22. Food Dignity | Clancy Harrison

Clancy Harrison gives a masterclass on how to improve food access AND food dignity while improving economic development for farmers AND creating stronger ties throughout communities.

Topics in today's episode:

• Food dignity is subjective and varies by individual.
• Community involvement is key to improving food access.
• Innovative partnerships can break down barriers to food access.
• Food can be integrated into social services for better outcomes.
• Fair pricing for farmers is essential for sustainability.
• Worksite wellness programs can improve employee health.
• Understanding local needs leads to more effective solutions.
• Building relationships with farmers is vital for food security. 
• Small family farms are often overlooked in food distribution.
• Collaboration among nonprofits can enhance resource sharing.
• Food can be used as a tool for power and control.
• Stigmas around food assistance programs need to be addressed.
• Community-led solutions are essential for effective hunger relief.
• Food dignity emphasizes the importance of local agriculture.
• Engaging local farmers can strengthen community ties.

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Transcript

Clancy Harrison (00:00)
So food dignity, what does it mean to me? I think it's more of a question of what is food dignity and always trying to understand it from another person's perspective. We don't have a definition for food dignity. And so even when I have my podcast or if I'm on stage doing keynotes, I ask people what does food dignity mean to them because everyone's gonna have a different definition. And I've come to realize that if we're going to truly have a movement, then we need to include the voices as many people as possible to understand what that means.

And so it's coming from an approach of having a learning mindset versus an all knowing mindset and just saying, you know what, maybe I don't have all the answers and that's okay. But if I'm willing to just listen and try to understand, then maybe we can come up with solutions that

Jollie (00:55)
That's a, ⁓ that's a running theme of yours. That's pretty. Let's ask folks. like that. Hey y'all. It's Jolly with Interrupts Hungers Movie Give Podcast. I want to make it easier for you to get back to your roots and live like our ancestors did for the last 12,000 years before we lived in an ultra processed food environment or had technology that made us sedentary and become socially isolated from each other. Whether it's hosting experts in exercise is medicine, food is medicine or food insecurity.

Or someone that's dramatically changed their life through healthy behaviors. Or someone who's making a real difference in the health of their community. I want to talk to them. I want to find out exactly how they did it and share it with you. The big idea here is to take all these healthy behaviors we learn about and bring them back to Bernie so we can make Bernie the healthiest small town in Texas. And of course, share exactly how we did it. So together, we can make healthiest small towns all over America.

Today's guest hits a lot of those points. She's feeding her hungry neighbors with fresh produce and she's helping to grow her local economy by giving farmers a way to sell their excess harvest. Clancy Harrison is an internationally renowned keynote speaker, food equity advocate, founder of the Food Dignity Movement, host of the Food Dignity Podcast and registered dietitian. Her wise, heartfelt and well-researched keynotes challenge the judgments that stand the way of improving everyone's access to nourishing food.

Her message gives rise to refreshingly simple strategies for how audiences can put her ideas for food equity, or what she calls food dignity, into action to create real and lasting change. Clancy is a member of the Tufts Innovation Platform, ambassador of the National Dairy Council, member of the Food Lab at Google, and a past president of a large food pantry where her and her team has served over 5 million meals since COVID. You can tune in weekly with Clancy at the Food Dignity Podcast.

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You already know the difference between healthy and unhealthy eating. And you already know it feels really good to give back. Interrupt Hunger 12-Week Weight Loss Challenge helps you to be intentional about how you move, eat, and give. It helps you turn your knowing into doing. Visit interrupthunger.org to join as an individual or start a team. Contact us with any questions. We're always happy to chat.

Jollie (04:21)
All right, so why don't you take us back and just tell us how you got to where you are today. Just take us on this journey you've been on. It's pretty interesting.

Clancy Harrison (04:31)
It's a very interesting journey. So I don't know how far back you want me to go, but so I'm, I just turned 50. And so from a professional aspect, I've been fighting hunger on some level my entire professional career. So I started out as a food service director. I did school meal programs in Ohio, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, where I did the summer meals, breakfast and lunch, you name it. So that's, I really like to say that's where I grew up.

professionally because you have to wear so many hats. And then I started working for Penn State Cooperative Extension where I did a lot of policy and strategic implementation, whether it was from work site wellness or school wellness policies. And then I volunteered at my church's food pantry. I had two children.

I wasn't working at the time and I figured this would be just a perfect avenue for me. And I did that for 13 years as a volunteer. I was the president of the food pantry and I was there through COVID. And that's where I like to say my professional and personal life took a right turn, turned right side up. And so I went in there.

Not realizing I had a lot of misconceptions about what I thought hunger and food insecurity was. And it was by putting myself into a situation that I was never in. I never stepped foot in, I never stepped foot into a food pantry before. And you might be thinking, well, Clancy, were school meals and you were, and I was in the poorest towns. But when you're working a job such as that, you're trying to get X, Y, and Z done.

just all about the outcomes of the business. And I really didn't take a time, I didn't take a chance to witness the hunger around me. In fact, I don't know if I even saw it because I just saw meals that I had to get out and there could have been an age piece to that. I was in my twenties. So volunteering at the food pantry gave me and coming from a food service systems operator.

