Transcripts For KRCB Moyers Company 20130804

Independent production fund, with support from the partridge foundation, a john and polly guth charitable fund. The clements foundation. Park foundation, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. The herb alpert foundation, supporting organizations Whose Mission is to promote compassion and creativity in our society. The bernard and audre rapoport foundation. The john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org. Anne gumowitz. The betsy and jesse fink foundation. The hkh foundation. Barbara g. Fleischman. And by our sole corporate sponsor, mutual of america, designing customized individual and Group Retirement products. Thats why were your retirement company. Welcome. The summer blitz of blockbuster movies has arrived. Super heroes or lesser mortals with excellent motor skills are here to save the earth from super villains, asteroids, aliens or other disasters, natural in nature but probably induced by global warming. Yes, its another summer of excess and escapism with the thrills and chills of hollywood scaring us down to our popcorn, yet always with a happy ending. Meanwhile, back here in the real world, where we actually live, the best film of the summer isnt an epic tale of horror or adventure but an eyeopening, heartmoving and mindexpanding reminder that millions of people in this richest country in the world, working men and women and their children, dont have enough to eat. The films called a place at the table, and its one of the best documentaries ive seen in years. Almost 50 million americans thats one in six receive food stamps. And yet recently, the house of representatives wrestled over a farm bill because members of congress continued to fight over how many billions to slash from the Food Stamp Program. In the end, they got the farm bill through by stripping food stamps out of it completely, to be voted on some other day. But once again, we heard all the cliches about freeloaders who are undeserving of government help, playing the system and living large at the expense of taxpayers. This movie, a place at the table, breaks those stereotypes apart and shows us that hunger hits hard at people who work hard to make a living. Dont miss this one. Its real life. With me is kristi jacobson, one of the films directors and producers. Youve seen her work on public television, hbo, abc, lifetime, and other tv networks. Mariana chilton is here, too. She teaches Public Health at Drexel University and is director of the center for hungerfree communities. Shes also founder of witnesses to hunger, a Group Featured prominently in a place at the table. In this excerpt from the film, we meet a rancher and a Police Officer in colorado, each struggling to make ends meet. Believe it or not, they have to rely on the charitable food programs sponsored by the church of a local minister, pastor bob wilson. About a month ago we had three officers, including myself. But however, due to budget constraints, were now down to just me. It was always kind of a prideful thing that i never needed anybodys help. Unfortunately, i havent received a pay raise in four years, and what i used to spend on a month in groceries, now gets me about two weeks. I have utilized pastor bobs food bank. The way it makes me feel, its very humiliating. Well, i correct that. Its not humiliating. Its very grounding. The stereotype of food banks is always for the unemployed or the disabled, people that cant go out and get a job. Thats not always the case. Sometimes in life you just get to points where you need a little extra help. Ranching is a good part of life. Its a lot of work, but its an honest actually, its an honest trade. But the way the economy and everything has gone south, i have had to go find another job out of the house. So i work on the ranch from 7 00 in the morning till 3 00 in the afternoon, and then at 3 00 in the afternoon till 11 00 at night i go down and clean the school. Its a good job. Its close to home. Theres a lot that you worry about. Your kids is the main one. And thats part of the reason i did take a second job, is so i can help buy groceries and put food on the table for my kids. Come on, dogs. Welcome to you both. Thank you for having us. Thank you. So, a cop who doesnt make enough money to meet all of his food needs and a cowboy who has to take two jobs to help feed his children, are they truly representative or was this just a filmmakers good luck . Sadly, theyre not the exception, in fact theyre very representative. When we were making this film, we traveled all over the country. And again and again met people who were working and trying to make ends meet but were not able to put food on the table. So i think what the sort of filmmakers luck or hard work paid off in that these are people who might not be willing to share their story. But we filmed in collbran because it was a town where the pastor, bob, was working really hard to remove that stigma that people feel around admitting and then getting help. And so that helped us because we were welcomed into the community. And, you know, i remember the first time i met the police chief. And i met him first on the phone, and then in person. And then i thought, hes probably not going to share his story oncamera, but its still important to understand. And then he said, absolutely. And that was really, really i think a victory for the film in that we were able to show this very Important Group that are experiencing hunger and Food Insecurity, but that are not its very hidden. What do you