In Response to Ola's "We Opened..."

As a fellow student working in Food Justice in Oakland for my Practice Experience, it is interesting to learn about the ever-necessary, but contradictory role of the Alameda County Food Bank. The benefits of the food bank include the vast amounts of people they are able to help, in comparison, for example, with the smaller organizations in West Oakland working on food sovereignty. I question how the Food Bank has not been taken up as a Government-based organization or program yet, because there is an apparent need for its services, based on the information Ola relayed to us. Still, there seems to be a need for a more sustainable solution to these hunger pains in Alameda County.

While researching several approaches and ways to alleviate such problems, it seems as though the food bank fits the mold of a gap-filling organization, taking away the responsibility of the state to provide these services and moreover, acting as a sort of band-aid or superficial cure to the problem. Furthermore, it seems that on a basic level (considering solely the fact that people in need obtain food from this institution when they are hungry) addresses just a symptom of the underlying cause, which could include much deeper racial, geographical, environmental, social and political aspects. I am curious to know what the food banks' role in enacting this sort of change is, and how/if they promote this type of self-sustainability, to ensure that people do not remain dependent upon these services for a long period of time. I believe in class, Ola had structured her questionnaire in such a way to dig out this problem; how long had 'regulars' at the food bank been attending and obtaining food. I am curious to see the results of such a survey, as well as the extent that the food bank engages with these issues and last, what can be done to shift the focus from treating the symptom to treating a deeper, perhaps more complicated cause.