And then plus coming from the public health side with Penn State and the CDC grant that we were doing, I just had a very unique lens when as a volunteer. And so I took my time there, 13 years is a long time to volunteer somewhere. And I started to see where we were missing the gaps and where we had areas of improvement. And the first one started with myself and saying, what you thought to be true is not true.

for the most part, you were wrong and you, where did those misconceptions come? And so after going through that journey, and I'm still going through it, it's not like you learn something and you put the book on the shelf. You're constantly trying to uncover where your bias show up or your misconceptions or your assumptions. But then I also started saying from a systems perspective, the charitable food system isn't working and what can we do better? And that's when I started the food dignity movement.

We have, I have a speaking platform and the podcast, but then we also have our on the ground work that we do in Northeastern Pennsylvania. And it's basically creating a whole new food system in our area that works specifically for our community. It's led by our community and we center our Pennsylvania producers and growers in the center of our equation. And we connect their food to people who need it most, but

More importantly, we're investing, we're paying our producers and our farmers fair price for their goods. We're not waiting. So what happens with the charitable food system, if there's a farm surplus, it's perceived as an opportunity to get free food or donated food or food at a very cheap price. We look at it as where did we miss the mark?

where did we miss an opportunity to invest in our agriculture so we can actually create long-term nutrition security for generations to come? And so we look at this as how could this be proactive versus reactive? I'll stop there because like I said, I can keep going, but that's the trajectory of where we are today and how I got there.

Speaker 1 (08:35)
All right. So let's see here. I was having a conversation last week with someone that, uh, in our little town of Bernie, we're outside of San Antonio, like 23,000 people. I think it'd be really good to make a food plan and just connect all the dots. And one of things that drew me to you and your podcast is, uh, you're, seem like you're a couple evolutions ahead of, of a lot of people in food security that I've talked to.

Because, but you got food banks, you got food pantries. A lot of people think there's homeless people and a lot of the food pantry folks I've talked to, like we almost have no homeless people. It's folks that are working one or two jobs, but you've tied in so many different components. Maybe that's a good next step. Just elaborate on that a little bit, how you tied in the farmers and you've got some food trucks and you've got pop-up things going.

Speaker 2 (09:29)
Yeah, so you know, I told you I ran a traditional food pantry. I mean, it was in a church, complete traditional food pantry. And I always said to myself, we are not getting many, many people. It's always the same people. And there was nothing, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with the elderly high rise across the street and us serving them all the time. But what I thought was how can we start reaching other people who would probably never in their life.

step foot in a food pantry because they're embarrassed and they don't want to ask for help. And I started thinking about where are the barriers to food access and what exists and we know transportation is a major barrier for many people location of the grocery store. And so I said, what would happen if we started partnering with nonprofits who are serving people at a time of need, not food, food isn't even on their radar, but they might be serving women running from domestic violence, they

might be serving people who are unhoused, they might be serving people who are recovering from substance abuse disorder. And if we can provide food at a time of service, how does that one, impact the outcomes of that nonprofit? Does it keep people coming back for services? Does it keep the people engaged? And do we increase participation? Does this help increase their funding because we're collaborating, we're joining forces?

And then we started looking at how does this improve the health of the person that's coming in their life and everything going on with them. And so we worked with a local university, King's College, where we set up the, we had a grant and they set up the infrastructure. So let's talk about victims resource centers that it's an organization that helps women running from domestic violence. I'm sure men too.

And what we did was we put refrigeration, freezers and shelving on site at that nonprofit. So then we were able to source food and keep that food there. And one of the outcomes that Suzanne Beck, who runs the organization said, women are not going back to domestic violence situations because they have peace of mind. They can feed their, their children. And she said, people want to come. They keep coming back. Food has actually helped them increase their communication between

the person, the counselor and the victim. And so now it's one of those things when first she did not wanna work with us, she's like, I can't take on food, I can't do this. And I just begged her and she started doing it now. She's like, I can't live without this because it's such an integrated piece now that now she wants more food. She has like a whole new room with cabinets and food. it's just, that's how we're looking at it is.

Wherever we can break down barriers and we can connect people to food versus think about it prior to us being there, she could be talking to a woman and then she says, okay, but here's the, you know, the address and the phone number of the closest food pantry. And by the way, they're only open two hours, you know, a week, maybe only two hours out of the month. And you might have to take a different bus to get there. This broke down all those barriers. And now.

The mom is receiving food in a trusted place where she knows someone, she doesn't have to go anywhere else. She's getting the food when she leaves, it keeps her wanting to come back. And so that's been just one avenue, right? Now multiply that by probably about 30 different nonprofits in our area that we're doing that work with. The other thing that I learned from working with my farmers was they don't really like farmers markets because they will spend most of their time.

harvesting, packing up their truck, then they drive to the farmer's market, they set up and they're lucky if they sell 50%. Now I'm just throwing a number out there based off of what one farmer told me. So I said to the farmer, what would happen if you harvested, you did all of that and you packed up your truck, but when you leave the truck, when you pull out of your driveway or wherever it is, that truck is 100 % paid for, 100 % paid for.