take from their stories . Because you worked with a totally different population. Im not so sure theyre that different, thats the thing. I think that, when you were saying before about stereotypes i think that in the press and our legislators have a certain stereotype about whos poor and whos not, and this concept of the deserving poor. But the women that i work with through witnesses to hunger are very hardworking. Theyre excellent mothers, excellent parents. They want the best for their kids. Theyre often working two or three jobs. Sometimes theyll have to work under the table in order to make ends meet, trying to find side jobs. Theyre hustling really hard. And i see the police chief. I see the cowboy whos also taking on that second job. What i see is common among them is a loss of dignity in the work. You can actually work full time and your family is still hungry . Theres a very big problem in this country that we are not valuing hard work like we used to. Theres a young woman in the film who says, quote, hunger could be right next door and you would never know because people are too afraid to talk about it. Why are people afraid to talk about it, dr. Chilton . Well, i think theres an enormous amount of shame that goes especially i work with moms of little children, Young Children, and theres an enormous amount of shame that they experience that they may run out of money before they can get more food. And it really tests their sense of motherhood, their sense of citizenship, of belonging. And its very isolating. And i think that when the moms that i speak with, they talk about when they were children. They, too, were hungry. And they were always told, dont talk about it. Dont let anybody know how hard it is. Always put on a good face. Always look good, you know. Its about being able to be in the world and be treated with a sense of dignity and respect. So they would often hide their own experiences of hunger or hide the experience that they cant feed their own children. Do we pass hunger down as a legacy to the next generation . Oh, yes, we do. It gets transferred from generation to generation. Now, it also happens that during an economic downturn, when there are not enough goodpaying jobs, of course hunger will skyrocket. But i think that when people dont realize that hunger is very damaging to children, too. Especially to Young Children. Food insecurity affects the cognitive, social and emotional growth of very Young Children. That means that by the time they arrive to kindergarten, theyre not ready for school. That means that when theyre in school, if theyre hungry, they wont be able to concentrate on what theyre learning, and they wont do as well on their math and their reading tests. That means they wont be as successful, wont get a good paying job so that, when they have children they, too, will be poor. So poverty is an experience thats really seared into the bodies and brains of children. What happens to someone who gets too little nutrition early in life . Oh, its extremely important. If you think about whats happening in the first three years of life, the brain is growing so fast. Theyre the most important years of human development. So every moment those are the Building Blocks of good cognitive, social and Emotional Development. Neurons are growing and pruning and very active. 700 neurons are growing a second for an infant. Its the most important window of human development. So any type of nutritional deprivation during this time has a severe impact on the brain, even if its just episodic, even if it happens once or twice a month. Those are moments of lost opportunity to be able to interact with their family and their environment, to Pay Attention and to learn something new, which helps to grow more neurons. So again, it affects the cognitive, social and Emotional Development. It creates a certain kind of a stress on the child thats very toxic. And we know that children who experience that kind of toxic stress cant learn as well, cant learn as fast. And you can turn that around with Food Assistance programs, with a program called wic women, infants and children or the Food Stamp Program. The best investment of our dollars in this country is investing in very Young Children and their families because, again, those are the most important times when a childs brain is growing. So for every 1 that you spend on a child, you make 7 back when they become an adolescent. Its a beautiful investment. Kristi has a remarkable profile. A portrait in the film of a young girl named i think her names rosie. Okay, mine is about this goddess or queen. Her husband died, and he gave half of his kingdom to the romans, and hunger definitely impacts my classroom. I have had students come to me upset, and its definitely a huge issue in our small community. One student in particular, rosie. I just really felt she wasnt really applying herself in the classroom, and i couldnt figure out where that attitude was coming from. And what i realized, when i brought her in one day, was the main issue was that she was hungry. I struggle a lot and most of the time its because my stomach is really hurting. My teacher tells me to get focused, and she told me to write focus on my little sticker. And every time i look at it, and im like, oh, im supposed to be focusing. I start yawning, and then i zone out. And im just looking at the teacher. And i look at her, and all i think about is food. So i have these little visions in my eyes. Sometimes when i look at her, i vision her as a banana. So she goes like a banana, and