These haven't been amended to include some of the great ideas we discussed in class, but I wanted to get it up.

Awareness-raising:

Cookbook
Of most requested items. The idea is to provide recipes for edible meals made with a minimum of expense and utensils. Other information would be included as well, including information on local hunger, nutrition, recipes that are low fat, vegetarian or vegan, etc. There are opportunities to do recipe testing (the idea of a cookbook, remember, is to provide recipes for edible meals), work on the design, try to find funding to have the book printed, etc. Also of use would be some brainstorming on ways to market a cookbook, how to use it to increase donations to food banks, how to get it into the hands of people who would use it (and thus how to make it usable for people who could benefit from it). I think this project is at the point where by the end of the term a layout for a book seems feasible, a plan to print it and market it, and it should have made good progress toward deciding how to organize it and what recipes to include. Recipe testing could in fact be a fundraising or awareness-raising event.

Art contest
We talked about this one in class. It would be a good way to involve local schools and raise awareness of issues, as well as to get some really good art produced (I happen to be a big fan of kids' art). It might be worth considering talking to the Hoke Gallery about a showing, maybe even a fundraiser (or again, awareness raiser). A contest could be age-specific, and focus on both positive (plenty) and more distressing (hunger) themes. A reception could even include something like the World Food Day meal, where people come to eat, draw a number, and get either boiled rice (like about 75% of the world), some normal fare (23%?), and gourmet fare (2% maybe?)-just like the real world, again to bring home a point and raise awareness. With the awareness-raising stuff, it would also be good to take advantage of local media outlets, etc.

Speaking to classes
Another idea that merits development, but which may take a bit longer to realize. Some of the challenges are developing a relationship with schools, training people and educating students who would be interested in giving talks, demonstrations, etc. (the above World Food Day exercise could be a good example), and coordinating the activities.

Grocer project
It would be really nice if grocers could, for instance, take the display at the end of one aisle and reserve it for items commonly purchased for the food bank. Complete with bags and a barrel out front, students would have to arrange for pick up and drop off, etc. Sale items could go there (e.g., buy 1 get 1 free). The points are three, really: first, to raise awareness of hunger and awareness of what shoppers can do, and second, to increase donations to Community Connections, and third, to bring in local retail grocers as partners in the project (assuming eventual competition with a Walmart Supercenter grocery bizness, they would hopefully see this as an opportunity to be good neighbors and good citizens). There is a lot of rapport-building with this one-it's more important that we build a relationship for now, and work with them to figure out what kind of participation they're willing and able to provide (the end-of-aisle idea is sort of a best-case scenario).

Miscellaneous

Non food item drive
Much of the prep work for this was done last term. There may be time to organize this and do everything but carry it out-in fact, it could be carried out if a motivated group took it up. The rationale is that while there are food banks and some emergency food assistance, many families can't get some of the basic non-food items they need-soap, hygiene products, paper products, toothbrushes, laundry supplies, baby supplies, vitamins, first aid stuff, etc.

Thoughtful Third Thursdays
This one is ready to go-Jana Parmele, who works on campus, developed the idea of going to businesses and asking employees to make small monthly contributions, which would be handed over to Community Connections to purchase food for food banks ($1 buys approximately 10 lbs of food). There is a student working on this, but he could use help if anyone's interested. This would involve some phone and leg work in town, talking to businesses, schmoozing, making sure that there is a system of accountability to handle the money, making sure businesses know how much we appreciate their participation, etc.

Food aid information
Do people know where to go to get it? Maybe you've noticed the information on sexual assault in many of the bathrooms on campus. This would be a similar thing, but instead with contacts for people to make to learn more about sources of food aid available in La Grande and surrounding areas. Students worked on this project last term and developed two sets of information: one in Spanish and one in English. The next step is following through and figuring out how to market this and get it to as many people as possible who might benefit from it.

Building a better food drive
A group could become experts on the 'best practices' used by food drives, develop materials to help local groups that want to do food drives-essentially serve as a resource for materials and information on food drives. This one would likely involve working closely with Marta Harvill at Community Connections, who is their food drive coordinator and who works with the local food banks. Students worked on a calendar with the food drives last term, so we have a pretty good idea of the major ones, when they occur, and where gaps are in the year.

Research-related
Survey of local businesses
How often are they solicited? For what? How much do they give? How often? A group could develop a recording form that businesses could use and complete every time someone comes by to solicit money, donations, etc. There are two reasons for this-to see how often requests for hunger-related donations come around, and to see how hunger fits in to the larger picture of businesses receiving requests for donations.

Survey of food bank recipients
We just don't know much about the 'demand' side of hunger in La Grande. What are the items that people most prefer? Another way to get at this is what are the items that people buy? We do have a list of preferred items that come from the U.S. surplus commodity program, but these aren't the regular grocery items. What is their monthly food budget? What sources of outside help do they rely on (food banks, family, friends, food stamps, etc.) and how often? More generally, one could do a survey on ways that people find to economize on shopping, meal preparation, etc. This could be done in a survey format (e.g., going to a food bank and asking people to fill out questionnaires) or by doing some interviews, etc.

Keeping tabs on hunger locally
EOU could collect data for instance on food stamps, food bank participation, food drive activity, school lunch participation, and see how these things change over time. This would involve working with people and agencies and organizations in town that work on these projects, and finding ways to collaborate and share information and publish it, most likely to a web page. If the goal of the project is truly to alleviate hunger, we have to come up with ways to measure hunger and the impact of activities. We have some of these data, one thing we need is to develop a mechanism to collect them regularly, to figure out what data are out there to collect, and to figure out how to display them.

Policy related to hunger
What are other states, municipalities doing? In what directions is the federal government going? Any students interested in public policy issues might consider this-learning from what others are doing about how to run a project such as we're developing, or what sorts of policies work well at erasing the stigma of seeking assistance, alleviating hunger, or addressing its underlying causes.

Are grocers manipulating prices?
There have been allegations that some local retail grocers raise their prices at the beginning of the month when people receive their food stamps, particularly on items they're most likely to purchase. This assumes they would know which items (I'd like to know, too …), and that they are intentionally gouging food stamp recipients. Last term students developed a method for going into the stores, collecting data, and testing this allegation. We would have to do this project over several months, but a group could start with the data collection. Because of the importance of working with grocers, if this is happening, they need to know that it isn't a community-friendly policy, especially if we're working to erase the stigma of food assistance, and if they want to be able to compete when or if WalMart Supersizes.