Mark Winne's Blog, page 17

Get Your Hands in the Dirt, Veggies on the Chopping Block and Voices Down at City Hall

Listen to this interview with Mark Winne on Net Impact (Dallas/Fort Worth) regarding "the state of our country's community food systems, food policy and food security."

Breaking Through Concrete

Breaking Through Concrete b y David Hanson and Edwin Marty was recently released by the University of California Press. We've been hearing great stories for some time about the urban agriculture movement across America, and you'll find many of those stories, gorgeously accessorized with photographs by Michael Hanson, in this lovely and useful book. I had the privilege of writing the forward, and so to give you a little "teaser," here's what I had to say about Breaking Through Concrete.

Forward by Mark Winne

As a kid growing up in northern New Jersey, I acutely felt the tension between urban development and the fleeting remnants of a pastoral landscape. Living at the retreating edge of the Garden State's former agrarian glory, I often wondered how Mother Earth could survive the onslaught of macadam, concrete, plastic, steel, and rubber. I would eventually find a kind of perverse solace in those hearty blades of grass and indefatigable dandelion shoots that muscled their way through the fissures in roadways and parking lots. They told me better than any science textbook could that no matter what abuse humankind may heap upon our planet, nature will not only survive, it will one day triumph.

But rather than wait (or in our bleaker moments hope) for some kind of Armageddon to wash away our mess, the satisfying and edifying stories told in Breaking Through Concrete make it abundantly clear that not only is it nature's will to survive that matters, it's humanity's need to allow nature to flourish that may matter more. Urban farming, gardening, and growing – or whatever you want to call the phenomenon that is turning conventional food production on its head – is catching on faster than veggie wraps. Turning over manicured sod at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, removing rubble and covering old parking lots with compost in rust-belt Detroit, or raising growing beds on Brooklyn rooftops the way a community used to raise barns are the stories of the day.

Skeptics of course abound. Spokespersons for Big Farming and Big Food have turned their noses up at these so-called "urban aesthetes" and "utopian farmers" whose acreage is so small it can barely support a rototiller.  But with a billion of the globe's people hungry, a billion undernourished, and another billion obese, conventional and industrial forms of agriculture have hardly earned bragging rights. Urban food production may not feed a hungry world, but as Breaking Through Concrete amply demonstrates, it certainly can feed a hungry spirit and a hunger for both nature and human connection. And as the world becomes less food secure every day, growing food in unconventional places will no longer be thought of as a nicety, like a flowerbox of petunias slung from a brownstone's windowsill, but as a necessity born out of the looming realization that there will be 9 billion of us to feed by 2050. At the very least, one can think of urban farming as an insurance policy with a very small monthly premium  or a hedge fund with no downside risk.

As a child of the sixties, my world view was shaped as much by the devastation of the moment as it was by a wild, fantastical notion of the future. While Joni Mitchell may have told us, "they paved paradise and put up a parking lot," Breaking Through Concrete reminds us that we can also rip up the parking lot and liberate paradise.

Winter and Spring 2012 Appearance Schedule

2012

January 11&12 – Birmingham, Alabama – training for Alabama food policy council (1/11) and Birmingham-Jefferson County Food Policy Council. For more information contact Jennifer Ropa at bhamfoodsecurity@gmail.com.

January 21 – Santa Fe, New Mexico – 12:30 PM – Il Piatto Restaurant, 95 West Marcy Street, Santa Fe, NM – Slow Food Santa Fe Luncheon and book talk.

January 31 – February 2 – Louisville, Kentucky – Presentation to the Louisville Food Policy Forum – 3:30 PM on 1/31. For more information contact Josh Jennings at joshua.jennings@louisvilleky.gov. Public lecture at the University of Louisville – 6:00 PM. For more information contact Dr. Lisa Markowitz at lisam@louisville.edu.

February 8 – Seattle, Washington – 7:00 PM – Third Place Books (Ravenna location). Book talk by Mark Winne. For more information contact Rita Weinstein at metermaid@q.com.