everybody in the class is like apples or oranges. And then im like, oh, great. Tell me about rosie. Rosie is an incredible young girl. And i think that what struck me so much about rosie is that her story sort of embodied everything about this issue, which is that, while shes experiencing this hunger and Food Insecurity, its affecting her selfesteem. Its affecting her ability to learn, which is very upsetting. But at the same time, she has this incredible spirit, which gives you this you know, some feeling of hope and inspiration. So shes just an incredible young girl. And that story is replicated in your experience . Oh, very much so, very common. I think that you know, i think again, i work with families that have very Young Children. And ive been watching the development of the children over time. And some are really doing just so beautifully. Very dear, full of light and so much potential. And i think what people forget is that, you think you can somehow see hunger. You cant look at rosie and see, oh, shes hungry. So where do you see it . You see it in school performance. Their ability to get along with others. Their ability to Pay Attention for children of school age. Attendance. And attendance. But also for really Young Children, where do you see it . You see it in the increased hospitalizations, showing up more to the emergency room when they dont with preventible diseases, or preventible exacerbation of asthma. This you know, if we could think about poverty during childhood as a type of a disease, if we could pay as much attention to poverty for children as we Pay Attention to infectious disease, we might be able to do something in this country. I was struck again about how important a teacher like Leslie Nichols is to a child like rosie, just as you are to the people you work with. They can make a difference, cant they . Oh, they can. I think, oftentimes, theyre First Responders because theyre the ones who are seeing how well the children are doing. Theyre with those kids moment to moment and seeing whether theyre taking in the information or not. And theyre making such sorry, theyre making such a difference. And in the case of Leslie Nichols, you know, she had this added you know, her own personal experience with hunger, enabled her to recognize that it was hunger that was causing the problems in rosie. While other teachers might think youve got a behavioral problem or youre just you know, youre a difficult one. So i think its important to also empower teachers who are in a position to really help these young kids overcome some of these obstacles by recognizing that hunger is something we need to address. The film makes dramatically clear the relationship between malnutrition and obesity. Step up on there. Step up on the table right there, and ill be with you in just a second. What grade you in . Second. Second . Youre in the second grade . How old are you . Fixing to be eight. Fixing to be eight. All right. And youve got asthma . Okay. Do you ever have problems with shortness of breath when youre outside playing or anything . I have to stop playing to take a deep breath. Okay. What did you eat for breakfast this morning . I didnt eat. You didnt eat breakfast this morning . Okay. When you get home in the afternoon, do you eat a snack . What do you eat . Chips. Chips . What else, baby . What do you drink . Pop. Pops. Okay. Do you have any other snacks besides chips you could eat . Cookies. Kisses . Cookies. Cookies . Cookies and chips . Okay. Well, maybe you could ask mom to start buying you some carrots and some celery and maybe some apples. You could slice some apples up. Thatd be good, hm . A lot of people think there is a yawning gap between hunger on the one endothe and o in fact, theyre neighbors, and the reason that they happen often at the same time and often in the same family, in the same person is because they are both signs of having insufficient funds to be able to command food that you need to stay healthy. If you look at what has happened to the relative price of fresh fruits and vegetables, its gone up by 40 since 1980 when the obesity epidemic first began. In contrast, the relative price of processed foods has gone down by about 40 . So if you have only a limited amount of money to spend, youre going to spend it on the cheapest calories you can get, and thats going to be processed foods. This has to do with our farm policy and what we subsidize and what we dont. Help me understand the connection between hunger and obesity. Hunger and obesity are both forms of malnutrition. Meaning . Meaning not it means not getting the right kinds of nutrients for an active and healthy life. If you go back to the definition of Food Insecurity, it means having enough food for an active and healthy life. So when people think about hunger, they think, oh, its just not enough food. But actually Food Insecurity which is a much broader term, much more precise, captures that type of experience where families dont have enough money for healthy and fresh food so they will in order to stretch their dollar, theyll spend it on soda, or on foods that have very high calories. Because they know that their kids are hungry, they have to be able to stretch their dollar in order to fill their own tummies and the tummies of their children. They know its not healthy, but theyre just trying to figure out what the immediate the immediacy of hunger. So they eat lots of high calories, salt, sodium. Those are the kinds of things that are not good for an active and healthy life. Its another form of hunger. So