June 2, 2025 • 15 mins
It’s a staggering statistic: One in three adults and nearly half of families with children experienced food insecurity in 2023. While food pantries are one of the main resources for those in need, those food pantries are serviced by food banks. Our guest is Greg Silverman, CEO of the non-profit West Side Campaign Against Hunger, on how food banks are combining resources to respond to challenges such as increased demand and inflation. For more, visit WSCAH.org.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thanks for listening to Get Connected. Perhaps you weren't aware.
One in three adults and nearly half of families with
children in New York City experienced food security in twenty
twenty three. Our guest is Greg Silverman, CEO of the
nonprofit west Side Campaign Against Hunger, on the current pressures
food banks and food pantries are facing at a time
of increased need for their services. Greg Siverman, thank you
(00:34):
for being on Get Connected.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Super happy to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You can find out more about them at west Side
Campaign Against Hunger. The acronymwscah dot org, which we're calling wiska.
So wiska Greg, how do you fit into this massive
structure of food assistants in New York City? What do
you do?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah? Thank you so. The west Side Campaign and Hunger
has been around for forty five years. On the frontlines
people along with almost there's almost eight hundred pantries in
New York City who who on the front lines are
handing out food where one of them or one of
the larger ones. We serve about one hundred and ten
thousand New Yorkers in need across about thirty distribution points,
(01:14):
plus two thousand people getting home deliveries if they're you know,
a new mom and they and they're in need, so
we're going to send them those groceries a home so
they don't have to leave their home. But yeah, we
fit in by being a part of a network of
frontline providers that fill in for a meager safety net
that New York City slash New York State slash the
(01:36):
United States has compared to a lot of other places.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I mentioned it at the beginning. It is the stunning
statistic that nearly one in three adults and half of
families in the city experienced food and security in twenty
twenty three. What does that look like? What does that
actually mean?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
You know, when we think about food and security, we're
talking about the idea that people are going through the
month and there's a point when they don't have literally
secure food in the A parent is going to skip
a meal to feed their child, a child is going
to share with another kid. The family doesn't have the nutritional,
healthy food that they need to thrive This is not
(02:12):
just about calories. This is about thriving, healthy families and food.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
And I feel like we have to say it, even
though it seems like something we should know by now.
But from this Robinhood report, nearly seventy percent of those
people who were availing themselves of food banks or food pantries,
they were working. They are people who are employed. There
are people who have jobs.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, this shouldn't be the dirty secret, but right the truth.
People forget these things. Right, Like when people go to
pantries feeding, say you are feeding your family. Those children
should not be working. They should be in school. These
seniors who get food from us have served their communities
and worked and now they're retired, hopefully, they should not
(02:57):
be working. The rest of the folks who are of
work are trying to work. They're just underemployed. They're multiple employed,
they're working multiple part time jobs, they're working under the table,
they're working all different ways to make ends meet, and
then they're squeezing in time to like go to a pantry.
Like the hardest job in New York City is to
be living in poverty. And that's just a different mindset
(03:18):
that I think we have to remind ourselves, like how
difficult must it be to not have a choice of
all the foods you want? To not have the dollars
in your bank to like gee, you know, you know,
as they say, like I think the robin Hood Report
speaks to it, like one problem in your life, whether
it's a broken down car or a health alman, like
(03:39):
you're you have nothing left in your bank account and
you're going into debt.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Nearly half of the people who use food pantries we're
dealing with a serious health problem, and seventy five percent
because of financial shocks. So people are just one issue
away from meeting assistance.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, I mean what we see and this is for
many years. Our customers generally come once a month to
most of our distribution points, or they're allowed to come
once a month, but they come not twelve times a year.
They come often six times a year, five times a year,
seven times a year. It's it's the majority that come
sporadically because when they're not in need, they do not come.
(04:16):
People when they're working and have the means, they have
other things they're going to use their time for. No
one wants to sit in line in a pantry. People
travel from all over New York City to get to
the West Side Campaign. It's hunger for our food because
it's such high quality food.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Our guest is Greg Silverman, the CEO of the West
Side Campaign Against Hunger Whiska. Their website is WSCAH dot org.
They have been redefining food assistance programs in New York
City for forty five years. You're listening to get connected
on one oh six point seven light FM. I'mina del Rio.