February 16 – 18 – Dallas and Mesquite, Texas – Texas Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association Annual Conference at the Mesquite Conference Center in Mesquite, TX. Food Policy Council workshop on 2/17, 8:30 to 11:30 AM; Dinner keynote address on 2/18 at 6:00 PM. For more information contact Lee McKay at info@tofga.org. Other events in and around Dallas are being scheduled. For more information contact Susie Marshall at susie@gleantexas.org.

February 23 – Albuquerque, New Mexico – 7:00 PM at Bookworks on Rio Grande Ave. Talk by Mark Winne. For more information contact Bookworks.

March 1 – Washington, DC – presentation to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Board of Directors. For more information contact Maggie Biscarr at MBiscarr@aarp.org.

March 5&6 – Omaha, Nebraska – training for Douglas County Food Policy Council. For more information contact Amy Yaroch at ayaroch@centerfornutrition.org.

March 22 – 24 – Lexington, Kentucky – Bluegrass Local Food Summit – Keynote address on March 22; food policy workshop on March 23. For more information contact Jim Embry at embryjim@gmail.com.

April 24-25 – Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – Pennsylvania Nutrition Education Network 2012 Annual Conference. Keynote address at dinner on April 24; food policy workshop on April 25. For more information contact Rose Pallotta-Cleland at rcleland@phmc.org.

 

 

“Food Stamped” – The Movie

Film reviews are generally not my strong suit. I either like the characters, actors, and actresses or I don’t. If the narrative doesn’t engage and ultimately take me to a better place – enlightenment, excitement, ecstasy – I’ll just grumble for a while and go find a good book.

I have to put documentary food films in the same category. Like food books, there are way too many food films, many of which I willingly and unwillingly have sat through because I’ve become an obedient slave to the notion that pictures are the only way to get people to act or eat differently. Unfortunately, like many books out there, too many food flicks just don’t satisfy my hunger for wisdom, insight, or entertainment. That is until I saw ”Food Stamped,” a tale of the charming Potash husband/wife filmmaking couple who turn the camera on themselves while taking on the challenge of eating healthfully and locally on a food stamp budget. They are funny, self-deprecating, and delightfully human in the way they stroll through the supermarket aisle, past farmers’ market stands, and stand shoulder to shoulder in their own kitchen trying to make it all work.

So before this blog turns into a film review, let me urge you to give “Food Stamped” a chance. I think it will help you end up in a better place. Enjoy!

NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD! FOOD STAMPED is a first-person documentary on the challenge of eating healthy on a food stamp budget. Called ENTERTAINING, EDUCATIONAL, and INSPIRING by the San Francisco Chronicle, the film won the Grand Jury Prize at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, has been featured on CNN Money, and was a recommended film for the first annual Food Day. Order your DVD today! http://www.facebook.com/l/ZAQGnOxElAQEt7xVyPV-SNwsUO7cowLDOFXLDsZbvTKTcKg/www.foodstamped.com/buy-the-dvd

"Food Stamped" – The Movie

Film reviews are generally not my strong suit. I either like the characters, actors, and actresses or I don't. If the narrative doesn't engage and ultimately take me to a better place – enlightenment, excitement, ecstasy – I'll just grumble for a while and go find a good book.

I have to put documentary food films in the same category. Like food books, there are way too many food films, many of which I willingly and unwillingly have sat through because I've become an obedient slave to the notion that pictures are the only way to get people to act or eat differently. Unfortunately, like many books out there, too many food flicks just don't satisfy my hunger for wisdom, insight, or entertainment. That is until I saw "Food Stamped," a tale of the charming Potash husband/wife filmmaking couple who turn the camera on themselves while taking on the challenge of eating healthfully and locally on a food stamp budget. They are funny, self-deprecating, and delightfully human in the way they stroll through the supermarket aisle, past farmers' market stands, and stand shoulder to shoulder in their own kitchen trying to make it all work.

