NYU Hunger Action Series 2018

January 4, 2018

Vision

Two weeks of coordinated, action oriented events where student organizations and administrative departments support each others' efforts to end food insecurity and empower new students to join the cause.

Action Oriented

If you describe a beautiful home to a student, they might just nod and smile. If you help them place the first brick, they'll want to finish the rest.

Every event in the series will have an action component, where participants can affect change with their own hands and hearts. Some events will be heavily focused on action, such as reseeding a community garden. Other events will end with a smaller ask: sharing a social media post or taking a survey.

Regardless, the message is the same: here is your first step.

Defining Hunger and Food Insecurity

The popular perception of hunger is roughly this: stomach pains, empty refridgerators, and sluggish thoughts. However, there are several gradients before someone reaches that state. This is called food insecurity and can consist of one or more of the following:

  • Eating smaller portions or skipping meals to save money
  • Eating lower quality food than you want to in order to save money
  • Inability to afford a balanced meal
  • Worrying if you'll run out of food before you can afford more

You can be food insecure without being hungry and the effects can still be devestating. We only use the word Hunger in our promotional material because it has widespread recognition; as the general public better understands the issue, we will switch over to the more accurate label: food insecurity.

Defining Efforts

Food insecurity is such a pervasive problem that we need a diverse set of skills and partners to eradicate it. A sample of solutions include:

  • Reducing waste, increasing efficiency at the farm, transportation, retail, and consumer level
  • Providing nutritional and culinary education in childhood, early adulthood, and parenthood
  • Simply giving out meals
  • Disseminating information about resources, classes, and opportunities
  • Making healthy food cheaper and more accessible

Who's Participating

  • HackNYU - New York University's annual global hackathon, drawing 600+ participants from around the world. Organizers will make sure that any leftover food will be posted on the Share Meals app to reduce food waste
  • Share Meals - Student run national organization dedicated to ending college hunger. They will be holding a colloquium where they will share their findings and experiences after attending the Universities Fighting World Hunger International Summit 2018
  • NYU Leadership Initiative - A group of students will be hosting TEDx style discussion panel, inviting leaders in the food insecurity space to share their work and empower students to participate
  • Design for America NYU - Students use Human-Centered Design to tackle local social issues to develop solutions that have impact locally and globally
  • Net Impact Collaborative Experience - Business students will offer a consulting workshop with a local hunger related student startup
  • We are the New Farmers - A team of NYU engineering students working on achievable, urban vertical farming
  • CMEP Just Poetry Workshop Series - Students are invited to a writing workshop surrounding the experience of food insecurity and how best to represent it through language and art
  • NYU DC Campus - Day of service organized by the community service team of the student congress

This list is constantly growing and updating

How Can You Join?

  1. Hold an action oriented event about hunger between March 26, 2018 and April 8, 2018.

    1. Check this spreadsheet first to see when & where other organizations are holding their event: spreadsheet link
    2. Use this form to submit the details for your event: form link
  2. Send over your promotional material and participate in cross promotion with all the other events.
  3. Do awesome things. Empower others to do awesome things.

Support

In addition to cross promotion, there may be enough resources to help fund your event. This is contingent on our grant awards.

Questions?

Have any further questions? Want to brainstorm some ways you can be active? Email us! nucleus@sharemeals.org