Part 1: introduction to the series of blog posts

[what I will be writing about, and why]

Food for People pantry/warehouse

Inspired by my friend Meg, who always finds opportunities to volunteer in the communities where she has lived, I decided I should do something when I moved from SoCA to Eureka on July 4, 2011. Food for People is close to my house, has a great name, an inspiring façade, and serves the community as Humboldt County’s official food-bank, with many on-site programs and satellite services (that include 17 pantries and monthly free farmers' markets across the whole county) for those without the resources to purchase adequate food.

I have been broke and gone hungry, especially when I was living on the streets of southern California between the ages of 14 and 17. I worked for a variety of non-profit community organizations later, while attending UC Santa Barbara. Then, for two decades as a grad student and after receiving my doctorate, I worked with many of the Mexican immigrants that pick America’s crops (Krissman's pdf, Wk 12). I found that too often immigrant workers cannot afford to buy much of the food that they have picked (C&C, Ch 15)! (Listen to the great Lila Downs document in this video many of the problems of Mexican (and other) immigrants working in the USA...)

What the fuck?!?

A logical next step in my lifelong education about how others live was to get to know some of the many native-born Americans that cannot afford the food that they need, even though it is harvested by poorly paid immigrants. I concur with the argument (RCA, p. 22) that much can be learned about myself and my compatriots by studying my own culture; the situation at Food for People demonstrates the vast differences in wealth on our planet today (RCA, p. 38) in one location, revealing differential access to a basic necessity, the food that everyone needs to survive and thrive!

What follows is a series of three more posts: the next, Part 2, provides a review of the anthropological literature on economics and hunger in the USA, why I chose to study these issues, and an introduction to my case study; Part 3 is  an ethnographic account using a variety of fieldwork methods (C&C, Ch 1) of a microculture (C&C, p. 4), which I gleaned from 2 orientations, 14 months working as a volunteer, and formal and informal interviews with staff, other volunteers, and the food-bank's clients; and, Part 4 is a summary and conclusion, explaining what this study of a "non-governmental organization" (an NGO) and some of its participants contributes to a better understanding of the world.