So before this blog turns into a film review, let me urge you to give "Food Stamped" a chance. I think it will help you end up in a better place. Enjoy!

NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD! FOOD STAMPED is a first-person documentary on the challenge of eating healthy on a food stamp budget. Called ENTERTAINING, EDUCATIONAL, and INSPIRING by the San Francisco Chronicle, the film won the Grand Jury Prize at the San Francisco Independent Film Festival, has been featured on CNN Money, and was a recommended film for the first annual Food Day. Order your DVD today! http://www.facebook.com/l/ZAQGnOxElAQEt7xVyPV-SNwsUO7cowLDOFXLDsZbvTKTcKg/www.foodstamped.com/buy-the-dvd

On the Road

For the two weeks before Thanksgiving I was on the road spreading the word about good food. From the San Francisco Bay to the Delmarva Peninsula, from Boston to Bethesda, and Oklahoma to Iowa, I became the itinerant preacher thumping the bible for a just and sustainable food system. I met hundreds of blessed folk along the way, most already converted and no doubt bound for heaven, but some still firmly in the clutches of the devil's industrial food system. And like preachers everywhere, I tried to embrace them all – sinners as well as saints – in hopes that we all might find a healthy and tasty path to redemption.

Maryland's eastern shore is the heart of Big Chicken country. Here, Perdue and Tyson manage the devil's workshop where chickens come off the factory line looking like McNuggets with legs. Sharing a pulpit with Baltimore public radio host Marc Steiner, two local farmers, and another journalist, we showed Food, Inc. to a SRO crowd at Salisbury University. As someone who has seen the flick a dozen times, I was surprised that this was its first showing on the Eastern Shore. But I soon learned why. Not only were half the buildings and streets named after members of the Perdue family, rumor was that Perdue executives had asked the University to not screen the documentary. Not only do animals sometimes suffer at the hands of Big Ag, so does the First Amendment.

The audience was roughly divided between benighted representatives of the poultry industry and outspoken numbers of sustainable food advocates.  When the house lights came up, the feathers flew. The poultry people gave as good as they got, and absolutely nobody turned the other cheek. While I may rain fire and brimstone down on factory farming, there is a part of me that prays for a way to heal communities like Salisbury.

There was far less conflict in the liberal bastions of Bethesda and Boston. At the Cedar Lane Unitarian-Universalist Church I delivered a lecture to a large audience of metro-Washingtonian alternative food believers whose national denomination had recently adopted a statement of ethical eating. Though I was clearly preaching to the choir, it was heartening to know that hundreds of thousands of Unitarian-Universalists are united in the good food cause.

In Boston (more precisely Cambridge), I stood nervously before an assemblage of Harvard Law School students who had invited me to speak on local and state food policy. While addressing the future masters of the universe can be intimidating, they are just like students I encounter everywhere, in thrall to food and food issues. They have established the Harvard Food Law Clinic which is sending the best and the brightest to places like the Mississippi Delta to unravel ancient local food codes to better serve a bourgeoning local food movement.

Moving from the blue states to the red, I arrived in Oklahoma. My mission: enable 50 people who had been invited to a full-day workshop to establish a state food policy council. While not exactly a mission impossible, my hope for a positive outcome were severely shaken by some chilling remarks. One farmer complained about those "lazy housing project residents who won't work on my farm." I then overheard one redneck farmer warn a state legislator that the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) was the only way to deal with "invasive gov'mint regulations."  And I was firmly upbraided by one Oklahoma State University economics professor who told me that it was capitalism that should be thanked for making so much cheap, safe food available to Americans.

Iowa proved to be more fertile ground for progressive thinking. There, I had the opportunity to share some words at the one year anniversary meeting of the Iowa Food System's Council. The group is a newly formed non-profit organization that wants to ensure "that Iowa has a just and diverse food system, which supports healthier people, communities, economies and the environment." As I was signing books, however, I was confronted by a plant science professor from Iowa State University who wanted to make sure that I understood that GMOs, CAFOs, and agro-chemicals shouldn't be blamed for anything. I smiled, listened, and wondered to myself why, with all the energy across this great land of ours to build a new food system out of the shell of the old that the old guard continues to fight a rearguard action.

