Calendar

Seminole Action Coalition Serving Our Needy (SACSON)
Meets the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of every month at Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Sanford

P.O. Box 95
Sanford, FL 32772

E-mail: sacson1@yahoo.com
Blog: sacson.wordpress.com

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It’s called the $32.91 Fundraising Project

It costs SACSON an average of $32.91 for the necessary paperwork to help restore one person’s identity during an IDignity project.

So, we have kicked off the $32.91 Fundraising Project. We’re asking you to contribute at least one ID and reach out to friends, family, members of your church and more to do the same.

A check for $32.91 arrived at the SACSON P.O. Box this week, providing for another ID.

Thanks,

Trace Trylko
Chair – SACSON

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SACSON Meeting – Tuesday, February 9 at 630 pm at Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Sanford

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City of Sanford City Commission Meetings are normally held on the second and fourth Mondays of each month at 7 pm in the City Commission Chambers located on the first floor of City Hall.

February 22

Tuesday Inspiration …

Coaching isn’t an addition to a leader’s job, it’s an integral part of it.
~ George S. Odiorne

Central Florida hunger numbers are daunting

By Kate Santich, Orlando Sentinel

12:18 PM EST, February 8, 2010

A new report on hunger in Central Florida reveals that nearly 732,000 people sought help from local food banks last year – many of them families with young children.

A new and highly detailed report on hunger in Central Florida reveals that nearly 732,000 people sought help from local food banks last year – many of them families with young children.

The report, released today by Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida, showed a daunting 152-percent increase in that figure since the previous study just four years earlier. Nearly 40 percent of those going hungry don’t have access to a working car, 61 percent have unpaid medical bills and most have to choose between buying food or paying the rent or utility bill.

“The report was pretty shocking,” said Dave Krepcho, president and CEO of Second Harvest. “We knew the numbers would be high, yet when the facts came across, they were very sobering. There is a whole new addition of blue- and white-collar workers who just can’t find jobs or work such limited hours that they can’t afford the basics.”

In fact, a third of those who went to food banks for help actually had jobs already – but those jobs didn’t pay enough to cover the grocery bill in its entirety. Less than a third of the recipients receive food stamps, though it is likely many more are eligible. Yet those benefits typically run out by the third week of each month.

Worse, nearly 21 percent of the pantries and 33 percent of the shelters reported that they had to turn away needy people during the past year because they simply ran out of food.

Were it not for the faith-based community and the help of volunteers, the situation would be decidedly worse, the study revealed. Some 79 percent of the pantries, 63 percent of the soup kitchens and 53 percent of the region’s shelters are run by faith-based nonprofit agencies, and 73 percent of the food pantries have no paid staff at all.

“Our main goal is just getting the word out to let the community know we have a hunger problem and this is what it looks like,” Krepcho said. “The more people understand, the better the chance that they’ll do something.”

Kate Santich can be reached at 407-420-5503 or ksantich@orlandosentinel.com.

Monday Inspiration …

In all things, be willing to listen to people around you. None of us is really smart enough to go it alone.
~ John Clendenin

Friday Inspiration …

Knowing your peace of mind is up to you, not the world, is the most powerful and secure state of mind you can achieve.
~ Dr. Lee Jampolsky

Thursday Inspiration …

You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life.
~ Zig Ziglar

February 4 Update: 17 IDs paid for …

Through February 4, funds have come in to fully pay for 17 IDs. The cost of a typical ID (out-of-state birth certificate, etc.) average $32.91 per ID. Until we have fully funded 150 IDs we WILL NOT be scheduling the next IDignity project in Sanford. Thus, making YOUR fundraising efforts all the more important. Again, you’re being asked to sponsor at least one ID and/or recruit a new donor. If everyone does this, we’ll meet our goal.

Thank you for your attention to this request.

Trace Trylko
Chair – SACSON

Wednesday Inspiration …

You get the best efforts from others not by lighting a fire beneath them, but by building a fire within.
~ Bob Nelson

Fight the stereotypes by educating people you know: Study: 1 in 8 get help at food banks

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY

One in eight Americans — 37 million — received emergency food help last year, up 46% from 2005, the nation’s largest hunger-relief group reports today.

Children are hit particularly hard, according to the report by Feeding America, a network of 203 food banks nationwide. One in five children, 14 million, received food from soup kitchens, food pantries and other agencies, up from 9 million in 2005, the year of the group’s last major survey.

“This is a crisis,” says Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America. “People need to understand that this is America, and we’re seeing this kind of need.” She says the report is her group’s most comprehensive study on emergency food distribution.

It comes as a record number of Americans are receiving food stamps — 33.7 million last year — and as President Obama, who has set a goal of ending childhood hunger by 2015, proposed in his budget Monday to add $1 billion annually to school-based food programs.

The report “reinforces what we know, which is that poverty and hardship are rising,” says Stacy Dean, director of food assistance policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which researches how public programs affect low- and middle-income people. She says some of the same people who get food stamps also go to soup kitchens or food pantries, because the government aid might not be enough.

The Agriculture Department reported in November that 14.6% of households didn’t have enough food at some time in 2008.

Feeding America based its report on 61,000 interviews with people seeking food aid and 37,000 surveys of food pantries, soup kitchens, emergency shelters and other programs affiliated with Feeding America food banks.

