Getting a Grip

admin November 9th, 2007

(Frances) There’s a special place in the middle of Massachusetts where elders study alongside college students and where high school students are invited in, too. Together, they’re working both to alleviate the pain of hunger in their community now and to “create a hunger-free community” tomorrow. 

That place is Worcester State College, and I was lucky enough to get invited to speak there this week as part of a series called “Food for Thought.” My host was a professor whose last name captures her perfectly: Maureen Power, founder of the Intergenerational Urban Institute.

In the photo above, you can see some of them with Getting a Grip in hand.

Massachusetts waives tuition at state schools for anyone over 60, I learned, and on top of that Worcester waives fees. So in the front row were some of the 200 or so elders studying at the college. One is a Holocaust survivor. As I talked, I tried to move my focus back and forth between this attentive group and the 20 or so high schoolers who make up the Youth Food Policy Council at nearby South High Community School. Even from the podium, I could feel their energy and determination.

And they certainly didn’t hold back during the Q&A. One stood and told us about addressing the city council and wanted my advice for how to get them to be more responsive. My mind raced to what I’d learned through the Industrial Areas Foundation organizing about the importance of building relationships (You can read a lot about them in the Action chapter of Democracy’s Edge). So I suggested she and her fellow students invite the resistant councilor out for a cup of coffee and really get to know him. How could anyone resist these young people’s enthusiasm?

The speakers’ series honors the 25^th year of the Worcester Food Bank, and my talk’s goal was to make clear that America does know how to end hunger and poverty: Contrary to popular myth, Americans cut the poverty rate in half during the 1960s; in the years from my birth in the 40s and my children’s births in the 70s, the bottom fifth of Americans more than doubled their real family income—advancing more than any other income group. Although we’ve been in massive retreat, we have proven tools to end hunger. Meeting these fired-up young people made me feel we are growing the power, too.

Frances

• Frances