Just to pick up on what you said. I know
interrupted you, But one of the things that Wiska has
(04:52):
done is you created many years ago this this supermarket
style pantry. What's the significance of that?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Almost three decades ago we started the first choice model
pantry in a sense, allowing people the same conveniences that
people with the economic needs have when they go to
a grocer store, choose the foods you want, there's a
chef and form a multiple restaurant and are like, right,
I want to make sure my customers get the best
food possible. You know, I've been at Whiska for eight years.
What I've seen is that over time, the pantry world
(05:20):
has not kept up with the distribution models that customers
are used to now, So when pantries first started, they
were just handing people a few random high sugar, high salt,
high fat product items that customers didn't even want. Slowly,
but surely, this model that we created, this customer choice model,
which feels like a very small grocery store, has evolved
(05:42):
and become like the norm across the country. Let people
choose what they want. The problem is there's only a
choice of say like between five and eight types of
vegetables and fruits in most pantries. This isn't whole foods
with ten thousand products. So what we've done more of
late is focus in on what our customers want, survey
our customers, find out what they're and get the best
(06:03):
quality product. We give out fifty three percent of our
food in the form of fresh produce, which means for us,
that's like over almost three million pounds of fresh produce
we distribute. We give them those products, and we get
them into the community where they live at times that
are convenient for them, often doing home delivery, online virtual
models to engage with people so they don't have to
(06:24):
spend time waiting in line, like the conveniences that every
more and more customers in the United States and across
what are used to like home delivered groceries, pre picking
what you want. All these kind of things are about
choice and are about dignity, and that's what our community deserves.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
One of the things you're also able to do because
you're so large, is participate in this roundtable for food
access and work on both purchasing and purchasing power. Can
you talk about that and how that might save you
on a particular purchase.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, I mean, I think as a chef and former
restaurant owner, I always had issue with what was happening
with my pricing, and so I years ago when I
had restaurants, I worked with other restaurants to drive down pricing.
And so when I got to the West Side Campaigns Hunger,
I reached out to other amazing nonprofits like New York
Common Pantry and Project Hospitality and Staten Island and Saint
(07:13):
John's Bread and Life and we and I said, would
you like to join me and like, let's share data
and drive down pricing. And so we started sharing data.
He said we'd probably save like seven percent on our
food purchasing cost. We saved ended up in the first year,
saving I think it was twenty two percent, and we've
added more organizations like City Meals and Met Council to
that network. Now Beast examples. Well, you know when we
(07:35):
purchase now instead of one or two pallets of milk,
we can purchase a tractor traveler road of shelf stable
milk that gets distributed across a number of different organizations,
separate nonprofits, and the price is forty percent cheaper. At
Thanksgiving last year, our turkey price we got was I
think thirty five percent cheaper than you would get anywhere else.
(07:57):
And that's because we purchased together, We ordered in advance,
and we want to make sure our customers got the
best product. And the more we save, the more we know,
the more we drive that back into distributing more food.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So that's the good news. Yeah, On the other side
of the equation of the current situation, how will something
like the tariffs impact what you were able to buy
and offer customers?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Like any organization feeding people, whether you're a restaurant or a
food service operator or a pantry like we're going to
do the best we can to get our customers the
foods that they want and need. That may switch slightly
based on what's going on with tariffs. It might bring
new opportunities, right, Like, we continue to dive into more
and more local purchasing because our customers want local, and
(08:40):
they want they want organic, they want all kinds of
different products, and we're getting of those, like we're getting
beans from New York State and getting oats from northern
New York State. We're going to do those things even
more because the price might become more economical for us.
And it's all the more reason that groups like the
Roundtable need to exist. We have to purchase together. It
might not be thirty percent cheap than it was, but
(09:01):
we're get We're going to get a better price than
we could possibly get alone. There is no transformation of
communities that happens in isolation. There's no change in any
system of any sort done in isolation. The Roundtable is
the best example that I know of in our little
world of emergency eating. It's how we're actually changing how
(09:22):
we do emergency feeding for food instigant people across the country.
