Customer Reviews

Sweet Charity?: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

Ever felt that you want to help out in the world? Ever felt that you didn't know how? Ever felt you did know how, but it still didn't feel right? Anyone who has experienced these dilemmas should read Poppendieck's stream of thoughts and conversations, collected together in `Sweet Charity.' Subtitled `Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement,' it takes us through the practicalities and realities, and the rights and the wrongs of the movement to feed hungry people in the United States. A country of abundance and plenty, the apparent paradox of hunger is not lost on most of us. Poppendieck takes us into this contradiction and pushes hard to understand it. Take the introduction. The Good King Wenceslas carol is used to present a movement, a movement to feed the poor and hungry of America. But soon enough we find ourselves faced with a question: do these food banks and food pantries, these rescue operations, these places known collectively as `the emergency food system,' make our society kinder but less just? Does the kindness of Wenceslas betray those who believe in a long-term vision of economic justice? Poppendieck, Professor of Sociology at Hunter College in New York, has worked in charitable organizations herself, helping those who have problems accessing food. This is not an anti-charity book. Rather, it is a book that questions what charity should be, what we should do, and, most of all, what the government must understand. "Charity for all" opens the book with a picture of charity as recreation, down in New Jersey, the Boy Scouts of America sorting through food. It's early Thursday morning in chapter two, this time in Yorkville, NYC, where the newly unemployed jam into a food pantry. Then it's onto Cleveland, Ohio, in chapter three, where unemployment has transformed steel into rust. Then later, to Maine and California, Texas and Illinois, Pennsylvania and Kansas, all images of helping the hungry. So it goes. Poppendieck has been around in her attempts to unravel the `second tier' of food distribution in the USA. And this is what her travels told. That emergency food has seven deadly `ins': insufficiency, inappropriateness, nutritional inadequacy, instability, inaccessibility, inefficiency and indignity. This septet is used as a framework to clarify the problems of the emergency food system. At the core is the belief that hunger should not exist in America and that dealing with it through ad hoc private sector schemes, however well-meaning, is simply not good enough. But through this comes the author's sometimes disorienting perception that those who work with emergency food are as much confused as the rest of us. And that, in the main, these people are good people. Janet Poppendieck's great strength is to place the individual in a moral dilemma while at the same time pushing us into a community, a society, wherein the solution lies: "a powerful movement for justice and equality." And she allows us to reflect upon what many might have thought but never said: that "emergency food actually contributes to the problem it tries to solve." Readable and sympathetic, `Sweet charity' allows us all the freedom to reflect on society, justice, and the politics of hunger. This book offers much for thinkers, carers and activists alike.

This book treats the emergency food system with fairness and offeres a balanced view of the strengths and weaknesses of the national shift toward in-kind food relief. The author does a wonderful job of exposing the problems with institutionalizing "emergency" food programs, while governmental agencies weaken the safety net for the poor. In addition to excellent ethnographic work, the author adds a number of nuggets of historical data to build context and meaning. A must read for those hungry for explainations as to why government had abandoned the needy and ignored the structural problems that produce what the author terms "food insecurity."

The author truly educated me about a topic I thought I was knowledgeable about. She managed to weave in her personal experiences working in a soup kitchen, her concern for those who are hungry, a profound respect for the other pantry and soup kitchen volunteers and donors with a cutting analysis of the politics and economics of hunger. That's a mightly long sentence that says this is a well-written, full and balanced report on a subject of great national concern. Before you give that jar of spaghetti sauce to the food drive or rush down to ladle beef stew onto the plates of the poor, take five minutes and skim this book. I am convinced that you will decide you must read the entire book and then rethink what you should be doing to help eliminate hunger here in the richest country in the world.

