Durham Food Bank

The Weiss Fellows went to the Durham Food Bank on Friday April 19th. We took a tour of the food bank which sadly was low on fresh produce and freezer meat, especially during this time of year when there are no holiday donations. We learned that the food bank is part of several state and federal food programs that are required to give out food with a certain type of nutritional value. For example, if the food bank receives donations of soda cans, they are required to give out only diet soda since it does not have empty calories in the way regular soda does - the regular soda can be sold at a regular price. While we visited the Food Bank, our job was to sort the sodas because they do not come pre-sorted into diet and regular.

Food from all over the state accumulates at the food bank (through corporate donors, grocery stores, individual donations, and sometimes state and federal donations). Organizations like church groups, community service driven operations, or shelters come to purchase the food in bulk at a rate that covers the operating cost of the food bank - the food itself is free. We also learned that individual families come straight to the food bank for help and the food bank provides them with a starter supply of food so they don't leave hungry. Another way food gets to the public is through the state programs such as an after school program for children whose only meal in the day is probably the one they eat at school. The food bank fills up their bag packs with food for the weekend.

I decided to go with volunteering at the Durham Warehouse Food Bank idea for a number of reasons- for coherence in our project and because it focuses on a different population than the shelter food we will be preparing for Lindsey's part of the project and because it serves both adults and children who are part of low income families who for the most part have residences, as opposed to people served by the kitchen-shelter which are mostly men (because it's a men's shelter).

Information about the beneficiaries of the food bank are as follows:

48% of households served by the Food Bank have one or more working adults in the household

49% of those served by the Food Bank are children

11% of people served by the Food Bank are elderly

In the 34 counties served by the Food Bank, there are more than 400,000 people at risk of hunger.

Immigration Community Conference: recap

On April 6, the Weiss Fellows helped run a community conference on immigration issues, a conference that we have been directly involved with for several months now.  The conference was entitled  Community Impacts of Local Policy Responses to Undocumented Immigration and was held on a Sunday afternoon at the FedEx Global Education Center here in Chapel Hill.  The conference drew about 150 people and received positive press coverage in periodicals such as the "Taking a Hard Look at a Tough Problem" in the Herald-Sun.

North Carolina is the state with the fastest growing Latino population in the United States.  A portion of this population consists of undocumented immigrants.  The United States has been grappling with immigration issues in recent years, but with failure of comprehensive national immigration reform in the summer of 2007 immigration issues have become increasingly localized.  In a state like North Carolina with a fast growing Latino and immigrant populations, these issues are even more prevalent.

The main focus of the immigration conference was on the use of several counties in North Carolina of the 287(g) clause of the 1996 federal Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.  According to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) website: 287(g)  "authorizes the secretaty of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to enter into agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, permitting designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions, pursuant to a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), provided that these officers receive appropriate training and function under the supervision of sworn U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers."  What this means is that counties can enter into agreements with DHS that allows state and local law enforcement officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions including determining immigration status and beginning the deportation process.

As of this spring five counties in North Carolina have agreements with the Department of Homeland Security that allows designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions.  These counties are: Alamance County, Mecklenberg County, Cabarrus County, and Gaston County.  Wake, Henderson, and Cumberland Counties are pursuing agreements with DHS.  North Carolina, it is safe to say, is leading the country with the local enforcement of federal immigration laws.

The conference was initiated to bring a greater focus to these issues and recent developments within the state.  Despite its somewhat prevalent use, the 287(g) program is often difficult to understand.  When promoted, it is typically couched as a way to deport criminals who are also illegal immigrants.  However, when it comes to its implementation, 287(g) is often used during routine traffic stops or even more benign situations.  This Raleigh News and Observer article: "Traffic Charges Can Bring Deportation" provides a decent overview to the complexities of these issues.

As far as the conference went, I thought it was very valuable to learn more about immigration issues in the United States and North Carolina.  Most of the participants and audience members seemed to be sympathetic to the difficulties faced by the immigrant population.  It probably would have been even more helpful to have some presenters who were advocates of the 287(g) program.  A continuing dialogue on the appropriate policy responses to undocumented immigration is essential.  With even more counties set to implement 287(g) the local enforcement of federal immigration laws will only become a more prominent and prevalent issue.  An examination of the the full ramifications of these kinds of programs is certainly warranted and needed. 

Earth Action Day!

