trucking moves America forward is telling the story of the industry. Our safety champions, the women of trucking, independent contractors, the next generation of truckers, and more. Help us promote the best of our industry. Share your story and what you love about trucking. Share images of a moment you're proud of and join us on social media. Learn more at truckingmusamerica.com.

Welcome back to Women Road Warriors with the Shelley Jobson at Kathy Takaro. Welcome back to Women Road Warriors, we're here with Sheneek Jones and her story is one that really stays with you. She grew up in Harlem, raised by her grandmother during a time when entire communities were being left behind. And she saw firsthand what happens when systems fail people. That lived experience didn't just shape her perspective. It became her purpose. Today is Executive Director of Y-Hunger. She's helping lead a global movement focused not on just feeding people today, but creating sustainable solutions so communities can feed themselves for generations to come.

Let's get back into this important conversation. Janeek, you've certainly gotten a lot of national attention. Mother Jones, worth and food with Mark Bittman, you're bringing together all kinds of people artists and activists and advocates to fight food insecurity.

Could you tell us a little bit about this? I mean, because you've been able to raise some tremendous amounts of money.

Your 40th annual Hungerthon, what was it? You just raised 1.3, almost 1.4 million dollars.

And that involved what Bruce Springsteen and Chef Marcus Sanielson and many other people. I mean, you're doing some tremendous things to get the word out and to create the solidarity too. Well, I mean, you know, a lot of that is Harry's legacy, you know, for those who might not know, we are the world that concept came to folks was inspired by Harry. You know, he wasn't here with us anymore, but, you know, Bill Craig in and Harry Bellafonte, talk about that.

“So I think that there are a lot of artists who really respect Harry Chapin and respect that legacy of, you know, musician as activists.”

And so they are, you know, excited to be a part of this work. And I think that the people are really excited to be a part of Harry's legacy. You know, and when Bruce Springsteen, when he showed up to, I was about to say Bruce, like he's my cousin. When he shipped up to the concert at the Stone Boney, he talked about the first, you know, the first time he met Harry and kind of, you know, that relationship. And so we're very fortunate to kind of stand on those shoulders.

And so, you know, and that's where a lot of that comes from. There's a reason we call it the Harry Chapin Awards. So he was a wonderful man. Yeah. Now wonderful performer.

I had the honor of actually seeing him in concert. What a gracious man. And I mean, he did lots of ad course too, not all performers do that. And he really appreciated the people who came to see him. You could tell that he really cared about people.

And why hunger definitely shows that.

“So what are some of your plans this year and going forward?”

And what can other people do if they want to get involved?

Well, our, our most immediate plan is that we are going, which we announced today on the amazing

Underday at our Gala this year with the Harry Chapin Manitarian Award. I am so excited about that. And that's coming up on May 6th in New York City. It's to be honest, those tickets will be going on sale. People can come and, and, and to that by tables and such. I got to plug that.

And then, you know, we are going to be really focused on our strategic planning. And what's coming next? You know, we just celebrated 50 years. But what's happening for the next 50 years? Because our goal is to put ourselves out of business. I actually would love to not be doing this anymore.

So that's our plan. What do we need to do to actually end hunger? That's why we say we're here.

“You know, and I think people can support us.”

You know, they can go to yhanger.org and they can donate. They can volunteer to work our hotline, you know, in the fall and the winter of last year. Our numbers for our hotline with people calling looking for support went through the roof. So like the part they put your prior we had about a million calls in 2025. That number was at 2 million. So we literally doubled the amount of calls in one year.

So that's, you know, we can always use some support there.

You can do it from your home. That's the cool thing. You don't have to come in someplace anymore. You can actually take those calls from your home. But yeah, I think, you know, just yhanger.org and, you know, no check is too small. One of my favorite things to do is once a week, I sit down and I write close cards to the people who've donated to us. And I don't just do it for the people who get bit checks.

I do it for people who give in as little as $2 because they matter. I like to say a little bit plus a little bit equals a lot. Yeah, I think that's that those are the main two ways that I'm thinking about. And also just look up for our events. We do really cool events. You know, we, in 2024, we had our concert with the roots and seam of funk and Grace Bowers and, you know, last year.

It was a little Steven and Bruce Springsteen and Yola and Young the Giant. We do really cool events. We have our hunger done hustle, which was at city field last year, which is a 5K that we do. And it was so much fun. Mr. News is met came out and ran the whole thing with us. And we're going to do it again this year.