All of your risk has been taken on by our nonprofit, the Food Dignity Movement. But instead of going to a farmer's market, you're going to take it somewhere else. And so we call this as connecting. We do these, take what you need, pay what you can. Farm stands in our community and we make sure that we're not in a place of other farmer's markets where we're competing with farmers. We don't want to do that.

But we find a place where we know there's like missing a grocery store. So one really good example is in a VFW parking lot and it's right next door to an elderly high rise. So we're going on to our third year doing this in Duryea, Pennsylvania. It's a small little town, but now guess what? The town is all invested in it. We have the mayors, past mayors, someone who's running for mayor. We have their town council. Everyone gets involved.

they start to then look for sponsorships because town council doesn't want it to go away. So they start getting little sponsorships to cover up the donations that aren't brought in. So we probably have anywhere in that location, probably a 30 % return on investment rate. So that means we still haven't made up the cost of the other 70%. But like I said, we start getting sponsorships. so now it's, I don't know what's going to happen in the future, especially as people, as food prices,

continue to increase and there's fear. So I don't know what's going to happen, but right now we have with our sponsorships and our donations, we have pretty much broken even. So it's been able to, look at this as a future of community support agriculture, just on a bigger scale versus an individual family investing.

So those are two outlets that we've done. We do also do the take away and pay away you can't stand at our local university. And so we do that as more of a work site wellness through their HR department. And so HR is looking at, is this improving the morale of their employees? Can we look at long-term health outcomes? Are people eating more fruits and vegetables? The answer is yes. They are self-reporting that they have better eye health, that their blood pressure is improving.

that their A1C is improving. And so now it's one those things again at the work site, they can't unsee it and they want to just make sure it's more consistent. And so they're looking for sponsors or how does this become part of their budget for worksite wellness? And so we're always just looking at.

Really the needs of that current potential partner and we let them guide it at food. And I think that's what makes people like, what the heck? You have so many things going on. And it's not that we have so many things going on. The through line or the thing that's consistent is that when we work with a community partner, we ask, what do you need? What do you need to make this work? What makes sense for you? What are your resources? What are your barriers? And every farmer, we're asking the same questions. And so every single relationship is completely different.

But I think it's being small. We're very flexible. We're very nimble. And we don't, we're not set in our ways where if you look at traditional research based programs that are out in the community, you have to do A, B, and C if you want X, Y, and Z. We don't have that A, and C. Like we use the whole alphabet, if that makes sense. And so we're kind of turning that concept on its upside down. And I do believe that research is super important, but we also have to make sure that

we can adapt to that program or person and truly understand what their needs are. And again, that goes back to us always going from that all-knowing mindset to that learning mindset and us saying, our question is, where are we wrong so we can be right? And having that humility and grace and compassion with yourself to encourage to be able to sit there and have that conversation. I think it's a game-changing approach that

really is what is our North Star and what guides us. So it's not that we're, I don't know what your term that you use, but you mentioned that we might be ahead. And I don't know if it's that, it's just that we're uncovering the true needs of very specific organizations and tailoring it to them versus a big solution and adapting it to everyone across the board, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (17:48)
Gotcha. You're looking at your capabilities, you're looking at your partner organizations. What do you need? Yeah. So the, people that I've been really drawn to in the food security movement, food is medicine, food is health. They all have an incredible amount of humility. don't have all the answers. Yeah. That's pretty neat. So the, a couple of things let's see here. The, work site wellness, you mentioned the campus, university campus. So that's for the employees. Students also, or just the employees?

Speaker 2 (18:16)
So we have always been at King's College with the students and the students get it for free. They actually have a couple location, not a couple, probably five or six different locations. So every Monday they get our produce and then it's set up throughout the campus as a grab and go. So it could be in the mail room or wherever the students are getting their mail. could be in their traditional food pantry. could be, they have something called the.

cheval center, which is more community engagement. So they've set them up. it's like, if you're walking by, you need an apple, you need an orange, you need a banana, just grab it and go. And so that's pretty fun. We've been doing that for years. And we do have a traditional like food pantry set up, but the, the students, because they get their free stuff, this is really for the employees. And so we look at it as, you know, you're going to have professors, but you also have employees who are hourly.

you know, the janitorial, the cooks. So yeah, in that way, it's a takeaway, you need pay, we can stand, it's based off of the budget of the person going through. I'm sure that if a student walked by, they're not going to tell a student they can't do it. But I'm not, what's also interesting, because we are a nonprofit, we source the food for them, they run that they actually monitor and run the stands because we just don't have

the time as a nonprofit, because they are also a business, right? And so as long as they're manning it and...

putting their workforce behind this. It works for us because we can't be taken our time away from other places where it's more of a charitable outreach. But I can tell you that it's working out really well. And I do see this as a future because we do have, I do see this as a future of work site wellness because people are eating more fruits and vegetables. It's not so part of my job. Remember I told you I implemented wellness policies.