It's done by collaboration, and it's done on the front
lines by organizations that know our communities and live and
work in our communities.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
For better or worse. You were also on the front
lines of seeing people come to you who are in
dire situations. And right now we've got lots of immigrants
in the city. We also have ice rates that are
in the city. How has that impacted your client tele
and your work in the face of all this increased
demand on top of everything else.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah, and in some of our locations we're seeing decreased numbers.
Mid January, the numbers started to decrease after the last year.
Just we always remind people this. If at our biggest
distribution point, which is where we were founded at eighty
six in West End, pre pandemic, we were serving maybe
two hundred families a day high a pandemic, four hundred
(10:15):
families a day. This past year six hundred families a day,
and now we're back down to that sort of four
hundred month And for a number of reasons, And one
of the biggie big reasons is fear. Because our food
is truly amazing, and our team is fabulous and a
volunteer network is incredible. How people are treated is really great.
So people want to come for that food, but they
(10:35):
don't want to spend time on the subway out in
the open. They don't want to then wait in line
in a pantry and then have to travel back again.
It's like you're exposing yourself for like half a day
to a public spaces. That shouldn't sound bad to do,
but in these times, it's a very fearful time for
our customers. So you know, we at Whiska continue to
use the models that we know our best for our customers,
(10:58):
which is giving people choices, creating more distribution channels for
people that align with the needs and wants of our customers.
Bring food closer to home, travel less to get food,
make it easier to get food in your neighborhood, at
your home at times that are convenient for you. Like,
we're going to adapt, and we've been trying to adapt
(11:20):
just more for the needs of our customers and what
they deserve. You deserve to be able to get food
in the way you want it. Access to healthy food
is a human right. This is not a convenience. This
is not something nice. This is what people need to survive.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
It's a funny question even to ask. I feel like
people are getting a little tight on even the questions.
But as you're likely where most of the country is
pro immigration enforcement. What is your position on that.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
I mean, we're not a political organization. I mean we
do a lot of advocacy, but the truth a meta
for us. We want to serve every community member who's
in need, and the community that we serve as peopleeople
who are here in New York City for whatever reason
they're in New York City. They're human beings who deserve
and have a right to healthy food. I'm not looking
(12:08):
at what's on someone's piece of paper or their identification.
That's not that's not my job. My job is to
make sure that we're feeding people. Like when when a
mom calls up who just came to this country, asking
our team who does benefits in Roman, can they get support?
And the mom is eight months pregnant and our staff
members like, who understands. It's like, no, you might not
(12:29):
be eligible for a SNAP, but the moment your child
is born, that child is a is a full fledged
citizen of these United States and has the full right
to get foodstamp benefits. Now the quantity they're going to
get is for that child. That's not going to be
for the parent as well. Now, obviously people live in
a household, But like, this is not the this is
(12:49):
not abusive system. This is actually giving citizens what they
have a right to. So like the moment that woman
had had her baby, our team called her back and said,
how's your baby? Is everything good? And she said yes,
Like well, let's sign her up right now, And we
signed that citizen up for SNAP benefits because they have
every right to it and they deserve it.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
What would you like someone to take away from this conversation.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
The needs in the community are high and they never
have been higher. And what we're going to about to
see in the coming three six, potentially twelve months are
going to dwarf the needs we've had. What we're seeing
with potential SNAP restrictions, Medicaid cuts, these two pieces alone,
(13:31):
on top of every other thing that's happening, cuts in jobs,
people are losing, whether it's an academy of the research
base behind that, all these pieces are going to lead
to economic struggle along with tariffs that are increasing pricing,
and so you're going to see more struggle on the
streets and we can't solve it alone. Charity is not
cannot pick up the slack for a federal safety net.
(13:54):
It's just an impossibility, and so people are going to
be struggling more. We're all going to being more support
I think everyone's going to need to do their part,
whether it's through volunteering or supporting local organizations wherever you live.
But the need is going to be high. And you
know the truth of the matter is this is why
a safety net's so important. Things like health insurance, that's
(14:16):
adequate housing that's you know, sustainable housing for people having
wages that allow people to thrive, an educational system that
gives children, all children the opportunities that they deserve. I mean,
we start cutting back on that, which we're doing. What
we're going to see is people assuming, oh, charity will
fill these gaps. Charity can't fill these gaps.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
You can find out more about the West Side Campaign
Against Hunger WHISKA at w s c H dot org.
