Connecting with Young Adults about Hunger in Albuquerque

Fifteen young adults from St. John XXIII Catholic Community in Albuquerque spent the night outside in cardboard boxes to get a small sense of what it feels for members of the homeless community to sleep outside. Youth director Sean Williams also wanted the young people to put their experience into perspective, so on Friday night he invited speakers from St. Martin's Hospitality Center and from Casa de las Comunidades Catholic Worker House.

Michelle Dakofsky, Roy Gabaldon, Celia Giallanella, Jacob Dakofsky, Sarah Dakofsky, Leon Joseph, Sean Williams

The next morning, I was honored to be invited to address the young people about hunger in general. By that time, only five young people remained to take my "quiz," which I created to facilitate conversation. The mother of two of the young people also came to listen to the conversation. I started the dialogue by discussing homelessness in the broader context of hunger. For many people in Albuquerque, homelessness often represents the face of hunger.

Working Families and the Parish pantry

Then we went on to discuss other folks who would be hungry in Albuquerque: working families, seniors, children. This gave me an opportunity to discuss our parish pantry, which gives out food to anyone who comes by the parish every Thursday. "No one is turned away for food," said
Maria Duran, director of social concerns at the parish, who also came to listen to the conversation." They come from all over the city and also our parish boundaries. Some walk from local apartments."

I presented some information from our pantry coordinator Sandy Guadet. "A great number of our Thursday people live in government sponsored housing in or around Montgomery Blvd," said Sandy. "Some even walk or ride a bike to pick up their bag of food. Most of our people are singles or couples. There are just a couple of families. We give those two bags, but it still isn’t too much."

I also offered information about hunger and homelessness among students in the Albuquerque Public Schools system and statistics provided by Roadrunner Food Bank and Feeding America about child hunger and hunger in New Mexico.

Then the discussion turned to the response of faith communities to hunger and the importance of advocacy and education. Many of the young people were already somewhat familiar with  Bread for the World because of the Offering of Letters we held in the parish in July. Our blessing of the letters gave parishioners another opportunity to learn about our church's involvement in advocacy.  '

Advocacy is important
In the context of advocacy and also a discussion of the responsibilities of the faith community to address hunger, I mentioned the misguided concept offered by some politicians that charities and faith communities could pick up the slack if the government were to cut public assistance (including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP).

I offered data from Feeding America, which indicated that the SNAP program offers 10 times the amount of assistance to hungry people in our country than the organization's entire network of 200 food banks. I also alluded to data from Bread for the World, which suggested that every congregation and faith community in the country, big and small, would have to increase its budget by $40,000 to make up for proposed drastic cuts in public assistance.

One of the young people then asked the question why politicians did not put more emphasis in ending hunger and poverty when they considered legislation. I commended her for her question and said this was the very reason why we engage in advocacy. I invited the young people to participate in the next Hunger 101 workshop on Sept. 13, sponsored by the Interfaith Hunger Coalition. The workshop, to be held at Congregation Albert, is designed for both teens and adults.