And that was one of the things with these organizations, we would create these policies. We would tell people to eat broccoli, but then we didn't provide the broccoli for people to consume, nor did we ask, do you even have access to it? What kind of grocery stores around? We just made a lot of assumptions. And so I think this is a really unique initiative that I'm excited to see where it's going to be in the next couple of years.

Speaker 1 (20:36)
So the people working the stand are school employees, right?

Speaker 2 (20:41)
It's usually at King's College, yes, it's their HR department.

Speaker 1 (20:45)
Okay. See, that's just so needed that that doesn't tie up your resources or that gives you more freedom to direct those at others. But then also it's allowing those employees to help get involved and give back, which of course, improves employee satisfaction and culture and all kinds of stuff. So.

Speaker 2 (21:05)
said that it's the engagement that's happening because then they can learn about different programs and stuff like that. They said it's amazing. And I know that that's one of the things that they have been bragging about was it's bringing together their community around produce dance.

Speaker 1 (21:20)
Yeah, that is so neat. Cause again, it's another opportunity for people to build community and maybe folks in different roles and departments. I get to interact a little bit more. I am one other. That's really neat. I like that. Do you mind? I don't want to put you on the spot, but something like that, like what, what kind of funding would might be required just at the most basic level to just start a program like that? Because you could, anybody listening to this could like, I love that idea. I'm going to go try that at my work.

Speaker 2 (21:48)
Excuse me. So I don't have the actual numbers in front of me, but I can tell you, mean, it also depends on the time of year when we're doing our produce. So right now we're in Pennsylvania and we're going to have Pennsylvania storage crop. just had a meeting with them and we're going to be doing a stand. ⁓ I think later in March, I would say for us to buy all of the produce. Now you probably think there's maybe 300 employees there. Not everyone's going to participate.

I would say, and I'm guessing, and Amanda can correct me if I'm wrong when she listens to this, but I would say our stands without any of our labor costs is probably anywhere between $25,000 and $3,000. And so at that, you're in a worksite professional, I believe the return on investment.

there is around 60%, I could be wrong. And so then it's like, how do you make up the difference? And so we have had where King's, so now King's is a very large university, so they can start working, they can start approaching people who they know they have businesses with, whether it's food service, the people who sit in the carpets, the uniforms, whatever that is, paper shredding, you name it, there's all kinds of vendors. So I don't think it takes a lot of money to

get this up and running, it's just a matter of being consistent and doing it. So I think anyone can do it. And it's also having the right farmer. So our farmer that we work with one farmer who acts as an aggregator. So if anyone's listening, you're like, what the heck does that mean? It is a farmer who works with a lot of other small family farms in his community. So we probably have a network with him of 30 other farmers and he,

He's a fifth-generational farmer. He has these connections. So he knows who does the best onions. He knows who has the best apples. And he's sourcing all of that for us and bringing it to, sometimes they deliver to King's College. Many times we have a refrigerated van that we'll go and pick up and we load up the van and then we drop it off and then the King's employees set

So it's something like if anyone's listening, I'm happy to help and probably give you more concrete numbers. I'm really pulling them off the top of my head, but we can also provide any of our best practices that we're doing, because it's always a learning process. But I do think anyone listening, you can do it. It's just a matter of creating that relationship with your farmer, which I will be transparent.

Lenny did not wanna work with me. I had to really convince him that I truly wanted to pay for his product at a fair price. He now retrospect us talking about it and we have a really good relationship now where we can be candid with each other. He'll say, know, I really thought you were gonna purchase maybe once or twice and then you would want everything for free at a very cheap rate like most hunger relief organizations.

And so I had to prove that, but now that I prove myself, now it's like an argument, it's a match. He's always like, I want you to be sustainable. And I'm saying to him, no, I want you to be sustainable. Right? So we're going back and forth and he wants to make sure that we get the best price. But then you have to keep in mind, we're also, we are also measuring the outcomes of our sustainability with our farmers in a sense of, so for example, because we have this relationship and we've been working, his farm has been around for over 60 years.

And for the last two years, it was the first time that he stayed open year round. So he's kept his employees on staff year round. They're not seasonal. His farm stand is open year round in Pennsylvania. So everyone can get Pennsylvania storage crop from other farmers, not just his, because he's an aggregator. He sells dairy, eggs, butter, yogurt, you name it. And so think about that sustainability because we're investing in him.

His stand now is open year round, so it benefits the community at large, and it's benefiting all of his other farming communities. So I think the first step, if anyone's listening, is really understand who your farmers are. If they have a roadside farm stand, or not just roadside, but more of a brick and mortar building where you can go in and you can shop, go in and talk to them. I bet they aren't a natural aggregator. I bet they're selling other farmers' crops and stuff in their farm.

and that's the see if they want to partner and then start just slowly having that conversation and pay them.

