Help Feed Hungry Kids
Plus, it's the last newsletter of 2020
Hello! This is the last newsletter of the year, and before heading out and doing everything possible not to jinx 2021, I have a favor to ask. Will you please fill out this short survey? The newsletter has been all over the place this year, and while I’ve loved writing it I'm hoping it can become more consistent––in frequency and content––going forward. It would mean a lot of you could take two minutes to give me your thoughts. This newsletter is free and fun to make, but does take time. Sharing with friends is very much appreciated, as is tapping the heart icon above, which helps me reach more readers. Thank you!
Help Feed Hungry Kids
Right now in the United States, 14.5 million children are not getting enough to eat. That’s five times the number the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported last year.
“The spike in childhood hunger has been faster and more dramatic than during the Great Recession,” says Lisa Davis, senior vice president of No Kid Hungry, a Washington, D.C.-based organization committed to ending childhood hunger. “This really is an unprecedented and deeply acute situation.”
In Chicago, the Greater Chicago Food Depository is serving 50% more people than in January of this year and Associate Director of Communications Greg Trotter says “childhood hunger is soaring.”
A recent poll from NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health surveying residents in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Houston found that 17% of households cannot afford both food and bills.
This is an excerpt from an article I wrote for school about school lunches during covid. A record number of kids are going hungry in the world’s wealthiest country. I know I talked about this in the last newsletter too and I’m sorry to be depressing and a bore, but I cannot get over feeling rage and sadness at these numbers.
“You know, what kills me is that childhood hunger was a problem before covid hid, but we had ending it in our sight and had made tremendous progress toward it,” Davis says. “But since March, almost 10 years of progress has been wiped out.”
Numbers are up internationally too, and in the U.S. more people are shoplifting food out of desperation. Whatever you can give this holiday season to No Kid Hungry or Feeding America or your local food bank helps.
On the Brighter Side
We have a vaccine!!! Winter is going to be rough and we need to continue wearing masks and buoying up our local restaurants and other businesses to help them through, but this is a bright light at the end of the tunnel. Where are you going to travel first once it’s safe? What packed bar are you most excited to visit?
It seems early to make ‘where to go in 2021’ travel predictions, but I think everything I said in last year’s ‘where to go’ guide still stands.
In the meantime, these gifts are good for others or yourself whether traveling or staying home.
Year In Review
Thank you to all the new subscribers this year! In case you missed them, a few of my favorite issues were:
In Defense of Touristy Places; How to Eat Like a Local; The Middle East’s Best Olive Oil; All of my Travel Tips In One Place; The Best Trip I Took In 2020; How Voting Impacts Travel; The Truth About Female Solo Travel.
Links I Love
I spoke with Tigist Reda of Demera, a fabulous Ethiopian restaurant in Chicago
Just How White Is the Book Industry?
Food Is the First Frontier of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Returning the Gaze: Uighurs In Exile Are Fighting Back Against China’s Techno-Authoritarianism
The Truth About Cast Iron: 7 Myths That Need to Go Away
As Winter Approaches, America's Racist Produce Distribution System Makes Food Insecurity Worse
Ratatouille the Musical (it’s a thing)
A Refugee-Made Cookbook In Canada
Someone Made the Entire Town of Schitt’s Creek Out of Gingerbread
Top Shots From the 2020 International Landscape Photographer of the Year
Final Thoughts
Watch: The Christmas Commercial Making Me Cry
Buy: One last plug for the gift guide.
Drink: A festive, sparkling red.
Happy new years!! Cheers to all of you and to a new year of travel and hugs and busy restaurants and long conversations in coffee shops and no more maskne and wine tastings and singing with strangers at concerts and packing into too crowded subways and in-person workout classes and stopping in shops just for fun and sharing food and seeing our families and not being afraid to touch things and chatting with cashiers and on and on and on. (Shit did I just jinx it?) Stay safe and see you in 2021!
–Rebecca