Take a bag of food to Helpline today

Published 6:00 pm Saturday, November 18, 2006

In case you missed it, the U.S. government this week announced that it has found a way to eradicate hunger:

it will no longer use the word “hunger.”

Instead, in what is surely one of the great triumphs of bureaucratese, the Department of Agriculture will use the phrase “very low food security” to describe the condition in which an American household cannot put enough food on the table.

In explaining the change in nomenclature, a USDA official said that “hunger (is) not a scientifically accurate term for the specific phenomenon being measured.”

Whatever. Point is, that condition – call it “very low food security,” “generally elevated nutritional vulnerability” or “recurring non-correctable larder insufficiency”– is more widespread than we’d all like to believe.

According to the same Washington Post report, an estimated 12 percent of Americans – that would be 35 million people in this, the most affluent nation on the planet – were unable to put food on the table at least part of last year. Our own community is not immune.

So islanders blessed with “very high food security” can share the bounty from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at Helpline House. The community food bank is collecting items for “Project Wishbone,” through which complete Thanksgiving dinners will be assembled for an estimated 150 families in the coming days. Look for high schoolers among the regular Helpline volunteers taking in and sorting food for delivery.

(Note: The date of the Wishbone collection was reported incorrectly in our most recent Calendar, so please don’t show up with your horn of plenty tomorrow; the event is today.)

What goes into a Project Wishbone dinner? Everything you expect to find on your own table next Thursday. Start with a turkey (10-12 pounds) in a foil roasting pan; add stuffing mix, fresh potatoes and gravy; mix in some onions, celery, carrots and other vegetables; garnish with apples, oranges, satsumas, or canned fruits; heat some rolls with butter or margarine; put olives and pickles and nuts on the side; chill some sparking cider or juice; top off with a store-bought pie; and keep some broth on hand to make soup with the inevitable leftovers.

Oh, and don’t forget the canned cranberries.

Concurrent with the drop-offs at Helpline, local Scouts will be collecting such perishables as milk, whipping cream and fresh vegetables at Safeway. Those donations too are bound for the Helpline food bank, if you find yourself at the market but can’t make the drive to Knechtel Way yourself.

Manager Marilyn Gremse says the food bank this year is seeing fewer individuals, but more families with children. “They’re working families,” she says, “families that are trying their best to get along but simply aren’t making it.” That would seem to mirror the national trend. Despite a federal goal of reducing needy households to 6 percent by 2010, the number of “food insecure” households has actually increased over the past five years.

Which brings us back to the question of how best to refer to, um, “exigent victual deficiency.”

The Post reported that a federal panel urged the USDA to abandon the word “hunger,” which it said “should refer to a potential consequence of food insecurity that, because of prolonged, involuntary lack of food, results in discomfort, illness, weakness or pain that goes beyond the usual uneasy sensation.”

Translation: Let them eat cake.