Speaker 1 (26:21)
Pay them. Pay them. That's fun. Um, let's see here. I'm just thinking like during the, during harvest season, there's stands all over the place. And, uh, I'm just like making mental notes of where all my favorite ones are. There's this neat, Texas actually has a wine country, which is really funny. A lot of people don't know that, but Fredericksburg is a little higher elevation. We're all in South Texas, so it's hot. So the higher elevation happens, but they grow these just amazing peaches, which like everybody knows about Fredericksburg peaches. mean, they're just.

filled with so much flavor and yeah, so that'll be neat. I'll, I'll start making some, some more pit stops around all these stands. Yeah. I like that. Let's see here. So what, so two things talk to me about like a radius that you work with, like, what is your area of the nonprofits that you're providing food? What's that radius look like? And then since we were talking about farmers, how far away is local for, for a farmer to work with?

Speaker 2 (27:16)
Yeah, good question. So when we first formed as a nonprofit, we ended up getting ARPA funding. So that's like COVID relief money. And that money, we had a half a million dollars, but it needed to stay in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. I could work with farmers outside, but the people we were serving, the nonprofits needed to be in Luzerne County. So most of the people, nonprofits that I work with are specifically in Luzerne County. There might be a couple outliers, just post COVID money.

that we received in funding. are open to expanding around our county, but we're also one of those nonprofits that are like, we don't want to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. There are some people who will just keep compa- like writing grants to grow their nonprofit. We, when we think of growing, we keep, we want quality to be.

the top thing versus quantity. And so we know that if we're working with this organization, we need to make sure that we're giving them the highest quality service that we possibly can. And we also know that there's going to be organic growth. And so that's really important to us to say that hyper local and diligent, it's not even a word, diligent with our community and making sure that we're meeting them.

In regards to the farmers, we don't have an official definition of local. I can tell you that the majority of our farmers are actually in our county or in the surrounding counties. Our food miles is 30 miles that our food travels. And it's not, I'm not opposed to working with farmers in New Jersey or New York, we're Northeastern Pennsylvania. So we're kind of on that. We have those two states bordering us.

It just hasn't worked out that way. And I think what's more important for me is that we're working with the smaller family owned farms who are typically left out of the conversation when it comes to hungry leaf. typically, and there's a lot of people say they get aggravated with me. They say I'm criticizing. I'm not criticizing. This is just the truth. Big food banks work with bigger farmers.

It's the truth. Maybe there might be a couple outliers where yeah, they're working with some small family farms. But if we received, I actually filed a FOIA in the States that's a Freedom of Information Act on our Pennsylvania agriculture surplus system. And I wanted that data for the last five years. It's basically where our food banking system in Pennsylvania will buy produce from farmers, but it only covers the cost of transportation and packaging.

And so I wanted to see by farm how much pounds and how much was spent. And if you look at this five year spreadsheets, five years, you will see that most small family farms, if they did participate, it was just a one-time deal because they can't afford it. They don't have the capacity.

So I look at this, it's not a bad thing, right? There's a place for food banks to work with a bigger farm, but there's also, need to find a place to work with these smaller farms that don't have the capacity to sell to a school or a food bank in the sense that a food bank might want 10,000 pounds of potatoes, where I might only want a thousand pounds. And guess what? That farmer can sell me a thousand pounds without stressing them out.

And so it's just a different level of capacity. But I think what's happened is, is that we've, we've left out the small family farm. And so it's really, it's more important than I'm working with the smaller capacity farmers who are shutting down at alarming rates across not only our state, but our country and creating markets for them and giving them a seat at that table to say, no, I can sell my product. It's great product. And I can work with people in my community and fight hunger too.

And I actually, my farmer, we went to visit our secretary of ag in Pennsylvania last week and she actually said, I haven't had a place at the table to talk about fighting hunger until food dignity. And now I'm here. So I think, I think that's more important to me than the location, but obviously we don't have trucking logistics. So it has to be hyper local and hyper tight, hyper close.

Speaker 1 (31:25)
That's fantastic. often are you, you say, okay, so you work with an aggregate, a farmer that's an aggregator. So that, that helps a lot. That's, that's the point of contact for, for a lot of your sourcing. The, the nonprofits that you work with, do you have any, you or maybe the community, is there any routine meeting of the minds coming together or is that just like a

Speaker 2 (31:47)
It's definitely a routine meeting of the mind. So we just had our fourth annual think tank. And again, that started because one of the gaps that I noticed in my community, but now I'm also a national speaker. So I know it's true in other States that the people who always have the seat at the table, whether they're doing the hunger summits or the press conferences or the interviews, it's usually the food banks. It's not the smaller.

organizations who are handing out the food. And maybe I should pause and just make sure everyone on the same playing field, everyone listening, the difference between a food bank and a food pantry. Most people don't know the difference. Most people think that a food bank hands out the food. A food bank is a big warehouse that stores food and gives it to their member agencies, which would be a food pantry, a soup kitchen. I like to call them direct service operators because then it's going to be more, more inclusive, but it also direct service, meaning

They're the people that are giving the food. They're the people that have to say, I'm sorry, we don't have food for you today. There's nothing we can do. And that happens at 13 years. That happened a lot. And so for me, what I noticed was that also the majority of all funding for hunger relief at the state, at the local state and federal level goes right into the food banking system because they've been around for 60 years. They have been able to demonstrate that scale. And so what that does is.