Admittedly, food justice and sustainability are still but a distant glow on the horizon for many. Those with a vested interest in the industrial food system retain a tenacious and sometimes hostile grip on the status quo. As the numbers of advocates for sustainable, local, and healthy food grow, so it seems does the gulf between us and them. Though this preacher has not yet found the words to mend the rift, I'm not ready to wall myself off from the world in my organic garden. Keep the faith!

Food Rebels Now Available in PaperBack

It's now cheaper, lighter, and more flexible, but one thing that hasn't changed about Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners, and Smart-Cookin' Mamas is its content. Just like the heavyweight hardcover version, it takes on the industrial food system, which, since the book's initial publication, hasn't grown any cheaper, lighter, or more flexible. And just like its nearly one pound predecessor, Food Rebels-lite celebrates food democracy, activism, and freedom, values not commonly associated with Big Food. 

If anything, the industrial food system has become as ornery as an old mule and angry as a penned up bull. We see it in the American Farm Bureau that has assembled a $30 million war chest to persuade our fellow citizens that factory farmed, genetically modified, and antibiotic-infused food is not only good for us, but necessary to feed a hungry world. We see it in the food industry's attempts to preempt local regulations (Cleveland) to ban trans-fats by reserving that right exclusively for the state (Ohio). And we see it in the actions of Wal-Mart and Pepsi who are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars on food charities to use them in the same way that terrorists use women and children to shield them from their attackers. The battle, in other words, is no longer only for healthy food, clean air and water, and a just and sustainable food system; it's now a fight for freedom and democracy.

Karla Cook, editor of The Food Times, said it well in a new blurb that adorns the paperback's backcover: "Mark Winne lays out the battle lines for democracy itself….Reasserting our control in the face of power, relearning skills that have atrophied, and rediscovering a triumphant kind of individualism that embraces both the self and community are the goals."

As I say in Food Rebels, the time has come to get our hands in the soil, our veggies on the chopping block, and our voices down at city hall. The time has come as well to occupy Wall Street, but you'd be remiss if you didn't also occupy your bookshelf with a copy of Food Rebels, Guerrilla Gardeners, and Smart-Cookin' Mamas.

Fall 2011 Appearances & Trainings

September 12 – Newark, New Jersey – one day food policy council training sponsored by Rutgers University. 1 Washington Street, Newark, NJ. For more information contact Xenia Morin at xmorin@SEBS.Rutgers.edu.

September 13 – Passaic County, New Jersey – half-day food policy council training (by invitation only) in Passaic County New Jersey. Exact location TBA. For more information contact Ucheoma Akobundu at ucheoma@unitedwaypassaic.org.

September 15 – Bloomington, Indiana – "America's Food System – A Cause for Concern, A Time for Action," a community lecture by Mark Winne at the Bloomington/Monroe County Convention Center – 7:00 PM. For more information contact Michael Simmons at simmonsm@bloomington.in.gov

September 20 – Buffalo, New York – food policy training workshop as part of local food summit followed by evening Food Rebels book event. For more information contact Jessie Hersher at jhersher@bnmc.org.

October 1 – New Orleans, Louisiana – "Hunger, Factory Farms, and GMOs: Where's the Rage?" a community lecture by Mark Winne. 5:00 PM. First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans, 2930 Jefferson Ave. (corner of South Claiborne). For more information contact Jyaphia Christos-Rodgers at jyaphia@aol.com or Cathy Cohen at cathynola@earthlink.net.

October 4 – Silver City, New Mexico – Evening talk by Mark Winne in conjunction with Grant County Food Policy Council Awards Banquet. For more information contact Andrea Sauer at asauer@grmc.org.

October 6 – Chicago, Illinois – Food Policy Council training and book signing with Mark Winne. For more information contact Lara Jaskiewicz at lara.jaskiewicz@phimc.org.

