Homelessness & Hunger Develops Focus

Posted by Bob Wood

HOMELESSNESS & HUNGER COMMITTEE DEVELOPS FOCUS

On Tuesday, July 7th, the Homelessness and Hunger Steering Committee held its first meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to determine the committee’s ideas on the focus of the District 7930 Homelessness and Hunger Initiative.

The District Governor track, District Governor Dave Manzi, District Governor-Elect Sheryl Meehan and District Governor Nominee Dave Gardner have made a minimum of a three year commitment to the initiative. Having this commitment from the three of them allows the committee to actually accomplish something meaningful, sustaining, and impactful and something that could be an example to Rotary Districts throughout the United States, and perhaps the world.

After an amazing tour of the Greater Boston Food Bank, led by Kendra Bird, RD, LDN, Director of Distribution, Services and Nutrition and her staff, the committee joined together to develop a consensus of what it is that Rotary can do to assist in the alleviation of homelessness and hunger in District 7930. The Committee consists of the Governor track, Committee Chair Bob Wood, Joan Arsenault from Ipswich, Malden’s Dave Hart, Sr. Leonore Coan of Ipswich, Corey Jackson and Alyse Barbash from Peabody, Julie LaFontaine from Gloucester, Andy Maddox of Rockport, Greater Boston Food Bank Representative Kendra Bird, and Daniel Weir from Topsfield, Boxford and Middleton. “Why them?” you ask. Because the majority of the participants are either experts in the fields, or have experienced either homelessness or hunger at some stage of their lives. Also on the committee, but not present are Elizabeth Keely from Boston # 7 and Sue Gabriel of Beverly.

It was determined at the April 1st Homelessness and Hunger Initiative Summit, as well as at this meeting, that, at first, the focus of the Initiative should be the education of the Rotarians in our District. Out of the discussion of this came the following mission statement:

“The mission of the Homelessness and Hunger Steering Committee is to further educate District 7930 Rotarians about the issues of homelessness and hunger in our communities; ultimately to provide the tools to advocate at the local and state levels and provide information for the development of sustainable local initiatives that will allow Rotary International Foundation involvement to aid in the alleviation of Homelessness and Hunger.”

This is where the committee is headed. Within the next two months, there will be a video and PowerPoint Presentation developed that will be personalized for each club in our District. But the committee wants to introduce Rotarians not just to the root causes of homelessness and hunger and the statistics in each community, but the FACE of homelessness and hunger in each community. To that end, and as an introduction, please click here to see just a glimpse of what hunger looks like in today’s world.

The committee looks forward to working with each club on an individual basis to develop projects, local initiatives and advocacy statewide to get to our goal of the alleviation of homelessness and hunger in our district. If you have someone in your club that would like to champion this initiative, please ask her/him to contact Bob Wood at bobcwood@verizon.net or 978-518-0752. We need your help to make Rotary accomplish this most amazing task.