Soup Kitchen Reflections

Serving at the soup kitchen may have been different for me than most of the class, as I've served at soup kitchens back in Pittsburgh before. Most of the things written about by everyone else I've definitely experienced before, and had those things reaffirmed on Wednesday (the diversity of people, the kindness of the people there, the humanizing element of contact with people that we've talked so much about in class).

I think what I got from our time at the soup kitchen, more than anything, is the sense of community that Meadville has, and just how powerful that community is. I've spent a lot of time in Meadville, for my Bonner work as well as the summer I spent here, and while I feel at home in Meadville, it wasn't until the soup kitchen that I understood just how tight-knit the community is. Thinking about Giant Eagle donating food, the woman that bakes cookies, the volunteers (of all ages!) that come in just to help, etc. made me realize that there was a part of Meadville that I had been missing living up on campus.

I think realizing that a small community can be much more empathetic and invested in each other's success made me realize that many of the food movements that we've discussed in class (local food, co-ops, school lunches, etc.) might work much better in communities like Meadville's rather than in bigger cities. I've always imagined these things as they would apply to places I've lived (big cities), and imagining how they would unfold in Meadville made me a lot more hopeful for their success.

The other revelation that this sense of community offered me is that while our class discussions are always a bit hypothetical or abstract, there are very real people who are very much affected each day by our food culture in this country. I think it made me realize that while I've always applied our class' lessons to my own life, such as shopping at farmer's markets, reading ingredient lists, or thinking critically about health claims, those changes are pretty low-stakes compared to other people's lives. The soup kitchen, I think, added a sense of urgency in my understanding of food culture and the problems within it.

Soup Kitchen Experience

I, like many people, find myself not leaving campus very often, and when I do, it's usually to go outside of Meadville. My freshmen year, I worked at the public library, and so I was walking through Meadville almost every day and interacting with the people of the town very regularly. It made me feel like a part of the town because I had that connection, and being in the soup kitchen had a similar effect. While it was only for a day, volunteering in the soup kitchen made me feeling like I was connecting with the people of Meadville and had some impact on them.

I also feel like working in the soup kitchen and getting to see and talk to some of the people from town also made them seem more human. As we’ve discussed, it’s easy to view food as something that should be earned, and view those who need help getting food as lazy, evil people. However, working in the soup kitchen brought us in contact with many polite, friendly people. While serving food, I heard nothing but ‘thank you’s” as we gave people what they asked for, which made me helpful.

There was also a pretty diverse group of people who’d come into the soup kitchen, that it was impossible to understand the justification of any stereotypes about them. There were young children, parents, elderly people, people of all races and body types who came in for lunch, and many of them were verbal about their gratitude towards us being there.

Food as a Social Connector

In American culture, we tend to see food as something related to the individual and her personal health. Food nourishes the body and perhaps even the mind. Food choice and taste in foods is very personal, with each person expected to have individual preferences rather than having tastes that reflect the entire culture. Similarly, in the Verma article, many of the Indian participants saw food as very individual, believing that individuals’ bodies could tolerate and accept different foods than those around them. People should listen to their bodies, then, when choosing food because the body will direct the mind to proper nutrients and foods that are digested well in their bodies.

Food can have more dimensions than the personal, however. In American culture, this certainly shows up when going out to eat. As noted in the Kniazeva and Venkatesh article, few people choose to go to restaurants alone, simply to eat the delicious food. However, in some cultures, the social dimension of food becomes so highlighted that it seems to surpass the individual dimension. In Williams’ article on migrant workers, he presents food, particularly tamales, as a social connector and negotiator, used to create networks of people on whom families can rely in times of need. Food, then, becomes more than just a source of nutrients, more than just a source of pleasure. The preparing and giving of food becomes a means for longtime survival and security more than immediate source of health. A family that gives tamales will receive something in return. Furthermore, the food culture is based more around particular foods than is represented in either American or Indian culture. While Americans eat a huge variety of foods, the Indians too accepted that individuals should have diets particular to their bodies. In this migrant culture, however, the rule was tamales for special occasions, tortillas for emergencies, and a fairly stable diet in between. Food here becomes not individual expression but social expression.

What place does this assign to the women, then, who make that food? Their roles go beyond simply feeding the family into the realm of building social bonds. Surely, they have literal power in the family because their efforts allow the family to survive. Yet their husbands do not seem to show much appreciation for the efforts, interpreting the food preparation as the duty of the women rather than a choice they make to help support the family. This attitude can be seen by the fact that a husband will divorce his wife for not making him tamales (and the women in the community supporting the husband in this situation). Nor do the husbands ever participate in the efforts to prepare the food, even though both the migrant men and women work long hours in the field. So does this food preparation actually signify an elevated role of women in the family or simply an exploitation of their labor? Do you think that their role in food preparation gives them prestige in the community and in their own families, despite the expressed attitudes? Could this possibly be seen as a position of power when women are essentially forced into the role of food-maker by social expectations?

