Ending Hunger in America, 2014 Hunger Report Full Report | Page 146

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Witnesses to Hunger
So far, the protagonists in this chapter have been leaders in government, nonprofits,
and the private sector, working on behalf of people in their communities at risk of
hunger. In this example, we learn about how one initiative developed leaders
among the most affected—those who know what it feels like to be hungry.
It is hard to think of a movement for social change that was
not led by the people whose well-being was most affected by the outcome. In the 1960s, victims of racial oppression led the Civil Rights
Philadelphia
Movement. Today, gay and transgender people lead the LGBT
rights movement, immigrants the immigration-reform movement.
Seldom, however, are people with the most knowledge about hunger asked to do more than tell their stories and
then vanish before the discussions of policy take place.
Dr. Mariana Chilton, a researcher in Drexel University’s School of Public Health, was thinking about this as
she was testifying before Congress in 2007 on the importance of the Food Stamp Program for the health and wellbeing of young children. It was at a hearing on the reauthorization of the upcoming farm bill, and she was there
to talk about the research she and her colleagues at Children’s HealthWatch sites around the country had done. “I
literally watched the Congress people’s eyes glaze over, and I thought, ‘Well this isn’t doing it,’” she said.35
When she returned home to Philadelphia, she decided to steer her research in a different direction. It started
by giving cameras to low-income mothers in Philadelphia, asking them to document their personal experiences of
hunger. The project was called Witnesses to Hunger, and the pictures were posted on a website of the same name.

Pennsylvania

Arkansas

Indiana
Indianapolis

Oregon

Courtesy of BillMoyers.com

Kristi Jacobson (center) and Dr. Mariana Chilton (right) explain to Bill Moyers how hunger and food insecurity hit people from
every walk of life.

136? Chapter 4

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