October 11 – Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut – afternoon panel on food, hunger, and sustainable farming with Mark Winne and Connecticut food system experts. For more information contact Caitlin Aylward at caylward@wesleyan.edu.

October 12 – Hartford, Connecticut – keynote for Hartford Food Policy Council awards banquet – For more information contact Gloria McAdam at gmcadam@foodshare.org.

October 13 – Old Saybrook, Connecticut – Keynote for food security forum at the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. This event is sponsored by the Rockfall Foundation. For more information contact Claire Rusowicz at crusowicz@rockfallfoundation.org.

October 14 – Olympia, Washington – 7:00 PM – Community lecture as part of community-wide food summit. For more information contact TJ Johnson at tjjohnson@scattercreek.com.

October 21 – University of Montana, Missoula, Montana – Keynote presentation as part of "Beyond the Breadbowl: Hunger, Excess, and the American Appetite." For more information contact Valerie Coulter at v.coultermt@gmail.com.

October 24 – Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana – 1:00 PM – public lecture by Mark Winne. For more information contact Alison Harmon at harmon@montana.edu.

October 27 – Peterborough, Ontario – 7:00 PM – lecture and panel discussion by Mark Winne for the Bring Food Home conference. For more information contact Ravenna Nuaimy-Barker at 641-348-0235

October 28 – Yale University – New Haven, Connecticut – Community lecture by Mark Winne. More details to be announced. For more information contact Susannah Albert-Chandhok at susannah.albert-chandhok@yale.edu.

November 10 – Chambersburg, Pennsylvania – Wilson College – Regional food system conference – Keynote address by Mark Winne. For more information contact Cheryl Burns at cburns@capitalrcd.org.

November 12 – Bethesda, Maryland – 2:00 PM – Mark Winne will deliver the Kiplinger Lecture at the Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church, 9601 Cedar Lane, Bethesda, Maryland. For more information contact Kenneth Jones at Kenneth.a.jones162.civ@mail.mil.

November 15 – Harvard Law School – Cambridge, Massachusetts – 12:00 noon – Mark Winne will address the Harvard Food Law Society. For more information contact Nate Rosenberg at nrosenberg@jd11.law.harvard.edu.

November 17 – Oklahoma City, Oklahoma – Food Policy Council training for the State of Oklahoma. For more information contact Jason Harvey at Jason.harvey@ag.ok.gov.

Troubled by Paradise

The rum-soaked beverage and balmy breeze were starting to erode my leftist resistance to luxury. Let's face it, sipping a Mai Tai from a beachfront terrace with a million-dollar view of Diamond Head will dull the edge of the most hardened class warrior. But just as I was slouching into vacation mode, I made the mistake of cracking open Sarah Vowell's Unfamiliar Fishes. With my second cocktail in one hand and her book in the other, I soon discovered the whole sordid tale of how Christian zealotry, political chicanery, and ruthless exploitation dropped the Hawaiian Islands into the laps of America's 19th century conquistadores.

Damn, just as I was starting to enjoy this place my social conscience kicked in!

Motivated – though somewhat reluctantly – to find Hawaii's contemporary oppressors, I accepted an invitation from Derrick Kiyabu to visit MA'O Organic Farm on the Oahu's west side. The drive took me past Honolulu's cheek-to-jowl ocean view condos and the Pearl Harbor Naval Base before the H1 Freeway deposited me onto Highway 93. This is the approximate place where the sign "Now Leaving Paradise, Welcome to Poverty" would be placed if tourist officials chose to acknowledge such things. But lacking most of what vacationers are looking for from a tropical getaway, the Wai'anae Coast, as it is commonly known, can only offer fast-food joints, scruffy commercial buildings, and residential housing that rival the worst of third-world Asia. I guess this is why the Lonely Planet guidebook refers to the region, almost quaintly, as "a little bit of Appalachia by the sea."