It leaves very little funding for smaller direct service operations to apply for. So it's almost like we are, have been set up to like fight over money, to compete over money. I like to say it's like, here's a bone, throw it in the junkyard and all y'all go after that bone. And, but we're going to have all the money over here. And so I said, enough of that. Like, let's not compete. Let's just get over this hump and let's start all getting in the same room.

We're all small, we're not competing over the same funding. Let's get that out of our head, which we were like 10,000 here, 20,000 there. And we would hope our nonprofit would get it. And I started saying, what would happen if we started writing grants together? What would happen if I have a van and you need a van? How can we share that resource? What other resources do we have that we can pull together? And so we did, we all started writing grants and there would be some times where one organization will say, Hey,

I haven't gotten a grant in a while. I need help. We start writing each other in each other's grants, right? And so, so now we look at this as how do we elevate each other, but we have to come together. We have to get out of this scarcity mindset and really act from a place of abundance because when we come together and we share those resources, there is an abundance that just starts showing up. And so yeah, our meeting of the minds, we just had our fourth annual think tank and

So I think some really good collaborations even came out of this one, time will tell, but we are, can tell you, I'm already looking at grants to include other people that I, that was their first time at the think tank. And I think if we're truly going to end food insecurity, we need to really start looking at how can we diversify funding strategies? How can we diversify solutions that are community led, not just a big overarching solution?

How do we really start leading at the community level and elevating the work and the solutions? Because I truly believe that people at the community level know what works for their community and what does not work. And that goes back to that whole theme. We need to ask where are we wrong so we can be right? this. I answer that.

Speaker 1 (35:19)
Yeah, yeah, no, you don't. No, these are good. This is really good. I'm enjoying this. So one of my, ⁓ my dear friends, she's just a wise soul in that that's been doing this a little bit runs a, ⁓ a small-ish nonprofit that, that really looks at helping people that were fine yesterday. There was some crisis that happened and then today they're not fine anymore. And she's just giving me just surplus of, of great ideas. But she said one of the.

for newer nonprofits getting started and a lot of them have there on their own for awhile. They want to do everything themselves. She's like, that's the absolute wrong thing to do. It's partner every chance you get. And you hear that, but we had the chamber hosted a ⁓ nonprofit luncheon and there was five nonprofits that were tied to that one organization and just tiny little things here. Where's the need? Like, hey, let's write a grant together. Let's do this. Let's do that. And it was just...

It was just beautiful, like the perfect display of community and just the way for me to fully get what she was saying. So that's pretty neat. It's important. So how about food is power? You've had a series on your podcast from quite a few guests and you ask them what's about food is power. Talk to me about that.

Speaker 2 (36:40)
At the risk, you can always edit this out or you don't have to, but it gets a little spicy. So I wanted to make noise during the months of September, October, November, and December, because that is the time where the biggest hunger relief network is really going strong advertising to get donations. And so I thought to myself, I have been in a situation where food has been used as power against me when I was running that food pantry.

when I started questioning or sending back rotten produce or questioning why am I getting moldy corn right now when my farmer's selling it down the street and how did this even leave the warehouse? And I would try to have conversations. And it was like a light switch kind of went off where I wasn't, it was almost like that partnership was trying to keep me down versus collaborate and work. And I was like, okay, if that could happen so easily and there could be intimidation,

I realized at that moment, I was like, they're using food as power over me and where else is this happening? And it made me start questioning systems a little bit more. And so I thought, you know what, let's do a food is power series. And so I just put on LinkedIn, who wants to be on the podcast? It's the food is power series. And all I'm going to do is really ask you how has food been used as power from your perspective. And of course everyone.

I wanted everyone to jump on the Clancy bandwagon. I wanted them to, you know, bark and you know, whatever against about the same thing I wanted to bark about. But then I was like, my gosh, I am clueless here. And I had no idea food has been used as power in this way. And every single guest. We ran, we ran that series. dropped any episode from September every Friday, I think through the end of January.

and every story was different. Every sector or industry or system was different. Some guests took it on as an individual that hunger has a power over me. It's like a constant hum and I can't concentrate. That story with Jill had me pretty much in tears. But all the way down to Monica Bassett who was talking about food being used as power in the military. Just I remember I sent that raw episode

before it was ever even edited. Like you and I are at, we're talking right now, got down, got off of Riverside, downloaded it. And I sent it to someone who I knew was in the Air Force for many years. And it took him a couple hours and he called me back and he's like, I've been crying since I listened to that. And I could still hear it in him. And he's like, everything she said is true. And I never realized.

of that power that they held over us. And so it's just a really interesting series to listen to because they all came from different perspectives. Some was just this big overarching system and some was down at the individual level. And I learned a ton. I actually think they were my best podcast episodes. It's like, now do I just put that question into every guest? How has food been used as, and some people took it as positive. It wasn't all negative too.

