Tom Vilsack and Cesar Chavez, bearing witness across half a century

            Last week USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack led a ceremony to name a courtyard at USDA for Cesar Chavez. Vilsack explained that it was the 50^th anniversary of a United Farm Worker hunger strike Chavez led “to bring justice and equality to the people who feed America.”

            The organizing efforts of Cesar Chavez, his grape boycotts and hunger strikes, were a way of forcing the country to bear witness to the injustices suffered by migrant farm workers. Today his legacy stands as an amazing testament to one man’s ability to make a nation pay attention to what was otherwise invisible to most of us.

Secretary Vilsack’s action 50 years later, could be mistaken for a small symbolic gesture but it actually represents a historic milestone. On Sunday night Vilsack told me: “It is hard to believe but until this administration no representative from the United Farm Workers Union ever felt welcomed or set foot in the USDA headquarters. It was long, long overdue.” 

Since Vilsack became Secretary, the USDA has invested more than $200 million in affordable housing for farmworkers. From his first day in office he has championed the vulnerable and voiceless.  A few months into his term he told of how during his job “interview” with President Obama, the president said he knew that there were numerous responsibilities at USDA but the number one thing he wanted him to do was make sure children get fed. Just last month we met with him at his office to talk strategies for protecting SNAP and Child Nutrition Reauthorization.

During the event last week it was as if Vilsack was taking a page from Cesar Chavez’s own playbook and continuing in the tradition Chavez established – acting to bear witness, putting others in a position to do so, insisting that we have a duty to see, remember, and give voice.

And so it begins: first steps in 2016 presidential campaign

On Tuesday, the New England Council and The New Hampshire Institute of Politics hosted a breakfast for local business leaders in Manchester, New Hampshire to meet former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley. It was his first trip to the all-important first primary state since he left the Governor’s office and began to seriously consider challenging Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party nomination for President.  Because O’Malley was such an energetic champion of our No Kid Hungry campaign, and because it’s less than an hour drive from Boston, I went up to take a look, just as I did 32 years ago when a mostly unknown Colorado Senator named Gary Hart for whom I worked set out to challenge the front running former Vice President Walter Mondale.

 

O’Malley was well received though most New Hampshire voters wait to be courted, hopping from one candidate event to another, as unready to commit as a bumblebee to a tulip.  It’s a small state and there are lots of only half-joking comments like “I haven’t decided to vote for him (or her) because I’ve only had lunch with them twice.” In addition to the local coverage, the Washington Post and USA Today sent reporters along to cover O’Malley’s maiden voyage.

 

At one point Governor O’Malley asked for a show hands from those in the audience who thought they had more opportunity and a better life than their parents had.  About two-thirds of the 80 or so people raised their hand.  Then he asked how many thought the same would be the case for their children.  Only two hands went up, and wavered uncertainly. You  have to be my age to appreciate just how remarkable a change that is from the conventional wisdom that prevailed for so long about the meaning and viability of “the American Dream.”   The rest of us stared quietly at those two half-raised hands; a sadness to the silence, even a twinge of guilt for being the first generation to short-change their own children in this way.

 

“It underscores the central question that is on the kitchen table of our democracy” said O’Malley:  “How do we make sure that our economy works again for all of us?”  And by connecting that question to the future prospects of children, O’Malley framed why our work with No Kid Hungry, and the impact it has on educational achievement, child health, and our nation’s economic competitiveness, is both important in its own right and more connected than ever to the emerging national conversation about who the next president of the United States will be.

 

We must make our work and the historic results Share Our Strength has been able to achieve, part of that conversation.

The moment of truth for Chefs Cycle for No Kid Hungry

            There comes a moment in the planning of every major quest when the questions shifts from whether it will happen to how well will it do.  Here at Share Our Strength that time is now, and as is often the case, it is the indomitable passion of chefs that is propelling us forward.   