My pre-farm tour reached a crescendo when I happened by a homeless encampment cobbled together along a one-mile stretch of state beach. Late model cars – many rusted and in various states of disassembly – jerry-rigged shelters, and a mish mash of makeshift camping and cooking gear presented such a scene of utter destitution that even knuckle-dragging conservatives would advocate for immediate relief.

As I moved inland a couple of miles, the landscape and impressions changed. Small sections of dry, flat farmland intermingled with vast tracks of military land – securely fenced and sporting giant arrays of submarine-tracking sonar towers capable of detecting a flushing toilet in a Russian sub north of Okinawa. It is here though, amid palm and banana trees, that you'll find the peaceful acres of MA'O Organic Farms, armed with nothing more dangerous than wholesome organic produce and 40 or so farm interns between the ages of 17 and 24.

Like almost all the interns and staff, Derrick is wearing the farm's "No Panic, Go Organic" t-shirt. Noting some of the underlying principles of the program, he reminds me that "pre-contact" Hawaiians were 100% food self-reliant and that their traditional farming methods were totally organic. In a more pragmatic vein, he also explains the program's business model: "Organic produce generates the most revenue from our customers such as Whole Foods, numerous natural food stores, CSA members, and Honolulu's high-end restaurants." As a self-described social enterprise, the non-profit farm generates 40 percent of its million-dollar-plus annual budget from produce sales. This is how they support the youth development and leadership program that is at the core of farm's mission. Promoting food security in the surrounding region is secondary to the need to generate funds for instructional costs, community college tuition, and stipends for the workers.

Without a doubt, the produce is top-notch. The packing sheds – two retrofitted chicken coops – are filled with interns washing and packing perfect heads of green and white bok choy, glowing red radishes, and gorgeous greens. A big whiteboard lists all the customers and the number of units each will purchase that day. As the young people pack each order in MA'O Farms custom boxes and load them on to the refrigerated delivery truck, the pride is evident in their smiles; after all, they grew it, picked it, and packed it. From the sales revenue, they'll be paid a monthly stipend by it. Moreover, the produce will help send them to college.

But MA'O isn't just another scheme to reconnect kids to land, food, and a little income. According to Kamu Enos, MA'O's Social Entrepreneur Director, the farm is a training and leadership development program designed to overcome the poverty and social dysfunction that was so evident on my drive in. He tells me that "this region of Oahu has the highest concentration of native Hawaiians on all the Islands. We also have a 20% poverty rate, which is disproportionately higher for Hawaiians. Over 40% of our kids drop out of school and only 10% of our graduating high school class goes to college, and many of those leave during the first year." Derrick puts the problem more succinctly, "Our public education system has ripped off our kids."

When I noted the unusually high number of very heavy people I saw in Wai'anae, Kamu explained that, like other Native American communities, the ravages of Spam, loss of land, and the decline of traditional practices have taken their toll on peoples' bodies as well as their souls.  In what might be called the second wave of white man's disease (the first, as Sarah Vowell makes clear, was the 19th century smallpox and measles epidemics brought by missionaries and seamen that reduced the native Hawaiian population from 300,000 to 40,000), the American fast-food diet and the paucity of fresh fruits and vegetables are degrading the community's health. "The root problem," said Kamu, "is the disconnect between our land, people, and economy. Instead [of controlling these things], we exist under the predatory practices of the military." Not only does the Defense Department control most of the land in the region, military recruiters find local Hawaiians easy targets for enlistment because good civilian job opportunities are so few.

Getting control of land, especially for farming, is a daunting challenge for Hawaiians – there's not much affordable, arable land that developers don't already have their mitts on.  But sugar daddies do show up, and they are not always the kind that operated sugar cane plantations. In MA'O Organic Farms' case, the sweet guy is none other than Pierre Omidyar, founder of E-Bay. He generously dropped a cool million on the program, which, with assistance from the Trust for Public Land, bought the 11 acres that are now the heart of the farm.