We haven't solidified the date yet, but it's going to be the November December. I'm pushing for November because it's a little west cold. But again, you know, even those kind of things just check it out.

We've done to do fun things for good cause.

Now, I'm not sure everybody knows that you have a hotline, the Y hunger hotline. It's 1,800, 5, hungry or 1,800, 5, 4, 8, 6, 4, 7, 9. Now, is that nationwide when people call in and they need emergency food assistance? You guide them? Yes, it is. They can call or text. They can use those numbers to call or text.

And we will provide them food anywhere in the U.S. We will provide them with resources to food anywhere in the U.S.

“If you text, all you have to do is text your zip code to that number.”

And you'll get, you know, you'll get some other prompts. It'll correct you to the places that you might need to go. If you call, there's going to be, you know, typically there's, there is someone on the other end of the line. And we, you know, again, free local food and resources right there in your community. That's wonderful.

We, we believe in giving people access to food for today while we work to make it so that they never need us again.

That's, that's kind of, we're working on two months. I like that. Well, and, and that's what they need. I mean, there's nothing more desperate than being hungry. It's scary enough. I mean, people can be homeless. They can be without those kind of resources with when they're hungry too.

What do they do? I mean, and when you have children too, there are a lot of parents that are feeding their kids and going hungry. They have to make that kind of choice. And that shouldn't have to be. Well, I mean, I think, and not just children. I think, you know, even the worst person of the worst person should still have food.

“Yeah, you know, I think that's really important. Absolutely.”

So, how can people volunteer if they go to your website? Would they have places where they could volunteer locally? Or they could, they can definitely get in contact with us. And, like I said, they can need to do some volunteer with us. Or we can really work to put them together.

You know, put them in touch with someone in their community. I mean, and even if you, if you are looking for some place to volunteer in your community, you don't even have to go through us. You can go to your local food pantry, your local food kitchen. They need support.

And it's hard work. I've done it.

“But I think that we can absolutely connect folks if they're just looking for a repository of some place that they can go quick and easy to find that support.”

Because even if you text food to that number, it's going to tell you what's in your community. So if you're texting or calling, even if you're not looking for food resources, it's going to give you the things that are in your community where you can reach out and, and, potentially, give them support as well. Now is this nationwide or does your organization help in other countries as well?

So for the hotline, the hotline is nationwide, but our work is global. So we do support organizations with resources and with grants money outside of the U.S. Typically, so for instance, I love to tell the story about the grain mill that we help purchase for the women in to move.

And I can never say the name, a small village in India.

And essentially, the girls in that village, they would spend all their days instead of going to school, grinding mill. And by getting the grain mill, they were able to go to school and some of those young ladies wound up becoming leaders in there and their communities and things like that. So sometimes it's yes, by being able to, you know, grind that grain that helps in terms of food production and, and, you know, all of those things. But the fact that your those young ladies can now go to school also help support and uplift that community.

So it's kind of a win-win. So those are the type of things that we do outside of the U.S. or helping a village in Kenya with a fishing village. So, you know, those kind of things that we're doing outside of the U.S. We're also, we have a cohort of agroecology schools that we've been working with in, you know, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Really focusing again on teaching people how to grow food and grow it in a way that is less harmful to the environment. Sustainability and certainly in many areas of the world water is in short supply. So that can impact the crops as well. I would imagine you're probably working with people in that area too, aren't you? In terms of the sustainability and being able to find food solutions that will feed everybody.

I mean, that's a big reason why we're leaning into, you know, the more indigenous ways of farming because, like I said, it is less harmful to the planet. Industrial farming is actually done a lot of harm to our environment.

Because we, one of the other programs we have is we do a lot of, we call rapid response funding.

And what happens when there's a tornado where there's a hurricane and a village got wiped out or something happens. And, you know, and people need resources to not just rebuild, but even to survive while they rebuild. And so the more we're able to help with the sustainability hopefully we can start to decrease the need for that rapid response. Well, certainly with the various natural disasters we've had across the country. People have experienced that.

You know, when you can't get supplies in and there's no way to access food and there's no electric. You've got lots of food spoilage. People are dealing with how the heck am I going to eat here. Food insufficiency can happen to anybody at any time in their life. Yeah, I mean, we saw that encoded.