Greg Silverman is the CEO. He has been our guest.
Thank you for being on Get Connected.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven Light FM. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, Visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one O six seven lightfm dot com.
Thanks for listening.
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thanks for listening to Get Connected. Perhaps you weren't aware.
One in three adults and nearly half of families with
children in New York City experienced food security in twenty
twenty three. Our guest is Greg Silverman, CEO of the
nonprofit west Side Campaign Against Hunger, on the current pressures
food banks and food pantries are facing at a time
of increased need for their services. Greg Siverman, thank you
(00:34):
for being on Get Connected.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Super happy to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
You can find out more about them at west Side
Campaign Against Hunger. The acronymwscah dot org, which we're calling wiska.
So wiska Greg, how do you fit into this massive
structure of food assistants in New York City? What do
you do?
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Yeah? Thank you so. The west Side Campaign and Hunger
has been around for forty five years. On the frontlines
people along with almost there's almost eight hundred pantries in
New York City who who on the front lines are
handing out food where one of them or one of
the larger ones. We serve about one hundred and ten
thousand New Yorkers in need across about thirty distribution points,
(01:14):
plus two thousand people getting home deliveries if they're you know,
a new mom and they and they're in need, so
we're going to send them those groceries a home so
they don't have to leave their home. But yeah, we
fit in by being a part of a network of
frontline providers that fill in for a meager safety net
that New York City slash New York State slash the
(01:36):
United States has compared to a lot of other places.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
I mentioned it at the beginning. It is the stunning
statistic that nearly one in three adults and half of
families in the city experienced food and security in twenty
twenty three. What does that look like? What does that
actually mean?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
You know, when we think about food and security, we're
talking about the idea that people are going through the
month and there's a point when they don't have literally
secure food in the A parent is going to skip
a meal to feed their child, a child is going
to share with another kid. The family doesn't have the nutritional,
healthy food that they need to thrive This is not
(02:12):
just about calories. This is about thriving, healthy families and food.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
And I feel like we have to say it, even
though it seems like something we should know by now.
But from this Robinhood report, nearly seventy percent of those
people who were availing themselves of food banks or food pantries,
they were working. They are people who are employed. There
are people who have jobs.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Yeah, this shouldn't be the dirty secret, but right the truth.
People forget these things. Right, Like when people go to
pantries feeding, say you are feeding your family. Those children
should not be working. They should be in school. These
seniors who get food from us have served their communities
and worked and now they're retired, hopefully, they should not
(02:57):
be working. The rest of the folks who are of
work are trying to work. They're just underemployed. They're multiple employed,
they're working multiple part time jobs, they're working under the table,
they're working all different ways to make ends meet, and
then they're squeezing in time to like go to a pantry.
Like the hardest job in New York City is to
be living in poverty. And that's just a different mindset
(03:18):
that I think we have to remind ourselves, like how
difficult must it be to not have a choice of
all the foods you want? To not have the dollars
in your bank to like gee, you know, you know,
as they say, like I think the robin Hood Report
speaks to it, like one problem in your life, whether
it's a broken down car or a health alman, like
(03:39):
you're you have nothing left in your bank account and
you're going into debt.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Nearly half of the people who use food pantries we're
dealing with a serious health problem, and seventy five percent
because of financial shocks. So people are just one issue
away from meeting assistance.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, I mean what we see and this is for
many years. Our customers generally come once a month to
most of our distribution points, or they're allowed to come
once a month, but they come not twelve times a year.
They come often six times a year, five times a year,
seven times a year. It's it's the majority that come
sporadically because when they're not in need, they do not come.
(04:16):
People when they're working and have the means, they have
other things they're going to use their time for. No
one wants to sit in line in a pantry. People
travel from all over New York City to get to
the West Side Campaign. It's hunger for our food because
it's such high quality food.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
Our guest is Greg Silverman, the CEO of the West
Side Campaign Against Hunger Whiska. Their website is WSCAH dot org.
They have been redefining food assistance programs in New York
City for forty five years. You're listening to get connected
on one oh six point seven light FM. I'mina del Rio.
Just to pick up on what you said. I know
interrupted you, But one of the things that Wiska has
(04:52):
done is you created many years ago this this supermarket
style pantry. What's the significance of that?