Pua, 21, is a MA'O youth leader and the first member of her family to go to college. She recently received her associate degree from Leeward Community College and is scheduled to start at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in August. She tells me that high school didn't prepare her for college, but with her mother's encouragement and MA'O's help – counseling, remedial instruction, and peer support – she's climbed some pretty steep personal cliffs and is now ready for bigger challenges. While she's not likely to pursue farming as a career she credits the farm program with giving her the emotional tools she needed to succeed. "The farm experience is an inspiration. Like college, it's hard work. The farm grounds you because you have to manage your time, you have to work as a team with others to succeed, and you have to face the consequences of your actions."

For other young people like Pua, the path out of poverty starts with a walk down the farm's vegetable rows. Many start to eat better and lose weight. Kainoa is one youth worker who actually lost 130 pounds by exercising and changing his diet. But what the program cultivates even more than the farm's well composted soil is the interns' state of mind. Disempowered, brought up with low expectations, some homeless, they were staring at a future that promised little but a swift descent into diabetes and a life in the unemployment line. Now the steps out of poverty are more visible.

To grow and sell a half-million dollars of organic fruits and vegetables every year is no small feat. But to raise dozens of young leaders who can challenge the dominance of the condo kings and restore the economic and physical health of their people would no doubt bring a smile to the ancient kings and queens of Hawaii.

Where's the Rage?

Dan and Isabelle sit patiently on the folding metal chairs in the tastefully decorated waiting room of Seattle's Ballard Food Bank. Intelligent, soft-spoken, and in his late 50s, Dan is a chronically underemployed architectural draftsman who barely managed to eke out three days of temporary work over the past week. His unemployment benefits have long since evaporated and he's thinking about applying for food stamps, although he cringes as the words leave his mouth. With his shrunken income dedicated to keeping a roof over his head, he and Isabelle are two among 1,200 or so neighborhood residents who will request a shopping cart-full of food this week at the food bank.

Peggy Bailey, Ballard's Operation Manager, is one of those dedicated, unflappable souls whose work holds the lives of others together as the larger universe spins out of control. Her recitation of statistics is the "growth" story that you'll hear from any of the 60,000 emergency food sites across America. "In 2001 we were serving about 350 people per week; four years ago it was 450; now we're serving between 1,100 and 1,200." Peggy escorts me past tattooed skateboarders, young women clutching babies, and unshaven men for whom a good night is a dry patch of grass underneath a bridge.

Like all the 25 volunteers (out of a total of 100) on hand this day – good neighbors who keep the flow of people safe and dignified – Peggy beams with pride over the food, large walk-in refrigerators, and the recently retrofitted 6,200-square-foot machine shop that's been their new home for only a year (after relocating from their cramped, dilapidated home of nearly 40 years). Almost half of the available food is produce, some of which comes from nearby Pea Patch community gardens and local fruit tree gleaners. An abundant supply of artisan bread, fresh dairy products, and even enough frozen meat to give each person two packages, fill the shelves. Not only can you select from a rather remarkable range of products: e.g. microwaveable entrees that retail for $9.00 at Trader Joes, there's also a "no-cook" section that, in an average month, serves 350 people without kitchens. In addition, nearly 100 bags are assembled and delivered weekly to shut-ins and people with special dietary needs.

Unlike food banks in days of yore, Ballard does more than give away food. If you don't have a permanent address, they'll act as your personal post office box, a service currently used by 480 people. Case workers from the Department of Social and Health Services try to connect food bank users with SNAP (food stamps) as well as medical and dental services. Need help paying your rent or electrical bill? You can apply for a $300 voucher for the former and $200 voucher for the latter.

When I asked Peggy how she keeps up with the demand for food, she told me, almost blithely, that enough food was not a problem. In a comment that would make her the envy of every food bank worker in America, she said, "We've never had to turn anyone away due to lack of food. This is a very generous community. We have Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Safeway and dozens of other food donors." While supporting five paid staff, three trucks, and a good-size modern facility, the food bank gets 95% of its operating funds from private donations, receiving only $40,000 per year from Seattle city government. One anonymous individual, for instance, gives the Ballard Food Bank $2,000 each month just to buy fresh dairy products.