Day at the Soup Kitchen

"If it's about the system, then it's about us..so it has to be about you." This quote has really struck me, and I find myself going back to it often when thinking about issues such as poverty, hunger, and food insecurity. To me, it translates what our society thinks about these issues: if the fault lies in the system, then poverty and food insecurity become our problems and our responsibility. It therefore has to be about you (the individual); it becomes your fault, your problem, and (eventually) your resolution. We are practically living in denial. We deny any responsibility when it comes to this particular population. We take ourselves out of account, and instead find ways to fault or blame these people rather than looking at issues as a collective whole. It's quite comical to me that we think this way. In contrast, I think that Bronfenbrenner's model for poverty is an accurate depiction of how we are all, in actuality, very interrelated. We have learned in class that food insecurity and poverty fall in/on all levels of the ecological model, and in/on all levels of Bronfenbrenner's model, too. This takes apart society's idea of there being an 'us' and a 'you', particularly because we are all connected ranging from the microsystem to the macrosystem. The microsystem revolves around the individual, while the meso, exo, and macrosystems are inclusive of, and build upon, both the individual and societal factors. In this model, attitudes and ideologies of culture, mass media, neighbors, social services, local politics, industry, and the individual are distinctive in terms of which system they fall in, but are connected on the larger scale. You simply can't tweak one aspect of a system without experiencing a ripple effect-- these systems are all interconnected and elements found in each play an equal role in maintaining balance. Because of this, food insecurity and poverty are ideas involving much more than simply the individual. It is essential that we (society) forgo the existing notion of there being an 'us' and 'you', and realize the interplay between individual characteristics, societal conditions and processes, and their combined influence on behavior.   

I found it necessary to preface this post with the aforementioned ideas because I believe that it exploits many points of intersection between individuals, society, and ultimately food-related behavior. Serving at the soup kitchen was a way for me to actually see the reality of these intersections. Cultural scripts, to me, is basically the idea that we have predetermined ideas about how things should go or the way things should work-- societal expectations. At the soup kitchen, the interplay between cultural scripts and categories such as class and gender became apparent. Even if I wasn't explicitly informed about the backgrounds of some attendees, I quickly noticed that many who attended the soup kitchen were CHAPS members, too. As I reflect, it's interesting that I immediately paired the attendees to CHAPS-- a local outreach program that hosts mental health consumers differing in terms of function. Having interned at CHAPS, I am well aware of most member's SES and levels of functioning. In terms of cultural scripts, I now understand why I actively sought out a relationship between the soup kitchen and CHAPS: it is true that those who attend both are often of a lower SES, but it is 'culturally accepted' that if you attend one, it is normal to attend the other. 

Another idea I seemed to have noticed is that a lot of soup kitchen attendees were either males who attended alone or with another male (probably someone they knew), and (seemingly) mothers or primary caregivers with their children. As we have learned from previous research regarding gender and food-related behavior, it is common for mothers to take on the responsibilities and needs of their children (aka fulfilling maternal roles). Mothers tend to be most involved in the preparation of meals, actual action of eating with their children, and knowing what their children eat. Although the mothers weren't able to prepare meals themselves, they were active in eating with their children and knowing what was being consumed. Moreover, I noticed that mothers were very active in their kid's food choices. Although food choice was very limited from the start, options were still available: 1) one could choose to have an item or not 2) some items had different options (such as milk and/or juice, or different flavors of cake or cookies). I noticed that if a child deferred a certain food item (such as beef stew, slaw, or peaches) the mother tended to give ultimatums. For example: "you can have the slice of cake IF you eat the peaches", or, "you can have the cookie IF you eat the slaw". 

It is quite interesting to look back on this experience and pick apart how interplay between social categories and our predetermined cultural scripts influence food behavior and food choices. Like Fitchen explains, in order to understand issues such as hunger, poverty, food insecurity, and their influence on food-related behavior, culture needs to be deeply examined. Bronfenbrenner's model for poverty is one way that helps us understand these issues and their connections. By diagraming the interdependence between social category differences and embedded cultural assumptions and ideas, we see that food-related behaviors are indicative of both cultural scripts and societal preferences. 

Soup Kitchen

Growing up in Metro-Detroit I have been to a lot of different soup kitchens in my life. Most have been a lot larger in size than the one we went to for class, but both were equally as humbling. Many of the soup kitchens in Detroit required the people waiting in line to show some sort of proof that they actually needed the free food, unlike the one in Meadville. I noticed that a lot of soup kitchens in Detroit were also shelters at night time for people without a home, which was not the case here. I thought it was really cool how many volunteers were at this soup kitchen, even though it was relatively small in size--a lot of people showed up. I noticed a lot of older men and younger moms with one or more children, but also there were a few kids around my age. 

