Campus Food Drive

In numbers alone Campbell's first school-wide food drive has been a success. This afternoon we've accounted for more than 1,000 pounds of food since the beginning of the drive and we expect at least 500 more by the end of the drive on November 15.

The food piles up quickly with your help.

The drive, of course, could not have been successful without the help of the Campbell community. Students, professors, clubs, and local businesses banded together to give food insecurity a roundhouse kick to the face this autumn.


A special thanks to these groups who have donated to the Harnett Food Pantry:

• Foreign Language Department & Foreign Language Club
• Dr. Williams' CUFS 100 Class
• Wallace Student Society 
• Teaching Fellows
• Coffee Society
• Barker Hall
• Healthcare Management Club
• Math/ITS Department
• Divinity School
• Marketing Club
• Keith Hills Golf Course
• College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences
• RTP Campus
• Wiggins Library
• Kicking4Hunger & Club Soccer

For those of you who prefer stories over numbers, we've got you covered. We delivered 500 pounds of donations to the Harnett Food Pantry yesterday and the volunteers couldn't have been more grateful. The aging trailer houses evidence of a community response-- shelves lined with non-perishables. In the few minutes we were there we saw three families come through to receive emergency food. 

The Pantry volunteers said they had over 100 families in the last week. Your support of the food drive is in turn supporting our neighbors who are hungry.

Scroll down to see photos of the drive or click here to see the complete Facebook album.

About 1/3 of the inside of the Harnett Food Pantry.

500 lbs. of Campbell donations at the Pantry

A huge load is ready to go to the Pantry next week.

In other service news:

- The Community Christmas Store has extended its toy donation deadline until TODAY. Contact Terry Tucker for more information.

- Operation Christmas Child Collection Week is November 14 - 21 in the Rumley Center. 

- Kicking4Hunger will take place in Buies Creek on November 18 & 19 through Club Soccer. Click here to learn more about this great organization.

1,000 Days

[ Check out the June 11 and June 12 posts for more background on the Gathering. ]

My Bread for the World saga ended on an international note.

The National Gathering met alongside Concern Worldwide for a groundbreaking conference on undernutrition.The umbrella initiative to globally combat undernutrition is called 1,000 Days to symbolize the 1,000 days between pregnancy and the age of two when nutrition is most critical to physical and cognitive development.

Because of the undeniable relationship between nutrition and chronic hunger, it's only natural that Bread would take part in 1,000 Days. To drive home the overwhelming presence of undernutrition in the world and the outstanding hope that has been and will continue to fill little bellies, Bread and Concern hosted several speakers who have dedicated their lives and careers to nutrition and/or hunger.

Per my usual coverage of the National Gathering, my notes and pixelated Blackberry photos  will hopefully paint a picture of the progress humankind accomplished today. For significantly better photos, check out Bread's Flickr account.

- Sara

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Maria Otero, U.S. Undersecretary of State

- Nobel laureates have published that nutrition improvement is the best investment

- Clean water is critical: 40% of the world doesn't have safe water and the highest cause of death for kids under five is unsafe water

- Food insecurity has been elevated by foreign policy through Feed the Future

- Nutrition's greatest impact happens between pregnancy and two years of age

- Success will be a result of political will and leadership of civil society

- The U.S. government is working alongside the Irish Government

- Nutrition investments are cost effective, proven, and successful and short-term and long-term

Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State (video address)

- The U.S. has quadrupled nutritional funding in Tanzania

- She commissioned the 1,000 Days website to be improved

- The 1,000 days of the campaign are September 2010 - June 2013

Video address from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Kevin Farrell, Irish Special Hunger Envoy

- 20% of Irish foreign assistance goes to poverty

- irreversible nature of childhood undernutrition is what strikes him the most

- Ireland has a recent history with hunger

- Ireland's action to support international nutrition: partnerships for micronutrient supplements, enhanced sweet potatoes in Ethiopia and Malawi, Sierra Leone national nutrition strategy, UN task force support

- Work across sectors

- Success requires country ownership and coordination among supporters

- Need an inclusive approach, not just private sector

- Important to measure impact (return on investment)

- Unless we act (not just analyze and talk), nothing will happen

- "Effective" defined as change at the household and family levels

- Describes chronic hunger as "massive human tragedy" and "scandal of widespread malnutrition"

Melinda French Gates, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Photograph: Stuart Isett/Polaris

- Mothers everywhere have the same goal: the best for their kids

- Sharing ideas with women around the world
- We all have a role to play

(The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has been key to the 1,000 Days Scaling Up Poverty campaign.)

Dr. David Nabarro, U.N. Special Representative for Food Security and Nutrition

Dr. Nabarro received a standing ovation after his talk.

- The challenge is to address the lifelong handicap of undernutrition
- Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) is a movement, not a program
- People are chronically hungry and short of micronutrients
- Climate, income, and infrastructure affect food access
- The keys are: availability, access, and utilization
- Women are key to nutrition
- Examples of hope for nutrition reform: malaria, TB eradication, HIV/AIDS advances
- Hold stakeholders accountable: World Food Programme, grassroots efforts, UNICEF, WHO, World Bank, development officials
- World Food Programme once mentioned the "burden of knowledge" (ignorance is bliss)
- Need increased effort at national levels


Ray Suarez, Senior Correspondent for PBS Newshour, moderated a panel discussion among the following nutrition and hunger professionals. The notes are from their opening statements, most of which focused on progress in their respective countries and/or organizations.


