Southeast Ohio residents struggle to find secure access to nutritious dietary options due to a lack of economic resources, transportation and food outlets
You can find many things at your local gas station or convenience store: value-sized sodas, deep-fried snacks and sugary candy. But not necessarily fresh fruit or vegetables.
Serving up fresh produce isn’t the purpose of these stores, but for many Appalachian residents they’re their only food option, placing them in a situation the USDA Economic Research Service defines as food insecure.
Food insecurity is as an economic and social condition that results in uncertain or limited access to food. There are two kinds of food insecurity, low and very low. Low food security means one has the ability to feed themselves but with lower quality and variety of food. Very low food security means lower food intake and disrupted eating patterns.
Students may not notice the insecurity because of the campus’ location to a variety of food sources including three on-campus markets, five local grocery stores within walking or biking distance or by use of public buses, and two farmers markets, one of which occurs twice a month right on campus.
“Athens is known for its chronic, generational poverty,” said Mary Nally, executive director of Community Food Initiatives (CFI). “As someone who has grown up here, it can be a very discouraging place to grow up when you feel like there aren’t options for you here.”
Food deserts
Besides the lack of affordable food, many families and individuals have trouble even accessing a the grocery store or farmers market.
Right outside of the Athens bubble in Vinton County, there are vast areas classified as “food deserts” with no stores that could provide a family with nutritious meals that include fresh fruits, vegetables or meats.
The county, with a population of more than 13,000 people, doesn’t have a single grocery store in the area. From McArthur Village, the county seat of Vinton, the closest grocery store is the Kroger on East State Street, which is 30 minutes away, or a nearly 60-mile round-trip.
The only food sources in the county are gas stations or convenience stores — which might provide frozen and processed foods — but nothing of healthy substance.
In Athens County, both Chauncey and Coolville are also considered in a food desert, as there are no grocery stores on the east side of the county.
“It’s a real struggle for people who already were dealing with food insecurity issues,” Nally said. “For most people that have transportation and that are working full-time, it means a lot of planning ahead. For those that maybe lack access, whether it’s low income or people who don’t feel comfortable driving, it means that they’re struggling in particular.”
According to the 2014 Ohio Poverty Report, in Athens county, more than 50 percent of the population is at, or below, the 200 percent federal poverty line — which is the government’s self-sufficiency standard. This standard is what the government determines to be the minimum income required for families to meet their basic needs. Most of these people are considered working-poor and might not qualify for governmental benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Nutrition
When people are limited to small corner stores to do a bulk of their shopping, individuals run into many health problems.
“There’s a perception that healthy food won’t sell or is outside their budget,” said Nally. “And in some cases that is true. There’s gas stations selling apples and bananas way beyond what their price should be. … Corner stores are starting to recognize the demand (for fresh foods) and are trying, but it’s hard for them.”
Melissa Wales, executive director of United Campus Ministries (UCM), 18 N. College St., remembers a time that a person who came to the Thursday Supper went into diabetic shock and she assisted her to the hospital.
“Almost everyone in the ER that night was talking about their diabetes,” she recalled. “There’s definitely a linkage between poverty and (poor) health.”
Janice Brewer, vice president of Food Matters, a student organization on campus that focuses on the importance of food and learning where it comes from, said it isn’t just physical health that has an effect.
“It’s also a psyche-aspect,” Brewer said. “You don’t feel as motivated, energized or valued and maybe you don’t even know it. … You don’t have that (healthy) food and you don’t know what it’s like to have a fresh piece of fruit. Food becomes a commodity instead of an experience.”
Another Athens organization, Live Healthy Appalachia, makes it their main mission to educate the community about nutrition through a variety of programming in the county.
While nutrition and food insecurity are two different topics, Lindsay Fowler, community outreach coordinator for Live Healthy Appalachia, finds there is a link.
“If you’re growing up and not knowing about food, you don’t know any different,” she said. “We’re trying to teach those skills at a young age.”
Community Gardens
CFI does a large program to help community members learn to produce food on their own through its community gardens.
This includes its school gardens program, where they assist teachers and administrators in tending to a garden plot at their schools for the purpose of education and demonstration. All five school districts in the county, as well as a few day care centers and Athens County Children Services, have a school garden.