In "Sweet Charity" Janet provides us with a critical look at emergency feeding systems in the United States. This is not to say she disagrees with its existence, but through a comprehensive analysis, states that the proliferation of food banks, pantries and soup kitchens points to a real problem with hunger in what is a very wealthy nation by world standards. She further challenges that for hunger to end government MUST get and stay involved in a significant way. While food banking in this country has exploded and the incredible network of primarily volunteer driven emergency feeding programs on the front line have done and continue to do a great job, it simply is not enough. As the director of a food bank myself, it is not hard to initiallly be frustrated by Janet's review but after further reflection and reading you come to realize that she is not against emergency feeding, she is simply saying the immense growth of this industry points to a larger concern and the continued proliferation seems to support futher abdication of the government's role and responsibility. Janet also provides insight into volunteerism and the ways in which we "feed" our own "moral hunger" to serve those who are less fortunate. You will be challenged I think by her review here as well. Janet's research is based upon actual one on one interviews with all the various people involved in emergency feeding. She got her "hands dirty" to see what is really going on and gained insight into what people "on the front lines" are thinking. This book will make you think and think some more about hunger in our country.

Janet Poppendieck's thoroughly researched book, Sweet Charity: Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement, deserves its reputation as the "hot" book among those who work in hunger advocacy. Janet pricks our conscience; she helps us see that direct food relief, alone, is not the answer. It may make us feel better to hand a bag of food to a hungry person on Sunday, but what will happen on Monday? The private sector has institutionalized emergency relief; not only has this not adequately helped those who live at the edge of hunger because they lack the money for sufficient food, but it has allowed us to believe we have solved the hunger problem. By gleaning fruit, participating in food drives and serving in soup kitchens, we have allowed ourselves to be taken "off the hook," and we haven't assumed responsibility for the larger issue of advocacy for systemic social change and the role government must play. Ending hunger in this country will take a multi-pronged approach. Ms. Poppendieck's book pushes us to go beyond the simple solutions and become advocates for those whose voice has not been heard.

Even though the book was written several years ago, it still has a lot of information that is relevant to today. A great read!

After reading this book and having worked at a food pantry for a couple of years, my first thought was, "Is the problem of hunger in America, or anywhere for that matter, solveable? I have concluded that it is not a solveable problem, only a manageable one. 90 percent of the patrons of the food pantry I work at are drunks and drug addicts. Many show up completely drunk or strung out on meth. Bear in mind that I have great sympathy for ANYONE who is in need of food. But due to the nature of addiction, I don't believe the problem is solveable in terms of more government handouts. The issue of indignity is nearly a non-issue. Our patrons return day after day, year after year. Everyone is served cheerfully and with great respect. Are we enabling the addictions to continue? Absolutely. Is there an alternative? No.

No adult is ENTITLED to be fed as the food stamp program with its debit cards allows users to pretend. Receiving free food is a hand out. Pretending otherwise is a dis-service to those served and a farce. Having said that, I believe whole-heartedly in charity - not entitlements. And there is no shame in receiving charity as revealed to all in the bible. But should people be encouraged to believe that by virtue of being born this, the richest country of the world, that they are ENTITLED to be fed? Of course not.

The book covered many of the issues of hunger and charity but it was slanted toward the view that "charity is inefficient and undignified" and "entitlements such as larger food stamp allotments are efficient and dignified". The author kept coming back to her point that the real beneficiaries of pantries, kitchens and gleaning are the volunteers in terms of socializing, exercise, feeling good about helping others, learning to be thankful for what one has, etc.. I beg to differ with that opinion. Of course the volunteers benefit but the volunteers are not stupid people. They can see the benefits of their works and would not volunteer if they believed that their work only relieved the government from its duty to feed everyone. I gave the book four stars for covering the history of food charity and entitlements as well as extensive quotes of those within the industry. The book is very well-written and is thought-provoking.

The item was as represented and arrived promptly.

Sweet Charity is a thinly veiled cover-up for the many middle and upper class people benefitting from the "hunger" scandal wherein billions of dollars that could and should be spent on poor people are instead wasted on staff, buildings, refrigerators and trucks -- the whole food bank and soup kitchen nine yards. When added to for-profit agribusiness interests whose garbage is dumped into this system for tax deductions and at taxpayers' expense, the "food" element of the larger poverty industry makes sense. This book won't tell you that the food banks and soup kitchens often receive legal "kickbacks" via tax-deducted charitable "grants" from the likes of Procter and Gambol and other giant corporations. If you want the real scoop on another of agribusiness' dirty secrets, read something else. If you don't mind getting hoodwinked, go shopping.