A new website to fight childhood hunger in Arizona

A new Arizona state program is seeking donors and volunteers to help hungry children. Melissa S. Aude of the Tri Valley Central wrote a story about the program after visiting their new website.

An estimated 33,477 Pinal County children live in poverty or in low-income households, and many suffer from hunger, missed meals and improper nutrition.

With a goal of eradicating childhood hunger throughout the state by 2018, the Arizona Partnership to End Childhood Hunger, a new campaign sponsored by the state Department of Economic Security, is turning to the community and the Internet to ensure that kids throughout the state receive the nutritional food they need.

Last week, the campaign launched a new Web site and online community to encourage anyone who wants to help to sign up. The Web site allows visitors to join an online network, make a donation, begin a fundraising project and recruit friends and family to help in the cause. So far 27 Internet supporters have signed on and several projects have begun in some communities from Globe, where people are raising money for a food bank, to Peoria, where an elementary school is forming a community garden.

"Since this is a new initiative, projects are starting in communities around the state," said Linda Hamman, hunger relief coordinator for the state Office of Community Partnerships and Innovative Practices.

The Arizona Partnership to End Childhood Hunger is a collaborative effort between families, state agencies, local governments, community-based organizers and volunteers. It is based on the philosophy that communities have the tools, resources and expertise to properly feed children, but the challenge is to mobilize assets and find cost-effective solutions.

"The main goal of this initiative is public and community awareness of the assistance available and how communities and individuals can make a difference through education, advocacy and awareness of the issue of hunger in Arizona," Hamman said.

Statewide, more than 700,000 children under the age of 18 live in low-income households and many do receive adequate nutrition, the organization says. With nearly 52 percent of local children living within or near the federal poverty level, Pinal County ranks third in the state as the county with the most economically challenged children. Only Maricopa County and Pima County rank higher.

Part of the problem in fighting childhood hunger is the fact that many of the programs designed to provide food to the poor do not reach all of their target population, according to Hamman.

March to the Phoenix City Hall to fight hunger

Yesterday, a public demonstration to draw attention to hunger and homelessness took place in Phoenix, Arizona. The demonstration only had 100 marchers, but it did collect 350 pounds of food for area food banks.

Eugene Scott from the Arizona Republic says the march caught the attention of at least on city councilman.

Phoenix Councilman Greg Stanton, chairman of a regional committee on homelessness, encouraged the marchers to remind the community that homelessness is everybody's issue regardless of socioeconomic status.


"When we look at the face of homelessness, we're not looking at 'those people,' " he said. "We're looking in the mirror . . . but for the grace of God go any of us."

Jacki Taylor, executive director of the Arizona Coalition to End Homelessness, expressed disappointment that while much has changed, many things have remained the same.

"It was the mid-1980s that the whole issue of homelessness came to the national forefront," she said. "That was over 25 years ago, and we're still struggling with the same issues."

Taylor said the percentage of homeless Arizonans has increased significantly over the past year.

"Have we made strides? Yes," she said. "We're beginning to focus more on affordable housing, but we're not there."

Poverty Awareness Week starts today with comedy

from The Wildcat Online

By: Andrea Lerch

Despite a lackluster response from state legislators, Campaign Against Poverty organizers hope to generate awareness of world poverty among Arizonans.

The campaign is kicking off its first Poverty Awareness Week today to raise money for the people of Darfur, according to event officials.

The first big event will be a comedy show in Gallagher Theater tonight at 8. The week ends Thursday night with a benefit dinner and guest speakers, said Deema Tabbara, a political science senior and founder and president of the campaign.

But of the 90 legislators Tabbara contacted in her quest to find a speaker for the benefit dinner, only one responded.

Arizona Rep. David Bradley, D-Tucson, will be speaking at the benefit dinner Thursday from 7-9 p.m. in the North Ballroom of the Student Union Memorial Center. Some of Bradley's main platforms concern poverty and violence.

Tabbara said she will not let the tepid response from state representatives deter her.

"I was told trying to raise money without a big-name celebrity would not work," Tabbara said. "We are trying to prove that we can raise money because people actually care about the cause."

The campaign members will be on the UA Mall today preselling tickets to the "Laugh for a Cause" comedy show, which costs $5. Tickets can also be purchased at the door, and all of the proceeds will be donated to helping the people of Darfur, a region in Sudan currently wracked by genocide.

"Poverty Awareness Week will focus on global poverty in general, but we chose to donate all the money we make to Darfur because they are the most in need right now," Tabbara said.

Brian Neufang and Johnny Svarzbein, both UA graduates, and Dan Goff will perform comedy tonight, along with The Charles Darwin Experience, a UA comedy club that performs in The Cellar in the SUMC every Tuesday at 10:15 p.m.

"They are all doing this for free," Tabbara said. "It was really nice of them."

The campaign will also have global poverty awareness information and the One Campaign Declaration for people to sign on the UA Mall today from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The One Campaign is a global campaign to fight poverty and global AIDS.