you can look at people who are overweight and obese and think maybe they dont have enough money for food. Maybe theyre anxious about where their next meal is coming from. You say in the film that there are 50 Million People, one in six, who are food insecure, who do not have enough Good Nutrition to thrive. Its shocking that here in the wealthiest nation on earth we have this many people who do not have either access to Healthy Foods nor can they afford it. And, you know, i think that we need to look at and what we wanted to do with this film is not just say, look, heres a portrait of hungry people, but look at why we have such a large problem, a big problem here in this country. What does it say that one out of every two kids in this country, at some point in their childhood, as i learned from your film, will be on Food Assistance . One out of two . I see a country in crisis. And its a crisis that we need to address, and we need Political Leadership and policies that tackle this problem dead on. And when we were making the film, we looked to a film that aired on cbs in 1968 called, hunger in america. Food is the most basic of human needs. That showed the nation shocking conditions and children that were starving. But man cant remain alive without food. Were talking about 10 million americans. In this country, the most basic human need must become a human right. And citizens reacted. And what they did though and part of this had to do with the reporting at the time was they demanded legislative response. They demanded that their politicians take responsibility and address the problem. And i think that today we have, you know, every maybe once a year around the holidays, there are portraits of the hungry in america. But instead of pointing to political solutions, theyre often pointing to a charitable response as the solution. And i think thats also a really significant cause for how we have gotten to the point where one in six are food insecure. You have a sequence in the film that drives home the reliance on charity and the conclusion that its not enough. Lets take a look at that. The 80s created the myth that a, hungry people deserved it. And b, well, we could really fill in the gaps with the charities. And so we had a proliferation of emergency responses, soup kitchens, food pantries, moving from literally a shelf in the cupboard of the pastors office to an operation with regular hours. Something changed during that period of time. There developed this ethos that government was doing too much. And more importantly, the private sector is wonderful, and lets feed people through charity. We have basically created a kind of secondary food system for the poor in this country. Millions and millions of americans, as many as 50 million americans, rely on charitable food programs for some part of meeting their basic food needs. Thats something thats extremely important. The churches and the Community Groups that do hand out food are doing an Incredible Service to this country and to the children that are experiencing hunger. But thats just a quick fix. Thats for today and tomorrow and maybe for next week. We call it emergency food. Its no longer emergency food. This is called chronic use of a broken system for which people cannot be held accountable. Charity is a great thing, but its not the way to end hunger. We dont fund our department of defense through charity, you know. We shouldnt, you know, see that our kids are healthy through charity either. So americans responded with a thousand points of light in the first bush administration. But you say its not enough. Well, its not enough because despite all of that, despite all the money thats being raised, despite the food drives, despite the proliferation of these food banks and soup kitchens, we still have 50 Million People who are food insecure. And what weve found both during the making of the film and in fact since showing the film, you know, Food Bank Directors repeatedly sharing with us, you know, we cant do this alone. We need government to play its role. Because it should be an emergency food system, as mariana says in the film. And it should be complementing Government Programs that really address the needs of the most vulnerable. I would like to really draw your attention to the impact that the emergency food system has compared to the government Food Assistance programs. What emergency food can do is about this much, about 5 of dealing with the problem. This much. What does the federal government do with the nutrition assistance . Food stamps, or s. N. A. P. Its called. Wic, women, infants and children. School breakfast and school lunch. After School Feeding programs. Those programs we know make a tangible difference in the health and wellbeing of children and adults. So we know that if families are receiving food stamps or s. N. A. P. Benefits, their cognitive, social and Emotional Development is better. We know that theyre less likely to be hospitalized. The same thing goes for wic. We also know that wic can reduce the stress that moms often feel when theyre a new mom and theyre very poor. So these programs, we know, have a tangible Public Health impact. Theres no research that shows what kind of impact the emergency food system is having. We know that when about 30 million children are being fed every day in this country through School Breakfast and school lunch, that is magnificent, and those kinds of programs need to be protected and to be promoted. Our conversation will continue in a moment. But first, this is pledge time on public