Social Justice

Brian Feld, Prateek Raikwar, Hannah Short

Welcome to the social justice webpage!

Social justice, as a concept involving the equality in treatment –– including resources, interactions, job opportunities, and more –– between an individual and society, is a complex issue with many complicated components. Our alternative spring break group focused on just one component: food insecurity. There was a lot we learned about food insecurity on our trip, including the current conditions and community assets in the Atlanta community. This page expands on those factors, ultimately showing what we learned from our trip and how we can apply it into the future to promote social justice.

The Status Quo: Food Insecurity and Atlanta

Food justice is a known (and accepted as important) issue in Atlanta. Every individual and organization that we spoke with was aware of the food insecurity issues affecting their community. This issue seemed to be the most prevalent when analyzing the relationship between food insecurity and those experiencing homelessness.

The rates in Atlanta

Atlanta has an especially high rate of individuals experiencing homelessness; 75.6 per 10,000 people. This rate is significantly higher than Georgia's average, which is 9.9 per 10,000 people. The state has 10,174 individuals experiencing homelessness on a given night -- a number that desperately needs reducing.

The wage gap

Furthermore, the issue of homelessness may be tied to Georgia’s small minimum wage. Georgia is tied with Wyoming for the lowest minimum wage of any other state at $5.15/hour. This disproportionately affects citizens of Atlanta because one would be required to work more hours to earn the same amount of money as someone in another large city with a similar cost of living. This gap also unjustly affects affordable housing, which is one of the four root causes of homelessness and food insecurity.

Atlanta's Community Assets Involved in Battling Food Insecurity

In order to combat the issue of food insecurity and homelessness in Atlanta while upholding social justice, we paid significant attention to the leaders and the missions of the organizations that we served with. The following is more information about those community members and organizations.

open hand

Open Hand Atlanta is an organization with the philosophy that everyone deserves access to proper nutrition, regardless of their age, home or health condition. Open Hand hosts a staff of dietitians which help create menus that cater to the nutritional needs of clients. As volunteers, we packaged meals based on those menus. One community member we worked with was Miss Naomi, who demonstrated the necessity of proper portion sizes, such as those for cornbread or side salads. This precision helps to inhibit the progression of nutrition-sensitive illnesses. This organization also provides dietary education programs in regards to healthy eating.

SWEEAC

Southwestern Ecumenical Emergency Assistance Center gives relief in the forms of “Life Skills Enhancement, Anti-Hunger, Children-at-Risk, and Dress for Success” through a variety of programs. These include a food pantry with donations ranging from toys to food to medications from local stores and partner churches, educational activities, and a clothing closet. At the hub of the organization, we worked with Mrs. Ingram, who explained the importance of SWEEAC’s identity as an ecumenical organization, meaning "multiple denominations coming together to serve God’s people."

Safe house outreach

SHO provides practical, emotional, and physical assistance and support for the in-need and at-risk, and helps integrate them back into society through time-tested programs. Their organization works to help their clients through aiding them in receiving their driver’s license and other important documents. Additionally, as volunteers we worked with Dennis Russell, the Volunteer Director who put a special emphasis on conversing with the clients at Safe House. He explained that this helps them feel more included and connected with the community.

Atlanta community food bank

Through this organization, we spoke with our orientation guide Miss Tabitha. She explained that this organization works with a variety of nonprofit partners to distribute over 60 million meals to more than 755,000 people in Georgia. The facility was massive. Within this warehouse, we sorted, packaged, and checked a variety food and health items. While it took considerable energy and effort, a big part of our service here was about properly handling items and understanding the dignity in providing certain items. We had to use our best judgment to understand what and what not to keep.

We are passionate about building a healthier community. Through people-centered services and partnerships, we create access to healthy meals and nutrition education, empowering our clients and the community to achieve personal goals for health and wellness. - Open Hand

What We Learned

Throughout this Alternative Spring Break experience, our Hawkeye Service Team worked towards accomplishing active citizenship. To do this, we had to be educated on our area of focus (food insecurity), volunteer for this cause, and reflect on our experiences. As a team oriented towards the topic of food insecurity, we utilized class time and modules to become ‘experts’ on the topic, and volunteered both locally and in the Atlanta community to reach a broader view of the issue.

