Building Community Addresses Food Security

YORK, Neb. – Jacob Owens – Executive Director of the York County Health Coalition (YCHC), stands next to “The Little Free Food Pantry.”?Small, but mighty, these mini pantries are free and accessible for those that need them.

“We check them often and we almost never see the same food that was there before,” he began. “We know they are being used and restocked by members of the community.”?

The YCHC report:?Food Insecurity in York County, Neb. concludes that last year one out of three people in the county reported worrying they wouldn’t have enough money for food. Forty percent of the community reported knowing someone who did not have enough food and 73 percent of York County residents reported not knowing where to find services to help with food vulnerabilities.

“We hosted a meeting in September where we had a great cross section of community leaders and community members. We identified really quickly there are many resources in the area to deal with food insecurity, but not the information for people to access it,” he explained. ?

It’s also about creating awareness and acceptance by the greater public that the hunger issue actually exists, he explained, “It’s deeply personal for me. I was raised in a home where we weren’t always sure where the food was coming from. My mom worked about 50 to 60 hours to make ends meet. It was just my mom, brother, and me. There were a lot of touch and go times as a kid. Church really saved our family and that drew me into the human services field and led me to the work I am doing today.”

“The community around families can make the biggest difference and in that is the need for people to know and admit the problem exists,” Owens went on. “Sometimes our biggest barrier at the coalition are well-intentioned people who will say there is not poverty in York County. Poverty can look like many things. It can be a mom working 60-hours a week scared to ask for extra help. It’s a family that thought everything was under control and then was put down with COVID for a month and depleted their savings. Poverty is so many things, sometimes it can even be generational.”

“That’s where community becomes so important,” Owens went on. “People are often disconnected and simply don’t have the support they need in this culture. It takes a lot to live. Look at even the cost of childcare for a family. Oftentimes families can’t justify two incomes when one is going entirely to childcare. We have to understand what people are facing.”?

“People come to us, and they often do not have a network around them in their day to day lives,” he further explained. “We want to help them find their network and thread services together so they can make more community connections. If a neighbor knows a family is struggling, they can offer a meal one night a week to help things stretch the rest of the week. We just want to create more understanding and connectedness amongst neighbors.” ?

“I want everyone to experience the York that I have been able to experience for my family. I want people to have five or six people in the community that they truly connect with and can be there for them in an emergency or to help watch the kids if they need help,” Owens said in closing. “We need everyone at the table to help solves these issues because they are deeper than just access to food.”

To learn more visit:

www.yorkcountyhealthcoalition.com

www.facebook.com/YorkCountyHealthCoalition/

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