television, and were taking a short break so you can show your support for the programming you see right here on this station. For those of you still with us, as weve seen, its not easy making sure our neediest get the food their minds and bodies need. Several years ago, we visited an urban garden and Farmers Market in the East New York neighborhood of new york city. It provides nutritious, healthy produce to Community Residents who otherwise must travel miles to the nearest supermarket. And even there the choices may be scarce. Watch and listen. The East New York section of brooklyn is a cornucopia of fast and cheap food. The market is open but each saturday, the East New York Farmers Market offers some muchneeded relief. Thats very good. Right . The markets appetizing array of food comes from just outside the city and just around corner. From sweet to savory, land to sea. This is a baby bluefish. This tastes excellent. People say its worth the wait. When its fresh from the tree, on the table, its delicious. We have a great market, and you know, i think when people come and visit us, theyre surprised that its here. Theyre surprised that its in East New York. Sarita daftary heads up the market, started ten years ago by the nonprofit United Community centers. Its been a welcome source of pride and nutrients in a tough neighborhood better known for its crime stats than its crop yields. Food that comes from the ground that is in its most whole form is much better for you than food thats processed, or packaged. And food thats grown by small scale farmers, and especially organic farmers, tends to be more nutritious. Some of the freshest vegetables here were picked just hours ago from land a few short blocks away. Jeanette ware has been gardening here for the past two years. Were going to be harvesting some herbs, some oregano, some collard greens. Some string beans and some beets. Jeanette and her husband james start each day in the dirt. Its fun. Its hard, but its fun. It gets your back hurting, but its good for your heart. And its a good feeling. Yours youre digging in the natural earth, and youre producing something for everybody to enjoy and be healthy. These are hot. You want some . These are 12 for a dollar. For the wares, what started as hobby has quickly turned into a small business. From their stand, they help fuel their community with homegrown vitamins, minerals and good cheer. Hello. I like that hat. Thank you. Hazel smalls is on the hunt for organic produce. Were Pretty Healthy eaters, so its a lot of fruits and vegetables. We used to get the frozen, because it lasts much longer, but once i found out about the market here, i said, lets check it out. I can always take the collared greens, clean them, cut them up and freeze them. Hazel keeps an eye on what her daughter eats. Fortunately, cheyenne prefers pears to junk food. My mother lets me eat candy only like saturday, or just saturday, because she doesnt want me to get diabetes because its very painful. So i know that i dont want to eat too much candy. Many of the chronic diseases that plague the country today, like diabetes, are linked to diet. Unfortunately, East New Yorkers know this all too well. One in six adults here suffers from diabetes. Thats twice the new york city average. Nearly one out of three is obese. The primary cause of premature death here is heart disease. Over the past ten years, hospitalization for the condition has increased by 35 . So food here can be a simple matter of life and death, and people like Claudina Williams need the market for food that wont make them sick. You have to find it. It doesnt matter how much it costs because thats your health. Claudina uses coupons to help ease the expense of eating right. A number of states, including new york, encourage lowincome people to shop at Farmers Markets by accepting food stamps and distributing free food vouchers to Senior Citizens and moms. Thank you. People in lowincome communities, people everywhere, deserve the same quality of life, a great quality of life. Announcer we now continue with moyers company. Theres a young woman in the film, barbie izquierdo. She was a year looking for a job. She had food stamps while she was doing so. Then she got work. And yet as a result of getting work, she no longer qualified for food stamps or subsidized childcare, and her children could, therefore, no longer receive breakfast or lunch at daycare. Anyone can sit there and tell you, oh, ive been through this, ive been through that, i got through it. Yes, ive been through this. Ive been through that. I got through it. But if you open my fridge, im there again. Five days into the month. And im going to be there next month and the month after that. It gets tiring. When i was on food stamps, i didnt have to worry about my kids not eating. It was just, how can i make it stretch, you know. I might have to take a little bit from this day. It was more about balancing everything. Where now, with ehave nothing. I literally have nothing left. Like im going to give them a hot pocket for dinner tomorrow. Like what am i supposed to do . What do i give them . Whats happening there . First of all, stress. Stress is very damaging to moms and kids. Secondly, you also see barbie having the sandwich away from her kids. So you have moms that will often scrimp on their own diets in order to feed their children. But what you see overall, the big picture there, is that barbie was working full time in those moments, and therefore, became ineligible for Food Assistance. So what they what you see is