The most enriching part of this experience was likely the amount of time we got to be hands on with not only those experiencing issues with homelessness themselves, but those that were doing all they could to make an impact locally. We believe that there are a lot of valuable lessons to be learned from the leaders we interacted with and the differing missions and focuses of the locations we served at.

Open Hand

For example, our service at Open Hand and their mission reminded us of the risk in generalizing groups of people. Despite the astonishingly high rate of homelessness in Atlanta, food insecurity also applies to a much larger population of individuals. At Open Hand, we focused on the importance of providing quality meals with accurate portion-sizes for those with important medical needs. It’s easy to make simple associations between challenges such as homelessness and food insecurity, but Open Hand showed us that conducting effective and meaningful service that involves positive changes for social justice requires analyzing other, less obvious connections.

SWEEAC

At the Southwestern Ecumenical Emergency Assistance Center, Director Ingram explained the vast diversity of programs, items, and relief that SWEEAC provides. For example, some elderly clients weren’t able to access the facility for lack of an elevator. As a result, some volunteers collected then delivered their items directly. Additionally, the facility had a clothing closet, as well as a cosmetics and medication section. These programs and inclusions demonstrated that to provide socially just service, we should be more aware of the web of issues that surround one problem. In this case, food insecurity is surrounded by issues of transportation, clothing, and self-image.

Safe House Outreach

At Safe House Outreach, the main focus was reintegrating people experiencing homelessness back into society. Beyond just serving food, Dennis explained the importance of treating who we were serving as people. Thus, we spent a significant amount of time conversing with people experiencing homelessness. This was a valuable experience in communication that highlighted the socially isolating aspects of food insecurity. Safe House Outreach taught us that social justice is also about considering psychosocial implications of our service.

Atlanta Community Food Bank

The Atlanta Community Food Bank reinforced the psychosocial aspects of providing socially just service. A big part of the food bank’s mission was upholding the dignity of the clients. A large portion of our team’s day involved inspecting donated items, tossing food that was not up to visual standards. This experience demonstrated that socially just service requires us to shift our perspective and recognize the quality of items that we would want to eat are the ones that should be donated. Good service requires an acute sense of empathy.

Community Application

Understanding community service through the lens of social justice has been an exercise in shifting perspectives. By challenging our own pre-established beliefs and observing the reciprocal social conditions experienced by different members of the Atlanta community, we gained the necessary aptitude to understand similar challenges and affect real change in Iowa City and elsewhere.

Dignity was a major concern for both Safe House Outreach and the Atlanta Community Food Bank. Miss Tabitha and Dennis explained that seemingly simple tasks such as organizing food or conversing with someone new can facilitate a deeper understanding of the ultimate goal of our service. When it comes to clients using social services such as shelters and food pantries, this means providing service with empathy and a sense of perspective.

We can bring this knowledge back to the Iowa City community. The University of Iowa recently established a second on-campus food pantry, demonstrating the prevalence of food insecurity within the surrounding community. Clients at this pantry, primarily University of Iowa undergraduates struggling financially, may feel intimidated while using this service. Upholding their dignity means understanding their situation and serving with them as equals.

A common theme we noticed both in Atlanta and Iowa City is reduced access to these services for those who lack reliable transportation or are handicapped. In Iowa City, CommUnity Crisis Services and Food Bank employs a mobile food pantry in modified container trucks as a solution for those who for whatever reason cannot travel to utilize their facility. CommUnity’s mobile units and SWEEAC’s elderly and handicapped assistance program are simple solutions to this problem and keep these disadvantaged individuals engaged with the program and integrated with the community.

Sources:

http://clipart-library.com/social-justice-cliparts.htmlhttps://endhomelessness.org/homelessness-in-america/what-causes-homelessness/http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wage-chart.aspx https://www.safehouseoutreach.org/about-ushttps://openhandatlanta.org/https://www.sweeac.org/abouthttp://acfb.org/what-we-dohttps://www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/2008/spring/knefelkamphttps://iowa-my.sharepoint.com/personal/cbrown42_uiowa_edu/Documents/Formshttps://www.civilandhumanrights.org/event/awoken-19/https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/hundreds-take-advantage-of-university-of-iowa-food-pantry-20171202

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