There were some people, Nicole Dooby in Florida, she does very similar work that I do in my community, except she came at it as a farmer versus someone who ran a nonprofit. And we kind of, we do, we do pretty much similar work. Her's food is power is a very positive thing, right? So, and she gave examples of how when we can actually make sure we're investing in our farmers and getting food to people, it can be a very powerful thing. So every single episode was different, different perspectives.

So yeah, thanks for asking. It was a scary thing in the beginning to launch because I didn't know, you know, I'm kind of rocking the boat a little bit, well, a lot within the charitable food system. And so, and I knew that that would do that, but I didn't know that it would uncover so many truths that I didn't know.

Speaker 1 (40:44)
There's a lot of raw emotions in those. Stronghold, that's right? Yeah, dug into that because I don't know how long ago that was, but I was in the Marine Reserve. So yeah, I paid attention to a lot of different issues with vets. know, there's so many different gaps that most folks, unless you actually step foot in the world, you have no clue. Somebody not being in the military or family military.

Speaker 2 (40:51)
The entry Monica Bassett, yep.

Speaker 1 (41:13)
They hear that and they're like, wait a minute, what? Like there's, we have military that, that are on SNAP or going to food pantries. yeah, we, we do, we do. I remember once upon a time, it's been a while since I got out, but I remember there was a comment on the Marine Corps that actually asked the question, should like E1, two and threes even be allowed to be married because they just don't make enough money. I mean, it's thankfully that didn't happen, but I mean that- There you go. It tells you. Yeah. then, so I also learned.

Just something you said earlier that folks are really, really proud. Like one of the biases, one of the stigmas are like people who are just asking for a handout and hopefully that's not nearly as prevalent as it used to be. But like nationally, what is it? 20 % of those eligible for SNAP do not take advantage of it or not enrolled. And then 50 % of those eligible for WIC are not enrolled. And some of that is, is knowledge. Some of that is what hours the offices are open, but like a good chunk of that.

Just generally not WIC or SNAP specifically, but military or whatever. I mean, there's a heck of a lot of reasons why somebody's not feeling food secure, didn't have that power.

Speaker 2 (42:25)
Yep. There's a lot of internal and external shame associated, at least that's what I've learned from all the interviews that I've done. Way before the podcast, I was interviewing people for, oh, what was it called? was some Senator Casey in Congress, the Community Voice Project, and it was the only year that they did it. I think it was 2015. So I actually sat down and had a lot of...

one-on-one face-to-face conversations with people that we were serving and other nonprofits that I was partnering with at that time. And it's everyone had a story of being shamed at the cash register, not necessarily by the person at the cash register, but the people behind them. And it was just a consistent theme. And some of the stories were really just shocking. ⁓ Just real quick.

The woman was in this program, the Women's with Children's program. was in the Army, retired, single mom, trying to get herself through college. In Pennsylvania, the GI Bill cannot be used for food, but it can be used for education. And so she was utilizing WIC and SNAP and she...

was also active in the National Guard local. So single mom, she had to work a job at least 10 hours a week to be part of this program with the women's with children's program at Misericordia. Veteran, National Guard, and she's paying and the guy behind her looked at her and was like, you're welcome. And she was mortified. I mean, just mortified. And at the end of the day, he should have been saying thank you to her, right? But he had no idea.

who she was or what she was doing and how she was doing it. And just because she had those benefits, he felt entitled to make her feel she owed him something. And I think this is a really important topic now, right? Because we have the farm bill coming up and everyone's afraid of SNAP, NAP and WIC cuts. And I think we need to start talking about SNAP and WIC. So SNAP is food stamps, you know.

the supplemental nutrition program and then WIC is women, infant and children, that it's an immediate investment in our economy. And we don't look at it that way. So like when a mom is getting curve SNAP benefits or WIC.

She can turn around and go to our local grocery store and put that money right back into the economy. And I think we need to start asking our retail people and professionals, how much money is this investing into your grocery store? And what would happen if snap and with WIC benefits were taken away? How does that truly impact the local mom and pop, the smaller retails? I'm sure the bigger ones too, but I really wish that we could start looking at it as more than an investment. ⁓

that gentleman telling her to say, you know.

Speaker 1 (45:20)
Thank you. made a note of that. I'm going to ask my, local grocery stores. Okay. In the United States at large, and I say, I've said this a few times, like Texas specifically, we are such an independent people and we have this constant battle with like, I'm independent. I need to take care of myself or you need to take care of yourself. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Don't rely on anybody else. But then there's also this big part of us in our history that, you know, we're like a

Speaker 2 (45:23)
Do it, let me know what they say.

Speaker 1 (45:49)
a nation of, of Christians and a lot of big melting pots of religions, like independent, pull yourself by the bootstraps and the messages of, of Jesus. Just don't really go together all the time. So just like, I don't know, just have a heart people, just give a damn about your neighbors.

