White House to hold 1st Hunger Conference since Nixon administration, thanks for McGovern

WORCESTER — Next month, the White House will hold its first Hunger Conference since the Nixon administration half a century ago, at the urging of U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern in his capacity as Rules Committee chairman.

The previous conference gave the country a number of essential safety-net programs that endure to this day, including the modern SNAP benefits, and McGovern is looking to make improvements on a similar scale.

“Problem with that conference, as good as it was, was that most of the people there looked like me,” said McGovern, D-Worcester. “There wasn’t a representation of the diversity of this country.”

The White House Hunger Conference, the date of which has not yet been determined, is intended to correct this by drawing on the experiences of those who have lived experiences of using food programs.

“They can tell lawmakers what works and what doesn’t work,” said McGovern.

To better gather this feedback, the Task Force on Food Security in Worcester gathered Wednesday morning at Belmont A.M.E. Zion Church to discuss the challenges and responses to food security in the city, along with elected officials including McGovern, state Rep. David LeBoeuf and state Sens. Harriette L. Chandler, D-Worcester, and Michael Moore, D-Millbury.

The task force is a coalition of faith-based groups, nonprofit organizations and funders that inform elected officials at the ground level to drive policy change regarding hunger. “All of us gather biweekly to discuss what are the issues that our city is seeing, how can we tackle them and how do we work with our elected officials so they can pass policies to support the work that we’re trying to do,” said Gina Plata-Nino, task force co-chair, who helped organize Wednesday’s event.

“Something I have learned is that (food security) is not just SNAP, not just housing, it’s not just health care,” said McGovern. “It’s all of that plus 100 other things.”

To focus on only one of those aspects, without making the larger connections, he said, “is just managing and not alleviating the problem.” The goal is to build what McGovern referred to as a more inclusive and responsive food system, based on recommendations from task force members and the communities they represent.

'Dignity of choice'

"Dignity of choice' was a theme that resurfaced throughout the event, which called for a reimagining of food pantries with programs such as Daily Table, which allows people to shop for their own food but at dramatically reduced prices, as well as strengthening partnerships with local restaurants, especially minority-owned businesses.

Sometimes the food may be available, but getting to it is another matter.

“We need to help people access food more easily,” said McGovern. “There are still neighborhoods where people don’t have access to fresh produce.”

Possible solutions to the access issue include expanding innovative food-delivery models to reach more people, he said, as well as investments in infrastructure such as public transport to improve food access. To this end, he said, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg will also be part of the White House conference.

While the pandemic has exacerbated existing food-security issues as well as created new ones, McGovern commented that it did teach us the power of collaboration when organizations and agencies work collectively, as community groups make their members aware of much-needed resources from state and federal agencies.

“Hunger is a political condition,” said McGovern. “We have the resources, we have the food, we have the brain power, we have the models that work. What we lack is the political will.”

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: White House to hold 1st Hunger Conference since Nixon administration, thanks for McGovern