Community Corner

Hunger: A Rising Rockland Problem

The Hunger Summit results by People to People were released yesterday

Yesterday, County Executive Scott Vanderhoef and Director of People to People Diane Serratore held a press conference to announce their Hunger Summit Findings and what's coming up next in their plans.

People to People, a non-profit organization that helps those struggling in Rockland County put food on their tables, school supplies in their back packs and clothes in their closets.

As Rockland's largest food pantry, they released their People to People Hunger Summit Summary yesterday and Vanderhoef announced that the county will partner with this organization to come up with a plan focusing on hunger in Rockland.

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"In order for us to be prepared for enough food, we need to know who's being served on a regular basis and how much food ultimately is needed in these food pantries," said Vanderhoef. ".And everybody's heart is in the right place. The question is getting better organized so we actually get to everyone." He also said that there are many small food collections around the county run by small pantries, religious institutions and non-profits. He and Serratore want to combine the efforts of all these groups and get everyone on the same page throughout the county to hopefully battle Rockland hunger more efficiently.

With October being hunger awareness month, this is the right time for Vanderhoef to help bring more awareness and "to spearhead efforts to address this issue," said Joe Allen, People to People Board of Directors President and Senior Vice President of Active International.

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No one food pantry can provide enough food for everyone," said Allen. "We don't know where all these people that need food actually are … we have a system that's relatively inefficient right now in terms of how we're serving everybody. Part of why we did the Hunger Summit was to actually find out what we have and now we'll go forward in getting down deeper into the real nitty gritty of it to see where we have to go."

"We've observed hunger to be increasing. We've had 85 new families come to us in Sept and already more than 100 new families have come to us for help in October," said Serratore, executive director at People to People. "And that's just frightening."

Here are some quick stats about the hunger issues in Rockland:

  • 49 Million people in the U.S. lived in "food insecure" households in 2008. That's 15 percent of the population and includes 16 million children. That's an increase of 11 percent over 2007.
  • Using these statistics as a base point, there are between 33,000 – 45,000 Rocklanders who are food insecure.
  • In New York, 2.7 million people live in poverty.
  • In Rockland, one in five children lives in poverty.
  • In Rockland, the number of people getting food stamps has gone up 46 percent over the last two years
  • There are currently 35,000 residents in Rockland that get food stamps.
  • People to People had 85 new families come for help in September.
  • People to People had over 100 new families come for help so far in October.

Also at the press conference was Susan Sherwood from the Rockland County's Department of Social Services, which has seen a large increase in need.

"We currently have a Supplementary Nutritional Assistance Program, that's SNAP, used to be called food stamps … Some of the stigma of the old food stamp program is gone," said Sherwood. "It's now on an electronic benefits card that's more acceptable at more retailers … Food stamps bring in about $15 million to this county."

For more information, contact Diane Serratore at 845-623-4913 or Diane@PeopleToPeopleInc.org


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