Anna Lartey, professor of food science at the University of Ghana and president-elect of the International Union of Nutritional Sciences

Professor Lartey (left) and Mr. Suarez (right).

- Ghana needs policy change to increase domestic food production
- The country now offers free maternal health services and enhanced social services
- Referred to Kofi Annan saying that society is the new superpower
- Need accountability of commitments
Charles McCormack, CEO of Save the Children U.S.

Photo: Adriana Zehbrauskas/Polaris.

- Strength of the private sector exemplified by creation of the polio vaccine
- Private sector must work with other sectors (polio vaccination became possible through other sectors)
- Got to work together better with holistic and creative cooperation
- Margaret Meade quote: "A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

Cassim Masi, executive director of National Food and Nutrition Commission

Mr. Masi sits third from the right as Mr. Suarez opens.

- Stats: stunting vs. underweight. wasting

- Zambia has an accelerated nutrition forum

- Zambia's National Food and Nutrition Commission was created in the 1960s

- Zambia's challenges: inadequate government resources to support policy, limited malnutrition-focused organizations, limited involvement of media (or sensitive media)

- Zambia needs: technological assistance to build capacity, lobbying/high level advocacy, increased financial support of its plans, mobilized aid organizations, and to strengthenn multisectoral support

Shanim Hayder Talukder, CEO of Eminence, Bangladesh

- Bangladesh is on track to meet MDG 4 and MDG 5

- The population is 160 million; 75 million women are of reproductive age and 20 million kids are under the age of two.

- 26% of mothers are underweight (1996 stat was 52%)

- Ministry of Health and Family welfare provides family planning

- 58% of women and 68% of kids under five are anemic

- Micronutrients are a challenge

- Need public ownership, public/private partnerships, advocacy network, operational research, media exposure, and supportive policy makers

- Eminence is a non-government organization (NGO)

Paul Weisenfeld, USAID Bureau for Food Security

Photo: USAID

- How do we expand and sustain? Country-led efforts, results focus, and work with civil society.

- SUN started with countries

- USAID reformed nutrition systems recently to put ownership in hands of the public: integrating efforts (micronutrients, infant feeding practices, etc.); no silver bullet, researching maternal and childhood nutrition, indicators and results, more focus on prevention, integrating across sectors (agriculture, social protection), and geographic scale (beyond the pilot program)

- Civil society can offer: field-based perspective, monitoring/impact evaluations, coordination and unity of effort

- Stronger local communities will lead to sustainability through increased capacity

- Having one outcome will force people to work together

Bread

In case you've been waiting with bated breath for the next Service @ Campbell post, you're in luck!

Despite the small student population on campus over the summer, we remain as busy as ever. Updating the Campus Ministry web page, creating a Campus Ministry publication, the President's Interfaith Service Campus Challenge, and the normal day-to-day projects are keeping everyone on their toes. Not to mention mission trips and getting ready for fall events!

This weekend AmeriCorps VISTA Sara Acosta is attending the Bread for the World National Gathering at American University in Washington, D.C. on behalf of Campus Ministry. Bread for the World works hunger relief from a different angle by focusing on the legislative process instead of direct services.

Check out Sara's notes from the first day of the conference, and check back over the weekend to see what more she'll learn!

Session 1: God calls us to speak

Dr. Frank Thomas, pastor of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church in Memphis, TN

- Text is Matthew 6:11 "Give us today our daily bread," part of the Lord's Prayer

- Faith should not be in economics but in God's provision

- Talents, gifts, abilities come from God

- God is the context that allows you to earn a living and eat

- "Daily" is important because it represents the precarious economy of the time when workers were paid daily and the urgency of pay; some people today live the same way.

- Bread is not a luxury food, it was/is the poor man's food

- God gives-- you don't have to buy (no distribution problem)

- Me/my vs. us-- OUR daily bread

- capitalism doesnt have the ability to eradicate poverty. People of faith must humanize capitalism.

- The budget does need to be balanced but we can't balance it on the backs of the poor.

A YouTube recording of the Clifton Park Baptist Church choir, who opened the weekend with powerful worship. Music Minister Victor Simonson will lead worship for the remainder of the weekend.

Session 2: Building Momentum for Change

Holly Hight, California field organizer and social media extraordinaire

- Great stories are a result of day-to-day management

- Support roles make a cause successful

- Videos of Bread interns: US policy impacts the international community; thinking of ourselves first when it comes to policy doesn't mean we have to forget about others; big picture (policy) and little pictures (direct services) must go hand in hand.

Awesome swag and information to bring back to the Creek!

 David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World

- Releasing book entitled "Exodus from Hunger"

- son suffered from addiction, hunger as a result

- God is moving through history

- Circle of Protection

- Christians can't change politics along

- Sara indirectly held hands with Mr. Beckmann today during a group/circle prayer (big honor in her opinion)!

What would you like to know about hunger, poverty, and/or policy related to those issues? Send a tweet to Sara or send her a Facebook message!