“When just five people call, we know we need to pay more attention.”

Hunger is not just present in Georgia, it is now prevalent.  New county by county data released Monday by Feeding America reveals that almost 2 million Georgians are food insecure – meaning that at some point in the year they do not have access to enough nutritious food to live a healthy, productive lifestyle.  That’s 20% of our neighbors, coworkers, congregants, family and friends who regularly face the uncertainty of knowing where their next meal will come from.  

I admit that my initial motivation for seeing the documentary A Place at the Table stemmed from competition and curiosity rather than compassion. My third novel, published June 4, is also called A Place at the Table, though it’s a story about metaphorical rather than literal hunger. Still, I worried that this same-named documentary would overshadow my book. But within five minutes of watching the film, I saw that the human stories illuminated in it are far more important than my pre-publication fretting.

We are writing with an update on one of the most important pieces of legislation affecting low-income families and food insecure households in Georgia – the Farm Bill.  The Farm Bill guides funding for federal farm and food policies, and this includes the Food Stamp/SNAP program and The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), two vital pieces of legislation for food banks and those we serve.  The Farm Bill is reauthorized every five years, and is now making its way through the House and Senate.