"Some of the Lost Boys of Sudan are also coming to give some perspective of what it is like to be a refugee," Tabbara said.

The dinner is $30 for students with a CatCard and $50 for general admission. Proceeds will also go to www.savedarfur.org.

Tabbara said club members have been planning this week since February.

"I wanted to do this because the UA has never had a poverty week before, and a lot of other campuses around the country have done it," Tabbara said. "I really hope it's something that continues in the future years."

Starting next week, Campaign Against Poverty will also be starting a book drive for the organization Books for Africa. Bins will be placed around campus, and anyone can donate new or used books that will be sent directly to Sudan.

Dinner seats are still available. For more information on purchasing tickets, visit http://www.savedarfur.org/page/event/detail/globaldaysfordarfur/wq9.

Poverty awareness group holds charity date auction

from The Wildcat Online

By: Amanda Morris

A charity date auction raised $3,500 last night for Campaign Against Poverty (CAP), a club which aims to eradicate and raise awareness about poverty.

Deema Tabbara, a political science senior and director of the Arizona Students' Association, said she had the idea to CAP last semester, after being inspired by the ONE campaign, an organization whose mission is to beat poverty and AIDS by allocating 1 percent of the U.S. budget toward providing impoverished countries with basic needs.

"We hoped that our first event was a success so we can recruit more members to help us with Poverty Awareness Week," Tabbara said at the auction.

The club's first fundraiser, the date auction, was kicked off with a two-minute video about poverty, accompanied by the song "Waiting on the World to Change" by John Mayer.

Six men and six women from different clubs and honoraries on campus were auctioned off by Charles Wollin, a theatre arts sophomore and the event's master of ceremonies.

The bidding for each contestant started at $10 and included a gift certificate for two to be used at a local restaurant. The highest bidder bid $1300 and won a $200 voucher to be used on any Southwest Airlines flight.

Keven Barker, a business senior and one of the six contestants, said he wanted to participate because he thought it would be a lot of fun and because it was for a good cause.

Tabbara said she hopes the date auction becomes a tradition.

The money raised will serve as start-up funding for the club, which plans to hold a poverty awareness week at the UA.

"I'm glad UA has come together as one community to make the world a better place," said Ezekiel Gebrekidane, a chemistry junior.

Abbas Tuli, a biochemistry senior from Tanzania, said he attended the event because it is good to give back to society.

"Because I come from Tanzania, a Third World country, I think it is important to raise awareness about the poverty in the world and try to combat it as much as possible," he said.

Forum discusses how to promote microbusiness, fight poverty

from The Douglas Dispatch

By Jonathan Clark/Wick News Service

DOUGLAS - More than 100 people from around the Arizona-Sonora border region turned out Friday for a Cochise College-sponsored forum on alternative economic development.

The idea behind the event, organizers said, was to share ideas and encourage cooperation among individuals and groups working to reduce poverty by promoting microbusiness. "The people who are working to combat poverty are often small, all-volunteer groups that many times are working side-by-side but don't know about each other," said Rebecca Orozco, director of the college's Center for Southwest Studies.

"They need to be able to share resources to move forward. And so what we wanted to do was to create a forum where all of those small groups could come together and help each other out."

Gary Spivey and Jose Ramirez, board members at the grassroots organization DouglaPrieta Works, told attendees about their group's efforts to promote economic self-sufficiency in one neighborhood in Agua Prieta, Sonora.

At its community center in the Colonia Ladrillera neighborhood, DouglaPrieta Works operates woodworking and sewing workshops and supports a commercial kitchen.

The idea, Ramirez said, is to give low-income people skills and job opportunities, not handouts.

"We Mexicans believe that we have great capabilities," Ramirez said. "What we don't have is economic resources."

"And so if you all are interested in sending help to Mexico," he said, "ask us what it is we need, don't tell us, 'this is what we think you need.' "

On the other side of the border, the PPEP Economic Resource Center, formerly known as the Douglas Business Incubator, is stepping up its efforts to promote small business and economic growth in Douglas, director Ana Varela said.

In addition to classes and training, Varela told the audience, the resource center also provides office space, telecommunications services and loans to people who want to start their own micro-businesses.

With overhead costs like rent and phone installation taken care of, Varela said, people who have skills but who lack resources can still become self-employed.

"We're talking about taking something you already know how to do and making money from it," Varela said.

Tommy Bassett of the Just Trade Center in Douglas described how fair trade practices can fight poverty in Mexico and stem the flow of illegal immigration to the United States.

As an example, Bassett talked about Just Coffee, an Agua Prieta-based roaster and exporter that buys coffee beans directly from a farmer's cooperative in the town of Salvador Urbina in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas.

But cutting out middlemen, Just Coffee is able to pay the farmers a fair price for their product. As a result, Bassett said, Salvador Urbina now has new telephone lines, a water-purification facility and a boom in new housing.

With the town on better economic footing, its young people don't have to leave to find work in the U.S., Bassett said.

"The problem isn't borders and it isn't the great big employment need in the U.S.," he said. "What's generating migration is poverty."