what we call in the Research World the cliff effect. So if a family makes just enough money to get themselves over the lip of whatever the income limit is, theyll lose benefits that are actually very helpful to them and to their own children and to their health. So you can have a family kind of going up and up and say, oh, im going to take that extra im going to get a raise, or, ill work overtime. They work just enough to fall over the cliff, lose their benefits, and theyre worse off than where they were before. So we have a really big problem in this country with the way that we are looking at our wages and our public assistance programs and how theyre interacting with each other. And that scene was one of the most difficult to film. And both because of just, you know, the pain that barbie was feeling and allowing us to capture, but also as filmmakers, barbie had gotten the fulltime job. And so we thought this is the end of the film and the arc of the story. Exactly. And when this happened, we were devastated for barbie and thought, what is this going to do to the story . Well, of course, as filmmakers, we had to follow the story. And i remember the conversation that we had with mariana where we were talking about this, and we were worried that it wasnt representative. And then learned this is in fact so representative and a really important problem to expose. Because we need for these programs if were going to have them, and were going to fund them, which is a different issue, they should be meeting the needs of the people who are using and benefiting from the programs. And in our research we know that food stamps do help to prevent hospitalizations. They do promote health. It does help. But the type of allotment is called the thrifty food plan. The way that the government calculates how much an adequate meal or an adequate sort of thrifty food basket costs is actually inadequate for a healthy diet. So even if you have families that are receiving the maximum allotment, as if they had no other income, they still cant make ends meet. Theres a nice twist in the film. When youre reporting on what its like to live on food stamps and you have an interview with representative James Mcgovern of massachusetts, who did his own research, as you do, into the subject. I lived on a food stamp diet for a week along with Jo Ann Emerson from missouri. We did so because we thought that the food stamp benefit was inadequate. Most of my colleagues had no idea that the average food stamp benefit was 3 a day. I had my budget, and i went to a supermarket. And it took me an awful long time, because you have to add up every penny. And it has to last you for a week. And so i did it, and i will tell you, i was tired. I was cranky because i couldnt drink coffee because coffee was too expensive. I mean, there are people who are living on that food stamp allocation. And you really cant. For us, it was an exercise that ended in a week. For millions of other people in this country, thats their way of life. Every day is a struggle just to eat. Sadly, representative mcgovern is one of few leaders and voices in congress pushing to do the right thing here, which is to protect and improve food stamps and other Government Programs. Hes an incredible leader, but he is even having trouble getting his you know, members of his own party to support his efforts to protect these programs. And thats really troubling and upsetting. The road to reform always leads to washington. And there almost every reform, whether its the environment or whether its agriculture or food, hits up against the power of big money to write the laws it wants and influence the politicians it needs. You found that to be the case, didnt you . Yes. I think that you know, i mean, i believe and i dont think naively that we, americans, should be able to influence how our politicians vote on these issues. Thats not happening right now. And the problem with this issue is that you dont always its not so obvious necessarily how a politician is voting when it comes to programs that address Food Insecurity. There was a poll taken, i think in connection with your film, that found the majority of americans actually were surprised to hear that 50 Million People dont know where their next meal is coming from. And many of those polled just dont think of hunger as a pressing issue. Given your work on this, how do you explain it . Theres this concept that you can somehow see hunger, that we would know that there are hungry children if they were fishing around in the garbage can or if there were flies coming or they had swollen bellies and, you know, limp on the sidewalk. But thats not what hungry children look like. We dont see that in the United States. You might see thats severe starvation when youre dealing in times of war and massive drought. Somalia, the congo, sudan, all so in the United States there its children like rosie who light up the room when they come in. Its moms like barbie izquierdo, whos beautifully spoken, so brilliant. Her children are funny and enjoyable. And yet theyre still experiencing Food Insecurity and hunger. So i think people are actually shocked. Well, i dont see it, so it cant be real. And they dont believe the numbers. But what is happening underneath is a massive crisis in Human Potential in the United States. Our kids are showing up to school not ready to learn. When theyre in school they cant concentrate. You have kids who are food insecure when theyre adolescents. Theyre suffering with stress and Suicidal Ideation. Thats what we find in our