            Nearly 50 chefs and restaurateurs from around the county have committed to take off their aprons and put on their riding gear for Chefs Cycle for No Kid Hungry.  From Australia’s Jason Roberts to Shake Shack’s Jenny Conrad, from Jamie Adams in Georgia to Jeff Mahin in California, they are making a statement about the myriad ways to share strength, and committing provide millions of meals to kids in need.

Suddenly, the focus is on granular details. This week Debbie Shore and her team met to plan routes, overnight stops, identify the right food, drink and energy/protein goos for riders, and advance the publicity campaign and social media strategy that will bring the excitement of Chefs Cycle for No Kid Hungry to millions of people.

            Amazingly, more than $20,000 is already in the door and there remains 10 weeks to go before the two 300 miles rides – from New York to DC, and from Santa Barbara to San Diego, commence.  Check out our website @ http://www.chefscycle.org/   Support one chef, or support ‘em all. Either way you’ll be making a huge difference in the life of an American child.

Yet Again, the Power of Bearing Witness

Our colleague Andy McMahon recently found and shared this clip of President Lyndon Johnson 50 years ago this month speaking of hunger in the classroom during his famous March 15, 1965 speech to a joint session of Congress on the Voting Rights Act. @ http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4531247/lbj-saw-hunger-classroom That speech came just a week after the infamous violence in Selma, Alabama. In it Johnson adopted the anthem of the civil rights movement and proclaimed “we shall overcome”.  Passage of the Voting Rights bill followed five months later.

            Near the end of his remarks, Johnson said: “My first job after college was as a teacher in Cotulla, Texas, in a small Mexican-American school…. My students were poor and they often came to class without breakfast, hungry. They knew even in their youth the pain of prejudice. They never seemed to know why people disliked them. But they knew it was so, because I saw it in their eyes….Somehow you never forget what poverty and hatred can do when you see its scars on the hopeful face of a young child.”

            “I saw it in their eyes.”  When else have you heard a U.S. president speak this way? It’s an all too rare example of how the act of bearing witness shapes a leader’s character, fuels their ambition, and ultimately impacts policy that changes the world. Whatever one thinks of President Johnson, few disagree that his force of personality made him effective as a legislator and later as a President getting legislation enacted into law.  Part of that personality was forged by being in a position to see firsthand how others lived, and to let himself feel something about it.

            “I saw it in their eyes.” This crucial element of leadership too often goes missing in our politics today. In its place we have “I saw it in the public opinion polls” or “I saw it on cable news”.  But it’s not coincidental that LBJ declared war on poverty, or that he was the last president to elevate the issue so high on the national agenda. He was a consummate politician but what he’d seen and felt clearly did not, could not, dissipate even decades later.  Just the opposite. It remained vivid enough to share with 70 million Americans who watched that prime time broadcast and the U.S. government assembled in its entirety under the Capitol dome.

            “I saw it in their eyes.”  To bear witness in this way, to enable others to do so, is not just a task for politicians and elected officials. It also remains the most solemn and powerful of our many responsibilities at Share Our Strength and Community Wealth Partners.  (Share Our Strength's most recent report on Hunger in Our Schools can be found @ http://www.hungerinourschools.org/ )

When celebrity, creativity, and collaboration combine to create community wealth

            Celebrity and creativity are not the same thing. Sometimes they do not even overlap. Not all celebrities are creative and not all creative types are celebrities. But when the two come together the results can be astonishingly powerful. 

Witness the phenomenon of Jeff Bridges’ Sleeping Tapes, which he created for the website design company Squarespace, raising more than $100,000 for Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign of which he is national spokesperson. It would be easy to assume they wanted him for his draw as a well-known celebrity. But Squarespace was smarter than that. They hadn’t just approached Jeff for use of his immediately recognizable voice and image, but to help create, design and shape the entire project.  

The first thing Jeff did was engage in creative collaboration with other artists such as Keefus Ciancia who composed the score for True Detective  and helped record the tapes’ ambient sound, and Lou Beach a writer and graphic designer who came up with the album cover.