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Almost three decades ago we started the first choice model
pantry in a sense, allowing people the same conveniences that
people with the economic needs have when they go to
a grocer store, choose the foods you want, there's a
chef and form a multiple restaurant and are like, right,
I want to make sure my customers get the best
food possible. You know, I've been at Whiska for eight years.
What I've seen is that over time, the pantry world
(05:20):
has not kept up with the distribution models that customers
are used to now, So when pantries first started, they
were just handing people a few random high sugar, high salt,
high fat product items that customers didn't even want. Slowly,
but surely, this model that we created, this customer choice model,
which feels like a very small grocery store, has evolved
(05:42):
and become like the norm across the country. Let people
choose what they want. The problem is there's only a
choice of say like between five and eight types of
vegetables and fruits in most pantries. This isn't whole foods
with ten thousand products. So what we've done more of
late is focus in on what our customers want, survey
our customers, find out what they're and get the best
(06:03):
quality product. We give out fifty three percent of our
food in the form of fresh produce, which means for us,
that's like over almost three million pounds of fresh produce
we distribute. We give them those products, and we get
them into the community where they live at times that
are convenient for them, often doing home delivery, online virtual
models to engage with people so they don't have to
(06:24):
spend time waiting in line, like the conveniences that every
more and more customers in the United States and across
what are used to like home delivered groceries, pre picking
what you want. All these kind of things are about
choice and are about dignity, and that's what our community deserves.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
One of the things you're also able to do because
you're so large, is participate in this roundtable for food
access and work on both purchasing and purchasing power. Can
you talk about that and how that might save you
on a particular purchase.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, I mean, I think as a chef and former
restaurant owner, I always had issue with what was happening
with my pricing, and so I years ago when I
had restaurants, I worked with other restaurants to drive down pricing.
And so when I got to the West Side Campaigns Hunger,
I reached out to other amazing nonprofits like New York
Common Pantry and Project Hospitality and Staten Island and Saint
(07:13):
John's Bread and Life and we and I said, would
you like to join me and like, let's share data
and drive down pricing. And so we started sharing data.
He said we'd probably save like seven percent on our
food purchasing cost. We saved ended up in the first year,
saving I think it was twenty two percent, and we've
added more organizations like City Meals and Met Council to
that network. Now Beast examples. Well, you know when we
(07:35):
purchase now instead of one or two pallets of milk,
we can purchase a tractor traveler road of shelf stable
milk that gets distributed across a number of different organizations,
separate nonprofits, and the price is forty percent cheaper. At
Thanksgiving last year, our turkey price we got was I
think thirty five percent cheaper than you would get anywhere else.
(07:57):
And that's because we purchased together, We ordered in advance,
and we want to make sure our customers got the
best product. And the more we save, the more we know,
the more we drive that back into distributing more food.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So that's the good news. Yeah, On the other side
of the equation of the current situation, how will something
like the tariffs impact what you were able to buy
and offer customers?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Like any organization feeding people, whether you're a restaurant or a
food service operator or a pantry like we're going to
do the best we can to get our customers the
foods that they want and need. That may switch slightly
based on what's going on with tariffs. It might bring
new opportunities, right, Like, we continue to dive into more
and more local purchasing because our customers want local, and
(08:40):
they want they want organic, they want all kinds of
different products, and we're getting of those, like we're getting
beans from New York State and getting oats from northern
New York State. We're going to do those things even
more because the price might become more economical for us.
And it's all the more reason that groups like the
Roundtable need to exist. We have to purchase together. It
might not be thirty percent cheap than it was, but
(09:01):
we're get We're going to get a better price than
we could possibly get alone. There is no transformation of
communities that happens in isolation. There's no change in any
system of any sort done in isolation. The Roundtable is
the best example that I know of in our little
world of emergency eating. It's how we're actually changing how
(09:22):
we do emergency feeding for food instigant people across the country.
It's done by collaboration, and it's done on the front
lines by organizations that know our communities and live and
work in our communities.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
For better or worse. You were also on the front
lines of seeing people come to you who are in
dire situations. And right now we've got lots of immigrants
in the city. We also have ice rates that are
in the city. How has that impacted your client tele
and your work in the face of all this increased
demand on top of everything else.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah, and in some of our locations we're seeing decreased numbers.
