Fall Quarter: Hunger Relief
The Benefit Restaurant™ Project is committed primarily to to supporting efforts to alleviate poverty. Our annual giving cycle begins in the Autumn Quarter, October – December. A natural choice for restaurants, we commit our Autumn, the season of harvests and feasts, to Hunger Relief.
Think about those times when you’re hungry. Your energy plummets, your mood sours, your concentration flags. It affects your work and your relationships. Now imagine that this hunger was routine, or chronic. What, then, becomes of your health? of the quality of life for your and your family? – We seek to help eliminate poverty. We think that we have to begin that process by making sure we all have enough to eat.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture [USDA], “food security,” in the language of food economics and hunger statistics, means “having access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The USDA study on Household Food Security in the United States, 2008, excerpted by Feeding America tells us that, in 2008, 1 in 6 Americans was “food insecure,” and that 1 in 4 children lives in a food-insecure household.
Think about that. In America, not exactly an economically impoverished or heartless nation, 1 in 4 children is chronically at risk of not having enough to eat.
Again, so we can concentrate enough on the other complex and stubborn aspects of Poverty, we think that any effort to end Poverty has to begin with ensuring we all have enough to eat!
The Elephant Walk in Waltham, the first Benefit Restaurant™, has selected the following three excellent nonprofits as its Hunger Relief Beneficiaries:
- October: Waltham Fields Community Farm
- November: Project Bread and The Walk for Hunger
- December: Share our Strength