More than a third of those interviewed said they had to choose between food and other necessities, including rent, utilities and health care. The average monthly income of households seeking help, $940, is below the $1,214 federal poverty level for a two-person household.

“Our system is overburdened,” Escarra says. She says companies, individuals and the federal government have increased donations, but food banks are still struggling to keep up with demand.

The Food Bank of Northern Nevada served 124,200 people last year, four times as many as in 2005, spokeswoman Jocelyn Lantrip says.

“We’re a very hard-hit state,” Lantrip says, noting Nevada’s 13% unemployment rate. She says the food bank is able to meet demand largely because it got a new privately funded facility in July 2008 that tripled the bank’s size and expanded its ability to accept perishable food, much of it donated by grocery stores.

In Austin, the Capital Area Food Bank is holding more food drives and sending trucks to local grocery stores to pick up food about to expire, spokeswoman Kerri Qunell says.

She says the bank collected 3.3 million pounds of food last year, up from 1.8 million in 2008.

Qunell says most of her food bank’s clients have jobs but aren’t earning enough to make ends meet. Like Lantrip in Nevada, she sees more newcomers.

She recalls meeting a man in his early 60s who lined up for food at a mobile pantry. He told her that, in the past, “my wife and I were always the ones who helped.”

Tuesday Inspiration …

You can learn new things at any time in your life if you’re willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.
~ Barbara Sher

Centennial Forum: We need to refocus priorities – from ‘things’ to ‘people’

by Father Rory H. B. Harris, Special to the Herald

02.01.10 – 10:28 am

A “Point in Time” county census of the homeless in Seminole was taken Wednesday by volunteers for the Homeless Services Network, director Kathy Jackson, and the Sanford Hope Team.

Volunteers went to feeding/soup kitchen centers, camps in the woods, day-labor lines, and social-service agencies throughout the day to try to assess the actual numbers of homeless people living among us.

Being homeless in these difficult economic times poses many unique problems for those seeking shelter or a way out of their homeless predicament. Many stay with friends and family members but have no permanent place to call “home,” and are therefore, homeless.

Some live in their car or van. Some camp out in the woods. Others are in the limited amount of shelters and beds available. Others just try to find a warm corner in some alley or behind a trash dumpster. Some of the lucky ones are in affordable motels – families cramped together into one room.

Unfortunately, many of the homeless are children. Some 1,100 or more in Seminole schools are “homeless” but attend school. Their parent(s) have fallen on hard times, and have lost their jobs, home and sometimes their sense of dignity. It’s tough being a child trying to have any semblance of a child’s life while being homeless. Children who live in the camps in the woods are in danger of being molested by predators, not necessarily the homeless but others who prey upon them.

The purpose of the “Point in Time” countywide census was to try to get some data that could be analyzed and then used to seek grants-in-aid, federal or state monies, corporate grants – anything that could help some homeless person attain a safe place they could call “home.”

The surveys by volunteers will be collated and assessed by U.C.F. students under Dr. James Wright’s supervision to ensure that the information collected has no redundancies. The questionnaires asked for the surveyed person’s first/last initials (privacy issue), gender, year born, state born, and city/state where they became homeless. That’s enough variables to avoid duplications when the surveyed are collected and examined.

The results of this census will be released in mid-March. When this information becomes available, we will have at least a snapshot of what the face of homelessness is in Sanford and Seminole County. Hopefully, the information can be put to good use in applying for grants to help the homeless.

But the real question is what are we doing as a city to be a part of the solution to this increasing problem?

The Seminole Action Coalition Serving Our Needy has a meeting on the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at 6:30 p.m. at Holy Cross Episcopal Church. City residents are meeting to work on this issue and have already sponsored two coffee-and-dessert forums and two IDignity events, sponsor a weekly laundry service, and support feeding centers such as Grace ‘n’ Grits in their efforts.

While many of these efforts are helpful in addressing some basic needs of the homeless, the overall solution to this growing problem eludes us. Why? Perhaps we lack the political will and humane conscience to rethink our priorities as a city. We want a clean, safe, recreational, and business-friendly Sanford that is prospering and inviting. The homeless seem to be among us reminding that until we address “human issues,” that idyllic vision of Sanford will always elude us.

The city leadership continues to undertake worthy projects to enhance Sanford’s physical amenities: a proposed $1 million addition for Fort Mellon Park, another million or so for water cleanup and filtration, and more millions for other worthy projects – but not one dime toward alleviating homelessness.

As one concerned citizen, I would suggest that we refocus our priorities away from “things” to “people,” and fund a transformational center for the homeless and needy to help them get their lives back together. There is a cost to homelessness that each of us as taxpayers pay for emergency services provided, hospital ER attention, police hours, etc.

If we funded a $1 million transformational center with case managers to assist the homeless to overcome the obstacles they face, think of the huge tax costs that would save. There are fiscal savings to homeowners in tax relief for addressing and helping to solve the homeless issue.

It’s time to get our priorities straight and alleviate human (and children) suffering.

Father Rory H. B. Harris is rector of Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Sanford. Comments can be sent to FrRoryHolyCross@aol.com or Herald publisher Gene Kruckemyer at GKruckemyer@MySanfordHerald.com. Topics for The Sanford Herald’s Centennial Forum opinion series are chosen by the community writers.