Mid January, the numbers started to decrease after the last year.
Just we always remind people this. If at our biggest
distribution point, which is where we were founded at eighty
six in West End, pre pandemic, we were serving maybe
two hundred families a day high a pandemic, four hundred
(10:15):
families a day. This past year six hundred families a day,
and now we're back down to that sort of four
hundred month And for a number of reasons, And one
of the biggie big reasons is fear. Because our food
is truly amazing, and our team is fabulous and a
volunteer network is incredible. How people are treated is really great.
So people want to come for that food, but they
(10:35):
don't want to spend time on the subway out in
the open. They don't want to then wait in line
in a pantry and then have to travel back again.
It's like you're exposing yourself for like half a day
to a public spaces. That shouldn't sound bad to do,
but in these times, it's a very fearful time for
our customers. So you know, we at Whiska continue to
use the models that we know our best for our customers,
(10:58):
which is giving people choices, creating more distribution channels for
people that align with the needs and wants of our customers.
Bring food closer to home, travel less to get food,
make it easier to get food in your neighborhood, at
your home at times that are convenient for you. Like,
we're going to adapt, and we've been trying to adapt
(11:20):
just more for the needs of our customers and what
they deserve. You deserve to be able to get food
in the way you want it. Access to healthy food
is a human right. This is not a convenience. This
is not something nice. This is what people need to survive.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
It's a funny question even to ask. I feel like
people are getting a little tight on even the questions.
But as you're likely where most of the country is
pro immigration enforcement. What is your position on that.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
I mean, we're not a political organization. I mean we
do a lot of advocacy, but the truth a meta
for us. We want to serve every community member who's
in need, and the community that we serve as peopleeople
who are here in New York City for whatever reason
they're in New York City. They're human beings who deserve
and have a right to healthy food. I'm not looking
(12:08):
at what's on someone's piece of paper or their identification.
That's not that's not my job. My job is to
make sure that we're feeding people. Like when when a
mom calls up who just came to this country, asking
our team who does benefits in Roman, can they get support?
And the mom is eight months pregnant and our staff
members like, who understands. It's like, no, you might not
(12:29):
be eligible for a SNAP, but the moment your child
is born, that child is a is a full fledged
citizen of these United States and has the full right
to get foodstamp benefits. Now the quantity they're going to
get is for that child. That's not going to be
for the parent as well. Now, obviously people live in
a household, But like, this is not the this is
(12:49):
not abusive system. This is actually giving citizens what they
have a right to. So like the moment that woman
had had her baby, our team called her back and said,
how's your baby? Is everything good? And she said yes,
Like well, let's sign her up right now, And we
signed that citizen up for SNAP benefits because they have
every right to it and they deserve it.
Speaker 2 (13:07):
What would you like someone to take away from this conversation.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
The needs in the community are high and they never
have been higher. And what we're going to about to
see in the coming three six, potentially twelve months are
going to dwarf the needs we've had. What we're seeing
with potential SNAP restrictions, Medicaid cuts, these two pieces alone,
(13:31):
on top of every other thing that's happening, cuts in jobs,
people are losing, whether it's an academy of the research
base behind that, all these pieces are going to lead
to economic struggle along with tariffs that are increasing pricing,
and so you're going to see more struggle on the
streets and we can't solve it alone. Charity is not
cannot pick up the slack for a federal safety net.
(13:54):
It's just an impossibility, and so people are going to
be struggling more. We're all going to being more support
I think everyone's going to need to do their part,
whether it's through volunteering or supporting local organizations wherever you live.
But the need is going to be high. And you
know the truth of the matter is this is why
a safety net's so important. Things like health insurance, that's
(14:16):
adequate housing that's you know, sustainable housing for people having
wages that allow people to thrive, an educational system that
gives children, all children the opportunities that they deserve. I mean,
we start cutting back on that, which we're doing. What
we're going to see is people assuming, oh, charity will
fill these gaps. Charity can't fill these gaps.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
You can find out more about the West Side Campaign
Against Hunger WHISKA at w s c H dot org.
Greg Silverman is the CEO. He has been our guest.
Thank you for being on Get Connected.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven Light FM. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, Visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one O six seven lightfm dot com.
Thanks for listening.
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