I found it really impressive that one woman was in charge of buying the produce and creating the menus for the week. I also liked how resourceful she was in that she kept the leftovers and used those for other dishes on different days. I thought it was really smart that she would use the same types of food for the meals each week and just use different combinations on alternate days. 

I really enjoyed working at the soup kitchen and learning all about the effort put in behind the scenes, including the cooking, cleaning, prepping, etc. I also loved learning that Giant Eagle donated a lot of food and how on Wednesday's a local woman bakes all the cookies handed out. It was really refreshing to see how grateful everyone that passed through was and even though they have a lot going on and need a little extra help they came in with a smile on their face and thanked all the soup kitchen volunteers. I am really happy to have helped and am excited to go back again.

Soup Kitchen Reflection

My experience at the soup kitchen was interesting because I was thinking about the idea that soup kitchens are inherently are not positive for our society. Last summer I read a book called The Stop, the premise of the book revolved around a food pantry that was transformed into a community center. This food pantry transformed into a community center that offered cooking classes, after school programming, a garden, political activism,and much more. The food pantry started of like many others as a place where food is distributed to citizens that needed the food. The director of this food pantry realized this was not doing a service to community and started the transformation. The reason he believed it was a disservice because he felt it was a band-aid for the issues surrounding food insecurity. He explained that soup kitchens and food pantries started just to supplement during hard times. He said that there shouldn't be prolonged time people are attending soup kitchens and food pantries. He argued that there needs to be political action taken to ensure that everyone is able to eat and not rely heavily on soup kitchens or food pantries. The systemic problems with minimum wage and food stamps were perpetuating food injustices. During his time at the community center he worked against all forms of food injustices. After reading this book I do believe that there is something systemically wrong that so many people can not not afford the basic human right of providing themselves with food. But it's also difficult for me to fully commit to saying that soup kitchens are bad for our society.

While volunteering at the soup kitchen this idea was in the back of my mind the whole time. It's hard to subscribe to this thinking when you see people of all ages lined up to eat lunch. I believe that Bev does a great job handling everything with the Soup Kitchen. And it would be difficult for here to implement any new programs. I was thinking of how this soup kitchen could be a platform for battling food injustice in Meadville. I was thinking there would have to be an educational push in the staff and clients of the soup kitchen. I think that there would have to be lessons on food injustices and solutions to fixing them. The Stop also focused on political and food empowerment for the clients they were serving. I also believe that this would be something that should be addressed. With all this being said I don't think it would be accomplished at the Meadville Soup Kitchen. There are many resources and involvement that I don't think is available to them. But I do believe that soup kitchens should be a platform for education about food injustice. By serving at this soup kitchen I see the clear need for the space but I believe that other issues need to be addressed when thinking about hunger.

Soup Kitchen Reflection

The experience at the soup kitchen was, as usual, a rewarding one.  I had been there before but it was just a reminder that each time you go there it is a unique experience with different people and more to learn and more to appreciate.  I am always so thoroughly impressed with the job Bev does and how it stays up and running with just the volunteering of time and resources by people in the community.  It is truly and wonderful thing.

Trying to draw on trends was pretty tough for me because it seemed like there was a wide variety of people that came in this time.  The demographics that I noticed were elderly men, women with a child or two, and young men.  These were the groups that noticed most often but there was a mix.  It aligns with what we have read about gender influences in the poverty stricken population.  Mothers are usually the food providers, so whatever the situation with the males in the family, the mother is trying to make sure her children are fed adequately.  There was also a wide range of weights/body types that came in ranging from overweight to perhaps a bit underweight.  I took note of this to draw on the Olson article.  It made me question/curious about two things:  1. Wondering what the older people coming in had experienced in their younger life (were they hungry growing up? was their family also in poverty as a child?) and 2. How many of the people that come in are binge-eating meaning is that their only meal of the day and are they eating a lot at that time?  I wondered these things because Olson's article sheds light on a lot of examples of people who were hungry as children very afraid, almost to the point of phobia, of not having adequate food stocked in the home and associate food with many emotional factors like security and comfort.  In addition, binge eating is brought up and an example shows that if one is forced to binge eat due to low food security in early years, it could lead to habits of binge eating later even if the person is food secure.  This could be triggered by emotional factors and could even lead to obesity. 

All these things in mind, every person's situation is unique and different at the soup kitchen.  While trends have been found in populations that are food insecure, it is such a case by case basis.  It is important to call on casual factors thought in order to understand and help reduce food insecurity.  

Helping at the soup kitchen is always a joy and humbling and I am humbled by the people that come in to get food to feed themselves and their families.