In contrast to the generosity of the surrounding neighborhoods, you have the U.S. House of Representatives. If the miracles that these Seattle residents pull off every day make Christ's feeding of the 5,000 look like a cheap card trick, the House majority's proposal to slash $3 billion from SNAP, WIC, and TEFAP makes Scrooge look like a Salvation Army volunteer. At a time when the nation's economy is still on life support and when a record 43 million Americans are receiving food stamps, the House Republicans want to hack the safety net with a machete while leaving the silver cutlery of hedge fund operators untarnished. Take from the poor, but don't touch a dime of the rich.

Ballard is a human-scale urban environment whose sloping landscape gently lowers you to the shores of the Puget Sound. On street corners, food bank volunteers greet the homeless people by name, who, in turn, respond in a friendly manner, pleased that there are people who don't avert their eyes. Stroll a few blocks north of Market Street, and you'll come to a lovely park where grassy slopes and park benches are populated by homeless men catching a ray or two of Seattle's stingy sunlight. In the opposite corner is a small skateboard tunnel where young dudes, hat brims cocked at precise angles, practice their chutes and curls. Between the skaters and the homeless are several fountains that spray giggling toddlers cheered on by happy moms.

The park reflects Ballard's values: there's room for everybody, diversity is encouraged, and the community does its darnedest to meet everyone's needs. But, beneath this cloak of tolerance, there is a creeping sense that there may be limits to what any group of caring people can do. Perhaps it's symbolized by the police cruiser stationed just across the street from the "homeless end" of the park. Maybe you hear it in the voices of the young men at the food pantry who were too ashamed to give me their names, but did say that in spite of a couple of years of college they couldn't find jobs. "We're not trained for anything." Or perhaps you can smell it on the breath of the middle-aged drunken man, who according to Peggy had been "doing so well up until now."

If the House Republicans have their way, the Ballard Food Bank's waiting room could very well become so crowded that the smiling volunteers will be replaced by stern-faced security guards. When I asked John, an 87-year old food bank volunteer of 12 years, what he thought was behind the ever rising number of clients, he said emphatically, "It's all about the economy. I see how embarrassed people are who are asking for help, but you can either sleep on the street or come to the food bank." One has to ask if that is the vision that the budget cutting, non-taxing conservative minority have for America. If that is true, and every statement from the Republican leadership seems to suggest that it is, then one has to ask where the rage is at this time in our nation's history.

How big must food banks get to contain the ever-swelling legions of un- and underemployed workers? How much food will Ballard's neighborhood grocers have to donate to ensure that all the young mothers can feed themselves as well as their babies? Is there indeed a tipping point when community compassion can no longer clean up the mess made by mean-spirited politicians who avert their eyes from the growing victims of a failed American dream?

Evelyn, 87, has been volunteering at the Ballard Food Bank for 15 years, longer than anyone else. She's a feisty, retired machinist who worked for a Boeing Aircraft subcontractor. Sitting at a table where she was sorting nuts into small plastic bags for the home delivery sacks, Evelyn shared the most commonly expressed reason for volunteering at food banks. "If you've been blessed, you have to give back." Yes, I said, I'd heard that sentiment from many people in the emergency food world, but I wondered if there wasn't something else. At that point the fiery machinist union member took over from the charitable grandmother. Growing up during the Great Depression on a Minnesota farm, she did not need the reason for rage explained to her. "Things have to change in this country," she said, eyes narrowing and pronouncing each syllable more distinctly. "The idea of not taxing the rich is ridiculous. We have to stop farm and oil subsidies. We got to get politicians to care about people all the time, not just when they're trying to get elected."

Compassion and "giving back" may not be sustainable when one class of Americans lives under the House Republicans' Golden Fleece, while bourgeoning flocks find shelter under highway overpasses. So that compassion may live, we must sometimes release the rage.