            Known primarily as an actor, Bridges also has a successful band, is an avid photographer, draws, and writes.  On a cross country flight we shared not long ago, he came to the back of the plane to join an informal brainstorming session of Share Our Strength staff.  Jeff spent several hours fully engaged in proposing and vetting ideas for communicating the devastating impact of childhood hunger, mobilizing more young Americans on behalf of the cause, and capturing the attention of policymakers.  He’s always been accommodating when it comes to press conferences or signing autographs, but it was clear that his real strength to share consisted of his creative juices.

            The results speak for themselves. The Sleeping Tapes @ www.dreamingwithJeff.com are a one of a kind blend of sound, humor, philosophy and art that are getting the attention a celebrity like Jeff Bridges can bring to it. The ad agency Wieden + Kennedy brought additional creativity to the communication and marketing of the project, including a much talked about Super Bowl ad. Such combinations of creativity and celebrity are designed to promote commerce and yield wealth, but in this case it was a very different kind of wealth called community wealth because it goes directly back into the community, with 100% of the proceeds used to help feed hungry kids by enrolling them in school breakfast and summer meals programs.

            Celebrity, creativity and collaboration – not a bad formula for changing the world, or at least making it a better place for our children.

           

A War on Poverty May Require More Political Courage Than War on Terror

            Today’s NY Times editorializes that President Obama’s request to Congress for formal authorization to conduct war is “indefensibly late.”  They are referring of course to the support he is seeking for U.S. military action against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.  Until now the Administration has been operating under the dubious authority of authorizations Congress passed in 2001 and 2002. The Iraq War authorization sought by President George W. Bush based on inaccurate assessments of weapons of mass destruction has been particularly discredited.

            But there is another war the Administration has been reticent to formally embrace, for reasons that also have to do with a previous President’s attempts that were discredited.  That is the war on poverty here at home, whose shortcomings during and since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs made such ambitious efforts unpopular to promote.

            In his most recent State of the Union address President Obama didn’t speak of poverty at all except in the context of Ebola and extreme global poverty.

There is no question that terrorism and extremist violence is a serious threat.  But so too is the extreme poverty destroying the lives of too many American children. 45 million Americans live below the poverty line and 46 million remain on food stamps, half of them being children. A majority of our public school students are from low-income families. There are 14.7 million poor children and 6.5 million extremely poor children in the U.S. today. Among 35 industrialized countries, America ranks 34th in terms of child poverty – ahead only of Romania.

The President’s action in forcing Congress to confront the war on terrorism and act decisively one way or the other is better late than never.  One must hope he’ll soon do the same for the war on poverty. That battle is more necessary today than at any time since he took office. It ironic that fighting poverty here at home may require more political courage than fighting terrorism around the world.

Good news, bad news in latest childhood hunger scorecard

            There’s good news and bad news in the annual school breakfast scorecard issued by the Food Research and Action Committee. The good news is very good: the percentage of children eating a free or reduced price school breakfast has climbed to 53% of those eating school lunch. This is a dramatic increase from the 43% that was the case just a decade ago.

Such progress affirms the strategies employed by Share Our Strength and our many colleagues to move breakfast to the classroom, and other “after the bell” alternatives.  A well-intended federal program that was under-performing is beginning to work again, rescued from indifferent politicians by parents, teachers and advocates passionate about helping their own communities.

            The bad news is that states are still leaving another $900 million on the table in Washington that could be used to get school breakfast participation all the way to the goal of 70%.  It’s negligence on a scale so massive that it amounts to political malpractice on the part of state and local officials, many of whom continue to be unaware that such funds are even available for their most vulnerable children.

            School meals have always enjoyed bipartisan support as a sound investment in the next generation. Expanding participation is not only an anti-hunger strategy for our nation, but  a “full potential” strategy to ensure our human capital, schools, and economy are strong so that America can be strong.