The plots are used for the sake of teaching children to garden, and lots of the food is used in different workshops for the students. However, Federal Hocking Middle School has grown food that has then replaced others in the cafeteria.
In the late 1990s the organization took over the management of the Westside Community Garden, located near the West State Street Park. Now, that garden is independently operated and is the largest and most established in the county.
Other garden locations in Athens include the Southside Community Garden, located at the Carriage Hill apartments, and the Eastside Community Garden, located near the Athens Community Center. Outside of Athens, CFI also manages the Chauncey, Nelsonville, Glouster and Athens’ Hope Apartments gardens.
“The community gardens exist because our mission is that everyone in the community has equal access to fresh, healthy food,” Nally said. “Food that’s grown here in our community.”
The cost to join the garden is $25, which provides a membership to CFI, where gardeners also get access to a variety of different workshops throughout the year. For those that are at or below the 200 percent poverty guideline, there is an income waiver which allows them to join with no fee.
In town, most of the garden plots are 10 feet by 10 feet. The gardeners are completely responsible for growing and maintaining their plots, while CFI makes tools and supplies accessible to them.
A primary amount of gardeners stick to the basics, planting things like potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, corn and salad greens like kale and collards, while some kick it up a notch and grow plants like okra or heirloom variety plants. Nally has also seen a variety of international students bring an array of different seeds from their home countries, including loofahs.
These gardens are open to anyone in the community, and Nally said she sees a fair share of both students and community members.
“We want to do more than give a hand out. We want to give a hand up,” Nally said. “We want to encourage them to empower themselves to learn how they could grow some of their own food to supplement their families needs.”
Solutions
Athens has many resources for those who face hunger on a day-to-day basis. From CFI, that means the Donation Station, a stand that collects food from the Athens Farmers Market, the Chesterhill Produce Auction as well as various local farmers.
Community Food Initiatives (CFI) is a non-profit created more than 20 years ago with the purpose of ensuring that there were educational resources available for those who wanted to grow and preserve their own food.
So far this year, Nally said CFI has received 43,658 pounds of food — which she estimates to be around 90 percent fresh produce that is given out twice a week during peak produce season to 44 different area pantries from Athens and Morgan counties, which then distribute the food by themselves.
Nally said this year’s goal is 50,000 pounds of food and she’s hopeful CFI is on track to surpass that goal. In 2013, they collected 51,457 pounds of food and more than $11,000 in monetary donations. The money goes right back into the community as CFI uses the donations to buy food from the markets for distribution.
Residents seeking a regular hot meal can attend UCM for a regular supper served Thursday evenings at 5:30 p.m. and Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m.
“The Thursday supper was started in 1993 by students and community members because they recognized the need,” Wales said. “There was a free meal happening every day except Thursday in town.”
The meals are completely student run, benefitting both the attendees and volunteers.
“The connection is just as important for the people that come to the meals as the food,” Wales said. “They really love the opportunity to meet the students. It’s a really exciting dynamic.”
The Thursday Supper is a registered student organization, and receives funding through the Student Activities Commission that can help the ministry to purchase supplies that they aren’t able to get from other sources.
Live Healthy Appalachia goes into second grade classrooms in Athens and Marietta counties to teach students a variety of skills that may help them to make healthier eating choices when on a budget, including reading the nutrition label, knowing what’s in food, introducing the MyPlate system — the current nutritional guide published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and showing them the essentials of a balanced diet.
“They’re really excited about it and they go home and share the information with their families,” Fowler said. “Teaching them the basics goes a long way.”
Live Healthy Appalachia also does programming for adults, including Grocery Store Tours, where they help participants find healthy foods to purchase on a budget.
“I think there are options (to purchase on a budget),” Fowler said. “It’s about providing that knowledge about knowing where to look.”
But Brewer, a junior studying sustainable food systems and environmental studies, said a solution starts with education.
“I think it starts with educating ourselves and others,” Brewer said. “As a student or a resident (we have to) understand what is happening before we move on to do anything monumental. The more people that become educated, the more willing they are to step up and take action and help create a solution.”
