Interfaith Empty Plate: April 1-16

Join community members between April 1-16 and participate in the family-friendly #InterfaithEmptyPlate activity!

Skip a meal and set the table with empty plates
Learn about hunger in our community during mealtime – its root causes, its impacts and how you can help prevent it
Take action by donating the dollars you would have spent on this meal to Interfaith Outreach and share your empty plate experience on social media

EMPTY PLATE INSTRUCTIONS (.pdf)

Learn about hunger

Resources for mealtime discussion about hunger – its root causes, its impact and ways YOU can prevent hunger.

Ages 5+

Read a book about hunger like Lulu and the Hunger Monster or Maddi’s Fridge
Watch this Sesame Street clip about hunger and ways kids can make a difference.
Talk about your favorite meal. Let kids draw and share their favorite meals. Everyone has a favorite meal, but not everyone gets to eat nice meals every day. When someone doesn’t have enough to eat, this problem is called hunger. Kids, adults and seniors in our community live with hunger every day.
Reflect on how hunger feels physically and emotionally. How does hunger impact you at school, work, activities, with your family or friends?

Ages 10+

Go through the budget exercise and family scenarios and make tough choices about how you will feed your family and cover other household necessities.
Play SPENT, an online simulation created by Urban Ministries of Durham, North Carolina. Talk about the connection between hunger and employment, rent, transportation, and access to healthcare in the United States.
Read through our FAQ to learn more about hunger in our community: https://iocp.org/donations/prevent-hunger-2021/#drop-off-march
Reflect on how hunger feels physically and emotionally. How does hunger impact you at school, work, activities, with your family or friends?

Click each question below to expand and learn more:

How is hunger about more than food?

Hunger is an empty plate on the table. But an empty plate is about so much more than food. The inability to purchase food is often a result of unemployment, underemployment, or a life-changing circumstance like an unexpected medical crisis or a death in the family.

At Interfaith Outreach we provide more than food to fill the empty plate. Together with community partners, we provide wrap-around services to help individuals and families stabilize, strengthen and thrive—like job search support and employment training, as well as assistance with medical and utility bills, unexpected car repairs and looming evictions.

How are hunger, poverty and employment linked?

Poverty in the Twin Cities suburbs has grown three times faster than poverty in Minneapolis and St. Paul over the past 10 years. 14% of people in the Interfaith Outreach service area live in poverty. The lack of available living wage jobs means that many working families are struggling with incomes that can scarcely cover basic needs like food, housing, child care and transportation.

Our community has more than enough food. Lack of food is not the problem. The problem is that hunger is tied to poverty, unemployment and other challenges that put families and individuals in crisis—challenges that Interfaith Outreach has decades of experience addressing.

We take complex problems—including hunger—and tackle their root causes with a wrap-around approach proven to deliver life-changing results.

The need for food is what brings people to the Interfaith Outreach food shelf. But often, that need is a warning sign, a signal of other larger challenges. That’s why our approach begins with assessing what’s working—and what’s not. Then we work together to develop a tailored response that not only addresses the immediate need for food but also provides life-changing wrap-around support that builds stability and helps strengthen individuals and their families.

Wrap-around services include job-search support and employment training, as well as broad family support.

How has COVID-19 impacted hunger locally?

If the pandemic has reminded us of anything, it’s that we need more than food to prevent hunger in our community. Before COVID-19, people in our community were already struggling. The pandemic has only made things worse. Now, low-paying jobs and unemployment are making it even more difficult for people in our community to feed their families.

Before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, 1 in 11 Minnesotans struggled to afford food. Now, 1 in 9 Minnesotans faces hunger (Second Harvest Heartland). Interfaith Outreach saw 820 new families in 2020 (Interfaith).

What does my donation do to prevent hunger?

Financial donations support our ability to respond to emergency needs for food and financial assistance most flexibly, while reducing the number of hands that touch the food and goods we distribute. With your $1 donation, we can source $9 of food from partners. Here are a few ways your investment will work to make a life-changing difference:

$100 can source $900 of food to feed a family for a month
$563 provides an individual a year of caring support from a case manager
$1,999 provides employment services for an individual to land a “career” job
A gift of any amount will help feed families and fuel hope

Other resources to check out:

TAKE ACTION

Ways you can help prevent hunger:

Donate the money you would have spent on this meal to Interfaith Outreach’s Prevent Hunger campaign
Help neighbors find quality jobs with good wages
Advocate for anti-hunger legislation and programs like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), WIC (Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children), and food assistance for K-12 students. Find your state and federal representatives here.
Volunteer with Interfaith Outreach supporting our food shelf, employment services, or other roles
Support businesses that pay living wages to their employees
Advocate for an increased minimum wage
Purchase some of your family’s favorite foods and donate them to the food shelf each month
Be an ally to those facing hunger. Dispel stereotypes and misconceptions about hunger. Speak up when you hear someone spreading false information or mistaken beliefs.
Plant a garden this summer and donate your harvest to the Interfaith Outreach food shelf
….Add your ideas! Tell us how you will help prevent hunger.