research. How can we Suicidal Ideation . Suicidal ideation, so its thinking about, oh, what does it matter that i live . Its thinking about killing yourself. These are very depressing and stressful experiences to experience hunger, to see your parents struggling with that and to struggle yourself. So when you whats happening is that we are developing a whole like half of the country overall is really left out of the public dialogue. They are underpaid, undervalued, unhealthy. And we can prevent this kind of and we can prevent this. Thats why i think its so important, whats so exciting about what witnesses to hunger is trying to accomplish, is to make sure that people who know the experience of hunger and poverty firsthand is a part of the national dialogue. Theyre not silence d. Theyre not short of shamed over off in the corner, that theyre actually front and center. Theyre the ones who can turn it around. So we have to take back our democracy, be more engaged. And i think that a lot of people sort of in the middle, who havent struggled with hunger or poverty, think, oh, well just let the government handle it. They must be doing the right thing. And, theres no hunger, thats just called disengagement. Weve got a big problem in our country with being engaged about what our politicians are actually doing for us. So youve tried to engage them. Lets take a look in the film at a very interesting sequence. Everybody say, washington. Washington. Heres the plan. At 11 30 the reception at the senate. Senator casey will speak. I will speak. Tianna will speak. Barbie will speak, and every time that you have an opportunity, give your ideas for change, for what you need for the success and healthy life of your kids, okay . These guys are the ones who make it happen. I was the first mother of witnesses to hunger, and i didnt think anyone would take us seriously. But im here to let everyone know that just because we live where we live and come from where we come from doesnt mean that were not smart. Doesnt mean that we dont have potential. Doesnt mean that we do not want education. Doesnt mean that we want to depend on welfare for the rest of our lives. I want the same hopes and dreams as everyone in this room for their children. We just need the opportunity to make it come true. Did they listen . I think they listened a little bit. They felt it a little bit. But its not long enough, you cant just go to congress and talk to legislators one time, and theyll get it. I think its really hard to break through the cloud over our legislators. Im not really sure who theyre listening to, except for people who have a lot of money and a lot of influence. So i think theyre very touched by the personal experiences of a person whos poor, especially from a mom. So ive actually seen Senate Staffers get very tearyeyed listening to these stories, and they say, oh, keep telling your stories. Keep telling your stories. But then theyll turn around and vote to cut food stamps. And that doesnt make a lot of sense. So im wondering, who is it thats influencing congress . Whos got their thumb on what congress can do . And i think that theres just not enough people who are poor who have an opportunity to speak out. I dont think they get enough press. They dont have theyre sort of shut out. Theres no opportunity for people who are low income to really engage in our democracy. And i think that theyre actively shut out as well. So bear with me, though, as i put on my horns and play devils advocate. There are a lot of americans who think that were spending too much on food stamps and that the cost is out of hand. Your Poll Associated with your film suggests that last year alone the government spent 81 billion on this nutritional safety net, as you call it, now s. N. A. P. , what we used to know as food stamps, and some folks say that is simply way too much and that were creating a culture of dependency. Heres representative republican representative steven king of iowa. Handing out benefits is not an economic stimulator. But we want to take care of the people that are needy, the people that are hungry. And weve watched this program grow from a number that i think i first memorized when i arrived here in congress, about well, first of all, im a researcher, so i like to base things on empirical evidence. There is no evidence that the Food Stamp Program creates dependency. Let me show you what this congressperson is doing. Basically theyre pinning the problems that we have in this country on people who are poor. If you think about people who are poor, really you have 80 of people who are food insecure are actually working. That means their wages are so low that theyre eligible for food stamps. So you want to talk about dependency in this country . Lets talk about corporations and businesses that pay such low wages, that they depend on the United States government to add money to those wages through the Income Assistance programs, like s. N. A. P. So if you take a company like walmart, pays their workers so low, that their workers are actually eligible for food stamps. Whos dependent on the u. S. Government . Id have to say its walmart is the welfare queen here. But if i were congressman king sitting here, i might say to you, you make a very convincing case, and i believe that both of you are genuinely committed to this issue. But you know, 48 Million People are receiving food stamps. Cant you see why some of my constituents in iowa would be shocked by that and at that cost . Well, i think its also important to look at how many corporations