Speaker 2 (46:07)
Well, we never know. I mean, we don't truly know what other people have gone through. And most of the time, I don't like giving statistics on what food insecurity is, because I just don't believe them. And the reason I don't believe them is because hunger is so fluid. And when I say fluid, it can change a birth of a child, a car breaking down, a divorce, a death of a family member, an illness, all of these things could set someone into a

a time of need that it's usually in the most the majority of people it's temporary and there's I don't have the stats in front of me but there are statistics that will show like typically it's not that long of a time that people are on these programs and that they want to get off. think we have these narratives of people just being on them being on them and I was I was a person who judged this is I thought this. ⁓

Listen to my keen or my Ted X, right? I totally had those misconceptions. And then when I started learning about it, I was like, wow. And then you look at the research, it's like, it's not the truth. Maybe, yeah, there's some people that might take advantage, but that's not the majority. And so we really need to make sure that if we want to have a healthy workforce and we want to have a strong military, we need to make sure people are nourished and start looking at that level versus the level we've

been maybe judging because it is it's workforce development. It's a national security issue.

Speaker 1 (47:40)
Start talking in terms of economy. Yeah. Workforce development. I love that. Okay. So ⁓ let's finish up by what are the next steps for Clancy Harrison and food dignity?

Speaker 2 (47:51)
Yeah, that's a good question. I have no idea. I am in the process of negotiating a book deal, whether I don't know what's gonna happen with that. I don't know. I don't know what the next steps are. I don't know. I wish I could tell you. I think for me, it's really advocating to make sure community led voices are heard, that smaller organizations get the funding that they need.

break down the monopoly that has controlled the hunger relief sector for a long time. That's where my mind and my heart is now because I feel like if we're, need to start again, diversifying solutions and funding strategies for these smaller hyper-local organizations that are working truly in their community. And that's really important to me because there's a lot of money out there trying to be a little political correct right now.

Speaker 1 (48:49)
Got it. You're walking the line well. Yeah. So the, I think one of the big takeaways after talking to you is like, if, if you have a little tug at your heart and you want to get involved somehow, like I think the community building is the future of our country. really is not, you know, maybe that's where the, you know, the message of, of Jesus and, and, know, pull yourself up by the bootstraps, you know, maybe that's where it is. People go out because they're, they're having a pull at their heart.

But then let's, you know, let's, let's make our community better. Let's bring it together. Let's activate the entire town. What we're trying to do in Bernie, make Bernie the healthiest small town in Texas.

Speaker 2 (49:29)
Yeah, and I think anyone listening, if that's your philosophy, mean, I mean, just think about it. Any of your taxpayer dollars that are going into hunger relief, but it's going to these bigger systems and it's not supporting that local. mean, that's a really good thing to get behind because then you're in that's economic development. It's workforce development and we're, building our local economy around it. And so, yeah, I think the community building is huge. When we met with our farmer and I took three farmers to meet with our secretary.

Russ Redding in Pennsylvania. And each of them talked about how they're getting their food to people they never thought that they would ever have access to and that they're seeing different angles of the community. They're getting engaged more, they have more people coming into their stands because of what we're doing as a partnership. And I know Secretary Russ Redding was really impressed because he said all three of you are talking about food dignity from a different

value, but it all went back to building that community and supporting one another versus having, you know, again, they had a seat at the table and it's, it's making sure that you're, I just want to keep saying hyper local people in your community are at the table and you're working together and you're able to keep those tax dollars back invested back into your very local community instead of maybe another state. know in Pennsylvania are

The funding has gone to other states, to other ag, to bring in resources when our farmers had it. So I think you're right. Community building is vital right now because we need to keep our local agriculture in business. Or we're all going to be mad, like, we're not going to have food. It's long-term food security.

Speaker 1 (51:14)
Very good point. All right. Well, Clancy, I just love your heart, but I love your brain too, because you're just, you're figuring out how to, how to build relationships and fill in the gaps and bring people together. So I'm impressed as heck. thanks for.

Speaker 2 (51:27)
Thank

you. And I love the way you're doing too.

Speaker 1 (51:30)
Thanks, Pesci. amazing work. I appreciate it. This was fun. Oh, so how could people find you real quick? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:35)
Sure, so LinkedIn is where I'm really the most vocal. So it's just Clancy Harrison. I don't know if there's a C in there, but Clancy Harrison. actually has an FD logo in there, but Food Dignity Movement is our website as well. So, but definitely find me on LinkedIn.

Speaker 1 (51:51)
All right. And listen to the podcast. ⁓ Thanks, Fancy. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening. Please rate and review the podcast on the platform of your choice so we can reach more people and more people are recommended this podcast. And if you really liked it, the single best way you can help us grow is by telling your friends. Now for all the legal stuff. The views and opinion expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. For my day job,

Speaker 2 (51:54)
dignity podcast. Yep.

Speaker 1 (52:19)
I'm an employee of AppVee and appear on this podcast on my own accord and not in the professional capacity as an AppVee employee. All viewpoints provided are my personal opinions and not intended to reflect those of my employer. If you have any questions or comments, please shoot me an email at jolly at interrupt hunger.org. Let's go spread some joy people.