We saw that during the pandemic where, you know, there were so many people who suddenly needed, you know, to rely on emergency food and we're wondering where their nets meal was coming from. So you would see, you would see BMWs on a line at a food pantry. You know, most people, they, you know, they're saying most people are closer to being homeless or food insecure than they are to be in a billionaire. And so, or even a millionaire. So, you know, we all recognize that as well.

It takes a village and no judgment. There should be no judgment whatsoever. If somebody is hungry, they need help. They don't need to be judged in any way or shamed. Yes, I agree.

And, you know, we do sometimes judge people for asking for help on multiple fronts.

“And I think that, you know, we have to get beyond that.”

Well, when you judge them, they're not going to ask for help either. Exactly. And then it just keeps that problem going. It doesn't solve anything. Unfortunately, human beings have a tendency to like to judge, and that's not a good thing.

What would you say? I know that there's not an easy answer, but what would you say are maybe the real roots of hunger? Obviously, in this country, I can't imagine. And I think a lot of people can't. That there's any hunger to begin with.

We are a land of plenty and it should be across the board. Is there something that people could take away so that they know maybe how they can change this? Are there some real roots here that they can really dig into and say, this is how we're going to make a change?

“I mean, I think one of the first things you have to is a lot of the income inequality.”

You know, we judge a leading dimension, the fact that the minimum wage hasn't changed. You know, we have people working in very low income jobs.

Sometimes in those, a lot of those jobs are like some of the most important.

You know, think about how much money, like home health needs make. We leave some of our most vulnerable, 50s folks, and then we pay them nothing. And so I think we really have to look at this income inequality and thinking about, you know, if not a really wage, essentially, for people. I think that is a great place to start. Well, certainly, your organization is trying to cover every base possible.

And I think everyone needs to know about you. It's why hunger, why hunger.org. People can donate, they can volunteer. Where do you have your biggest need right now? Money.

Yeah.

That's always, you know, the thing because what we're also seeing is with a lot of the things that are happening.

And in the world, we're seeing an increase in need at a lot of the folks that were supporting. And so they're contacting us saying, you know, we need a little bit more. Can you help us a little bit more? And we often have to say no.

“So I think that's really what we're, you know, just that ability to help support is important.”

And sometimes that's not a lot of money. It's just someone needs a thousand dollars because they need to buy in tractor. If it's a one of the places we support in terms of farming. Or, you know, if it's one of the pantries we support, they might need, you know, so I think that's a big thing. And then there's also the fact that there's a lot of governmental support that's being cut.

And so people need, you know, their turning to the why hungers of the world a lot more. And it's a good thing you're out there. So they have the resources. So flyhanger.org. You have the background of who you are, what you do get involved. Donate find food. What are some of your upcoming events that people could also check out?

It's going to be in New York City at Chipriani's in Wall Street area.

“We're going to be honoring Andre Day. We're finalizing some other honorees, so people should also stay tuned for that. That's going to be a really exciting night.”

It always is, you never know what's going to happen. We've had days where some of our honorees wound up dancing barefoot on tables and very cool.

You know, there isn't prompt to jam sessions. So it's a good place to be. Like I said, we also will have our hungrieton hustle in the fall and you know, we're also finalizing some details for our concert this year. So work to stay tuned. There is always more to come. And, you know, we flashed here. We did an amazing partnership with the Gyanese rapper St. John.

He's a merch partnership, but we did a dinner. Asian Gyanese dinner. He launched the merchandise. It was a wonderful night.

We're looking to do some more goes with more artists. And it'll be more intimate. Like that was like 50 or 60 people. So it's not a big, you know, like concert kind of thing.

“So we have two artists that we're trying to finalize that with. So again, I think if people just sign up, subscribe to the newsletter.”

We'll keep you informed because these are the kind of cool things that we do love it. Love what you're doing. And thank you, Gyanese for being involved with this organization. You have a true passion for it. And I love how you're carrying on the legacy that we started over 50 years ago.

And wouldn't it be nice if you could say we're going to stop hunger and we want to basically work with ourselves out of a job because hunger should not exist at all.

Thank God for people like you and your organization. Thank you so much. And I really appreciate it. And yes, people put me send me into retirement. That is what I want. There you go. Thank you, Gyanese. This has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you.

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