and agribusinesses are collecting subsidies out of the same government bill, the farm bill. And i think that there is an ethos in congress right now that assisting those individuals who need help via the Food Stamp Program or wic or school meals is Big Government and is going to put us into debt. But providing subsidies to large agribusinesses and big corporations is just business as usual. And i think that were looking at, you know, investing in our youth and investing in our future. And if it doesnt get to you, congressman, from the moral point of view, that its really frankly not okay to have kids like rosie and barbies kids, to the tune of 17 million of them in our nation well, what about the cost of not doing anything . Because the cost of Food Insecurity, the cost of obesity and malnutrition is way larger on the back end and the health care than it is to get these programs adequately funded and feed kids nutritious foods. If you think about what government is supposed to be doing, its supposed to create the conditions in which people can make healthy choices and live an active and healthy life. Its all about creating good conditions for us to be to prosper, right . Somehow when we think about helping people who are poor, many of whom are working, its there becomes this type of societal vitriol towards people who are poor as if theyre not us. Well, actually people who are poor are all around us. Their children are going to the same schools oftentimes. We need to really rethink about who we are as a country. What does it mean to be an american . If you think about one in five of our children living in households that are food insecure, theyre just as american as the rest of us, we need to really invest in our own country and who we are. Yeah, i was actually present when president johnson signed the food stamp act into law in 1964, before your time, obviously. It was only the whole bill was only eight pages long, and the first years budget was 75 million. And its purpose im going to quote it for you was, quote, to raise levels of the nutrition among lowincome households and to permit those households with low incomes to receive a greater share of the nations food abundance. But as you make clear in the film, its not doing that job all thers these years later, although were spending 81 million on it now. So whats essentially gone wrong . We need to look, as we did then, look at the program as it was designed, which was as you stated, as a Nutrition Program to address the nutritional needs of lowincome people who dont have access to Healthy Foods. Thats what this program should be. And we should be doing everything in our power to make that program work effectively. And to do that i think we need to listen to people like barbie and the witnesses to hunger. We could listen to mariana also, but we need to listen to the people who are experiencing this and we need to revamp and reform the program while also adequately funding it. Youve been to washington with some of your constituents. Youve made your case. Youre up against the interlocking power grid of big agriculture, big corporations and Big Government. What makes you think you have a chance of turning them around . The power of the human spirit. When you have a lot of moms who have had enough, we can take over congress and say, we care about our children, just like you care about your children. But we need more moms. We need more families to be able to speak up. I think that we need to take over take back our democracy, take back our sense of involvement, of belonging, that this is our government. This government is supposed to be working for everyone regardless of how you were born or where you were born or how much money you make. Its supposed to work for all of us. Weve got to figure out a way to just help the people who are in power to recognize their own sense of humanity and recognize that they are no different than barbie izquierdo, no different than rosie. That their kids are no different than rosie, that were all a part of that same human family. Ultimately thats what we need to tap into. On that note, thank you, dr. Mariana chilton, for your work. And kristi jacobson, thank you for an extraordinary film. And thank you both for being here. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thats it for this week. Ill see you here next time. Announcer funding is provided by Carnegie Corporation of new york, celebrating 100 years of philanthropy, and committed to doing real and permanent good in the world. The kohlberg foundation. Independent production fund, with support from the partridge foundation, a john and polly guth charitable fund. The clements foundation. Park foundation, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. The herb alpert foundation, supporting organizations Whose Mission is to promote compassion and creativity in our society. The bernard and audre rapoport foundation. The john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. More information at macfound. Org. Anne gumowitz. The betsy and jesse fink foundation. The hkh foundation. Barbara g. Fleischman. And by our sole corporate sponsor, mutual of america, designing customized individual and Group Retirement products. Thats why were your retirement company. Coming up judy valente reports on a chicago priest who visits parishes to bring attention to an often taboo subject, domestic violence. And in israel, an interfaith village where israelis and palestinians intentionally live together in peace. Plus, a spectacular pageant celebrating mormon history