Members: Emilie Crimmins, Tyra Pham, Geraldine Garces, Bryce McKee, Ellie Mavludova, Dang “Alastor” Nguyen
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Many people in Washington cannot afford to eat three meals a day. They have a house, bills to pay, a car payment, and in most cases children to support. These families are faced with economic insecurity because of the numerous expenses they must pay. Individuals are forced to choose their priorities and what they will spend their money on. Food banks provide food to families who do not have enough money to buy food themselves. Experiencing or having these problems can make people realize how they can help others in need by working at the food bank or providing any kind of assistance to those who are struggling with food-related concerns.This is why our group worked at the Auburn Food Bank, for us to provide a way to assist individuals in need.
In Washington alone, an average of 8.3% of families lived with food insecurity between 2020 and 2022 compared to 7.9% from 2019 and 2021. With over 7 million citizens in Washington, that translates to almost 650,000 households from 2020 to 2022. This number has gotten worse during the pandemic from 1.1 million to 1.6 million according to an interview with Coleman, a spokesperson for Food Lifeline (Clarridge, Peck, & Beheraj, 2023). When we zoom out and look at the bigger picture, the problems become more apparent. More than 44 million people are living in households with food insecurity, and more than 33 million people in the previous year. A quarter of children in those families, roughly 13 million children, experience everyday hunger according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. USDA also found that 7 million households were tight on budget in 2021 that they had to skip meals because they didn’t have enough food for everyone (Godoy, 2023).
The solution criteria for the Small Wins group project is that it must be the achievement of a goal or task consistent with the definition of a group from our text. That is, the project includes three or more people interacting who both influence and are influenced by one another. (Rothwell, 2019, p. 24). The Small Wins project must include a community service component, with our group determining what is both our “community” and who is being “served.” However, the project must have an actionable activity that is conducted by all the members. Further, the project must be accomplished within the provided timeline of four weeks, along with required documentation and support as described in the assignment. Lastly, the project needs to be consistent with Green River College’s guidelines for the safety and security of students during the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the many global challenges we face today is world hunger. A few solutions that are often talked about when the conversation of world hunger pops up are investing in farms, climate-smart agriculture, and improving access to markets. These solutions are often not accessible to the average person so doing smaller solutions such as donating food, volunteering at a food bank, supporting businesses that give back to the community are all small tasks. Although they may not completely solve the world hunger issue they do at least help our community around us who are struggling with food insecurity.
We volunteered at the Auburn food bank on Monday 4, for a little over an hour. When we first got there, the solution implementation was to understand the specific volunteer needs at the Auburn food bank. For example, determining the task and roles that need or could be filled by each person in our group. Each person had a specific role to fill and we had to ensure that everyone was doing each role accordingly. In addition, we needed to confirm that we were pointing the people in need in the right direction and ask those in charge of the food bank if we were doing our jobs correctly.
In conclusion, our small wins group project was a success. While volunteering some of our tasks included restocking shelves, loading carts, and stocking empty crates from the new shipment. We learned a lot about the services food banks provide to people in need. Food banks exist to help provide food to people who are experiencing food insecurities. They help ensure that everyone has access to nutritious meals. Food banks rely on donations and volunteers to make their mission possible. References:
Clarridge, C., Peck, E., & Beheraj, K. (2023, December 5). Food insecurity is rising in Washington State, new report shows. axios.com https://www.axios.com/local/seattle/2023/12/05/food-insecurity-rate-washington-increase
Godoy, M. (2023, October 26). Millions of American families struggle to get food on the table, report finds. NPR. https://www.npr.org
Rothwell, J.D. (2019). Distributive leadership: Sharing functions. Chapter 7: Group Leadership [pp. 188-189]. In mixed company: Communicating in small groups and teams. Oxford University Press.
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