These days, and particularly this week, being green is the hip thing to do. However, I like to think that the Weiss Fellas were hip far before our time. A few of us have never owned a car, many bike as their chosen form of transportation and even I, with my very-unhip SUV, made it an entire week without driving. It seems fitting, then, that our final event of the semester be Earth Action Day.

On Saturday, the Weiss Fellows will be pitching in to help make Earth Action Day great. We will be directing traffic, helping with performance art and generally guiding visitors to the Plaza to the variety of booths, activities and vendors.

So why this project? The answer is two fold. First, one of our complaints/frustrations/challenges as first year graduate students, many of whom are not North Carolinians, is that we didn't know where to start in Chapel Hill. Working with Wes from Parks and Rec for Earth Action Day starts a relationship between the Weiss Fellows and the Town of Chapel Hill that we hope can be sustained by future generations. Second, it combines elements of all of our interests. Jes Speed lit up at the opportunity to work with tiny earth ballerinas. Jess Lewis is excited to work with vendors. For the rest of us, interested in community building, local government or environmental issues, Earth Action Day also serves us. It even gives Audrey the opportunity to reconnect with Earth Day, which she used to organize in high school!

It is my hope that Earth Action Day both demonstrate our dedication to the environment and finding solutions that are practical and sustainable (another very hip idea), but that also begins to build an individual and group relationship with the town that sustains our university. Look for pictures on Sunday!

My Lasagna project

The project I organized for the Weiss fellowship was to arrange for our group to cook lasagnas for the men's shelter and community kitchen in Chapel Hill. This project stemmed from a desire to undertake a project that would be benificial to our (very) local community and that would provide a concrete benefit. I also chose this project because I enjoy cooking and food is meaningful, it helps build communities.

I corresponded with the kitchen manager to determine desired and appropriate foods, he emphasized that our food should be soft, not contain any cooking wine and not be anything to exotic. Our group decided on lasagna as an ideal casserole. We filled our lasagna with vegetables such as spinach, peppers, onions, garlic and mushrooms, as well as turkey meat and the standard cheeses and tomato sauce. We focused on making our lasagna a nutritionally complete meal in itself.

The project was done in two shifts to accomodate the schedules of the group members. Our group met at my house and cooked and assembled two lasagnas which we baked and then took to the kitchen the next day (because lasagna is one of the few foods that improves with reheating). The second group cooked and delivered theirs a few days later and I believe in total we provided 6 full large pans of lasagna, enough for the 100 men the kitchen feeds every night to share a meal.

Carolina for Kibera

At our last meeting the speaker was Neha Singh, in addition to being a graduate student in the school of Public Health here at UNC she is involved in Carolina for Kibera and spent last summer living in Naroibi and working in Kibera. She described to the Weiss fellers the living conditions of those individuals in Kibera. Kibera is one of the largest slums in the world, there's no electricity (except for that stolen from the golf course next door) and residents are literally living on top of garbage with open sewer lines in the "streets".

The reason that the slum occurred is that there are housing rules in Nariobi which has created rents that many of the poor cannot afford. Since technically it's illegal to live in Kibera the rents are much cheaper, and poor people can afford to live there. Due to the poor living conditions etc there's violence in Kibera, some of which is amongst the different ethnic groups, crime and just generally unsafe living conditions.

The new president is making some attempt to deal with the situtaion by building apartments right next to Kibera, but because it's sanctioned housing the rents will be too high, and they aren't building nearly enough housing for all of the residents of Kibera.

She also described some of what CFK does in Kibera, including unclogging sewer lines, working in clinics, supporting community developments etc.

From weisser Lindsey comes this film

Urban School Funding

One of my primary research interests is the difference in funding between urban and suburban school districts, and how this could help to explain some of the differences in child performance. This video from a segment on the Oprah Winfrey show provides a stark illustration of the differences that funding can produce in schools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEczvyM3Boc&feature=related

Related to that is the way that school districts spend their dollars. For the upcoming school year the new Baltimore City school superintendent is planning to radically change the way that school funding is done in the city. Essentially at the moment the central office makes all decisions vis a vis teaching hiring, supplies etc. and principals have about 90/student in discretionary spending. In the new budget those decisions will be transfered to the individual principles and they will have 5500 in funding to spend per student (or more 5500 is the baseline). It will be interesting to see if these changes have an actual positive impact on the schools.