Working across generations to end hunger statewide
Hunger is a key concern in New Mexico. One in six New Mexicans (1 in 4 children and 1 in 8 older adults) does not know where they will get their next meal. The community foundation is addressing this important problem through New Mexico Experience Dividend: People Over 55 Working Across Generations to Reduce Hunger Around Our State. This initiative promotes intergenerational civic engagement of elders in service and advocacy for the purpose of reducing hunger.
An 18-month planning process tested proposed and existing programs, work with advocacy groups, and established “ending hunger funds.” The objective of the planning was to develop an effective implementation phase involving a public-private partnership including New Mexico community foundations, nonprofits and state/local governments in a multi-year effort to reduce hunger in the state.
Outcomes of the planning include:
- collaborating with at least four intergenerational civic engagement service projects around hunger
- working with a statewide advocacy effort involving older adults in policy work linking New Mexico farms’ fresh produce to schools, rural and underserved food outlets, as well as reducing hunger through more allocation from USDA food programs
- establishing at least four “Funds for Ending Hunger” with New Mexico community foundations to be built over multiple years to sustain the intergenerational civic engagement service
As a result of the Community Experience Partnership assessment study, the New Mexico Community Foundation began engaging fellow community foundations around the state in a process to identify innovative and sustainable interventions that tapped elders as key resources.
The New Mexico Plan to End Hunger was one of the dozen programs identified in the assessment study as a possibility for developing a statewide intergenerational civic engagement process. Five general goals guide the New Mexico Plan to End Hunger:
- Eliminate childhood hunger
- Provide adequate healthy food for seniors
- Improve access to food in rural and underserved communities
- Gain full participation in public food assistance programs
- Generate pervasive awareness of hunger
Intergenerational lunches and gardening
The Plan to End Hunger specifically explores reducing hunger over the summer months, particularly for children. This is the case because children are not in school receiving free USDA meals. A successful intergenerational pilot program that involved two partner community foundations was tested over a summer. This pilot project engaged adults 55 and older with children and youth (age 0-18). The program linked the sites to free USDA-provided breakfast and lunch and provided private funding for community gardens and food packed in bags each weekend for children and their families.
Part of this summer program involved feeding elders lunch as they volunteered to work with children in community gardens, and identifying other elders who might benefit from receiving a “senior supplemental pack of food.” The community foundation has expanded the program, especially to the specific communities the assessment study uncovered as promising places for the initiative.
Plenty of partners
Currently there are over 70 private and public sector partners that have formed a collaboration and are all working on goals in the New Mexico Plan to End Hunger, including New Mexico Community Foundation, McCune Foundation, PNM Resources Foundation, Albuquerque Community Foundation, New Mexico Public Education Department, New Mexico Children, Youth & Families Department, New Mexico Human Services Department, Farm to Table, New Mexico Tribal Extension Task Force, Food Research and Action Center and other New Mexico community foundations, nonprofits and state agencies
Looking ahead
This intergenerational approach fits New Mexico’s rich, diverse culture. The community foundation hopes to deepen the state’s commitment to changing perceptions of older adults into one that views the aging population as a vital community resource. In this way it believes programs and strategies may be developed, tested, and disseminated that utilize elders to address priority community problems and needs.
The community foundation also seeks to develop functional and sustained philanthropic partnerships with other U.S. community foundations and their partners to begin the process of changing attitudes regarding older adults from a deficit-based to asset-based approach.
