Sun City Hunger Coalition: Formerly the Greater El Paso Hunger Relief Coalition
The Sun City Hunger Relief Coalition, formerly known as the Greater El Paso Hunger Coalition, began after a local Hunger Summit a few years ago under the Paso Del Norte Health Foundation’s Institute for Healthy Living. The coalition has survived its first stages of development and now has regular attendance and participation of a core group of individuals and stakeholders throughout the region. While they see the value in both forms of service, their coalition focuses on support rather than direct service.
A main objective for the Sun City Coalition has been to define hunger in the region. Members struggled to accept nationally defined food insecurity rates as the best representation of hunger in their city. According to Feeding America’s “Map the Meal Gap”, the food insecurity rate for El Paso County in 2017 was about 9.6%, which is significantly lower than the U.S. average of 12.5% and the Texas average of 14.9%. T his rate clearly underestimates the true problem in the region, not only when comparing it to the child food insecurity rate, (which is about equal to the state average of 23%), but more so when comparing to what community and organization members witness daily. Instead, the coalition collectively agreed to use national poverty statistics as the measurement of hunger in the region. From these numbers, they found that 1 in 5 people struggle to put food on the table, and 1 in 3 children do not have access to enough food.
This effort to clearly define hunger in the El Paso region ultimately led to a project to provide cohesive regional messaging in the form of an infographic. Through collaboration between members and the city, the coaliton is in the last stages of finalizing their infographic which they hope to utilize to spread awareness about hunger in El Paso. They will begin distributing the infographic during Hunger and Homelessness week later this month from November 16-24. The infographic is a testament to collaboration at its finest.
In addition to this infographic, the coalition has been hard at work creating a calendar/monthly snapshot of food pantry schedules. They are creating this snapshot by cross-referencing lists provided by the El Pasoans Fighting Hunger Food Bank and 211.org. T his compilation will ultimately translate into a GIS map of food pantries accessible on the city’s web page. This calendar not only will be a great resource to community members, but a tool to identify, analyze, and ultimately close supplemental and emergency food relief gaps in the region.
Since the beginning, the coalition as been supported by the Paso del Norte Institute for Healthy Living. The Institute for Healthy Living will be closing its doors at the end of this year and the coalition’s new focus is sustainability, both financially and in overall backbone support. The coalition has taken steps to become an incorporated organization and is working to secure funds for a not-for-profit application. Despite this uncertain future, the coalition members are committed to ensuring that the coalition will go on. Having two useful and tangible resources, the emergency food calendar and infographic, have helped to create real value in the group. With amazing members committed to fighting hunger, the coalition is optimistic that they will make significant strides towards making hunger unacceptable in the Sun City region.
Author: Brooke Dal Santo
11/18/2019
