Molly Seegers: Success Story No. 1
As part of United We Serve, the New York City Coalition Against Hunger has launched a pilot project to re-define how volunteers and national service participants are used to fight hunger. Moving beyond simple food distribution of emergency food commodities, the project is helping families move towards long-term economic self-sufficiency by helping them obtain federal nutrition assistance, including SNAP (also known as food stamp) benefits, which give extra food purchasing power to families, many of whom are either working at low wages or are recently unemployed.
Most of the work of the project is being conducted by full-time VISTA*AmeriCorps national service participants and part-time volunteers, but the Coalition is extraordinarily fortunate to benefit from the full-time volunteer work this summer of Molly Seegers, a junior at Haverford College, who is now interning for the Coalition, having been referred to us by our wonderful colleagues at the Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger, with whom she previously interned/volunteered.
Molly recently was responsible for a great anti-hunger success story, which she describes in her own words:
Molly Seegers
“On June 25, I took the 5 train up to 3rd Ave and 149th Street (in the South Bronx) to conduct food stamp pre-screenings at La Iglesia Cristiana Shekinah’s block party. Women with shopping carts and families were lined up outside the church waiting to attend the day’s festivities. Maria Estrada, the day’s coordinator, greeted me graciously and introduced me to their Pastor. I set up my Food Stamp (SNAP) benefits pre-screening table. Cornell University’s Community Nutrition had a table across from me to demonstrate how much sugar different beverages contain. There was a woman administering HIV testing as well. People slowly trickled in as the Pastor commenced her speech detailing the day’s events. Ms. Estrada translated as the Pastor gave her speech.
When the speech ended the fifty or so people attending the event split off to the different tables. The first man who approached me to be screened was in a situation that entitled him to emergency food stamps. He had no source of income as he cleaned a residential building full time in order to live in the basement for free. I could tell this was a day where everyone I screened would be eligible, if not eligible for the maximum benefits.
I screened eight people in three hours, each with a harrowing story of serious deprivation that left their nutrition by the wayside. One woman I spoke with tried to apply for food stamps at her local food stamps office, but was turned away. Her husband is a day laborer, picked up by a different employer every day, sometimes not getting any work at all. Those weeks are bad, she told me, sometimes he gets paid barely $200 a week to feed 4 people and pay the rent. The office told her that if she could not get a letter from her husband’s employer, she could not receive food stamps. Her case is an egregious situation that demonstrates exemplarily the need for non-profit and volunteer involvement in order to help those lost in the system. The New York City Coalition Against Hunger decided to write a letter explaining the situation so she could feed her two young children.
I knew as I left that hundreds of other people in this neighborhood were eligible for food stamp benefits. I wanted to stay to do pre-screenings all day. However, I am only one person. There could not be a more pressing/crucial time to volunteer to fight hunger and help your community in kind. I have volunteered at many organizations in New York City, such as the Fresh Air Fund, Grand Street Settlement, and St. Francis Xavier Soup Kitchen. The most rewarding, progressive, and efficacious work has been learning how to screen people for food stamp benefits, conducting pre-screenings, and doing advocacy for cases that were not properly handled.
I also learned that La Iglesia Cristiana Shekinah is such an indispensable organization to the community, building social capital by caring for those around them.”
Postscript: A few days later Maria Estrada, of the Iglesia Cristiana Shekinah called the Coalition and left a message thanking Molly for going up to their site to pre-screen. She was extremely thankful for Molly’s help and thought it was a great event – she even said it was a ‘blessing’ that Molly came!
