I'M TIRED OF STRUGGLINGFor 25 years Dennis Becker worked as a chef at old-school Madison restaurant scene standouts like Chez Vous and Café Palms. “I was used to working two or three jobs,” says Becker. “I was not an idle person.”

Now 61, after four heart attacks, a diabetes diagnosis, and a near-death experience caused by an accidental overdose of prescription medication, Dennis is on permanent disability. “It’s really not a lot of money to live on,” says Dennis, “it’s a struggle.”

But struggling is nothing new to Dennis. You see, he is the youngest of 12 children. At two years old, as his dad was working on a car in the family garage, the car slipped off its braces, crushing his dad. Despite his brother getting dad out from under the car and carrying him to a nearby hospital, dad didn’t make it.

Growing up the family worked hard to get by without dad’s income. “As soon as us kids got a job, we worked and then brought the money home to mom,” Dennis says. “That’s just the

way it was. That’s your family, you all work together.”

Now with just his disability income, a Section 8 rent-controlled apartment,

and a habit of providing frozen ice pops to the neighborhood

kids who can't afford treats from the ice cream truck, Dennis does his best just to get by. “I’m grateful for the help I’ve gotten,” he says. "I’ve come to St. Vinny’s for a lot of years and gotten food from Second Harvest.

I’m sorry to say that I need that much help.”

“I don’t like to accept help from anybody. I wasn’t raised that way. But you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Recently there’s a new way that Second Harvest and St. Vinny’s is helping people like Dennis who are not only food insecure, but also going through life as a diabetic.

As part of our HungerCare Coalition program we’ve developed the Diabetes Wellness Program. The program is a 3-year pilot program in which food insecure people with diabetes like Dennis will learn to better control their diabetes through educational workshops, nutrition information, healthy recipes, and boxes of diabetes-appropriate food.

“I like that recipes come with the food they give you, it’s very helpful,” adds Dennis. “They’re teaching us how to utilize the good foods that they have available. And to make the right choices as you go through the pantry. I appreciate the knowledge on how to utilize the food.”

What does Dennis hope to get out of being part of the Diabetes Wellness Program? “I hope to get well,” he says, “I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to struggle. I’m tired of struggling.”

If you would like to help those, like Dennis, who are just tired of struggling, visit SecondHarvestMadison.org and make your gift.

“They’re teaching us how to utilize the good foods that they have available. And to make the right choices as you go through the pantry."

What do Celine Dion, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jay Z and former Packers James Jones and Donald Driver have in common besides fame and fortune? They are celebrities who came from nothing. Hungry, sometimes homeless and frequently struggling, all were part of their early lives.

September is Hunger Action Month. It is a time to help call attention to the fact that hunger affects tens of millions of people in this country, including millions of children. It is a time to call attention to the fact that billions of pounds of food never make it to our tables having been thrown away, left in the fields or to rot on the vine.

The more people that become aware of the problem of hunger, educate themselves and make a commitment to doing something about it... great things can happen.

How can you get involved if you don’t have the financial resources to donate? How can you get involved if there is no extra food to donate? How can you get involved when your days are full and there is no extra time to volunteer? For many giving their voice and helping spread awareness helps expand the “army” of people

making a commitment to work towards ending hunger.

We will celebrate Go Orange Day again this September 8th. This one day and this one color are to raise awareness. Our web page SecondHarvestMadison.org/30Ways will have ideas for the other 29 days

of September. However you can get involved will help raise awareness. We can solve this problem but we need your help. Thanks for all you already do and remember to wear orange September 8th.

FROM THE PRESIDENT'S DESK

Business Hours:Mon.–Fri. 8 a.m.–4 p.m.

Agency Food Distribution Hours:Mon.–Thurs. 8:30 a.m.–2 p.m.Friday 8:30 a.m.–12 p.m.

Foodbank Tours:Linda Murray • 608-216-7221LindaM@shfbmadison.org

Don’t want to get the newsletter?Katie Ishmael• 608-216-7220KatieI@shfbmadison.org

Mark Thompson Alliant Energy, Chairman Luke Hutchins J. H. Findorff and Son, Vice Chairman Vicki VillacrezTDS Telecom, Inc., TreasurerDale Henricks Community Volunteer, SecretaryKen Dickson Johnson Bank Jim Frusciante Kraft Heinz

Aaron Girard Seneca Foods Inc.Beth Norman RBC Wealth ManagementTracy Smith Dane County – UW ExtensionBill Stroner Stroner Advisory GroupMargaret Utterback Quarles & Brady LLPBill WestrateAmerican Family Insurance

Board of Directors

GO ORANGE FOR HUNGER

UPCOMING EVENTS

September 1-30Hunger Action Month. Take action against hunger in your community all month by giving funds, food, time and voice! Need ideas? Check out the 30 Ways in 30 Days calendar at SecondHarvestMadison.org/30Ways

September 8Go Orange on Hunger Action Day. Thanks to the help of NBC15, southwestern Wisconsin “goes orange”! Wear orange, take your photo and post it to Facebook.com/NBC15Madison. Each photo posted generates a donation from Lands' End, Habush Habush & Rottier S.C.®, Automation Components, Inc., Door Creek Dental and Starion Financial.

NBC15 SHARE YOUR HOLIDAYSCELEBRATES ITS 21st YEARHelp Us Kick Off the CampaignMark your calendars to join us for our annual Kick-Off Luncheon, Tuesday November 1 at the Alliant Energy Center. To reserve your seat, visit SecondHarvestMadison.org/SYH21 or call 608-216-7220.

Sponsor the CampaignThe 21st annual campaign is an important opportunity to raise meals. Support a great cause while associating your organization with this highly publicized campaign. Sponsorships start at $1,000 and include outstanding marketing and employee engagement benefits. Contact Lisa Gundlach LisaG@shfbmadison.org or 608-216-7212.

Hold a Business or School Food/Fund DriveGet into the holiday spirit with a food/fund drive. Top drives are recognized on NBC15. Past participants receive the how-to guidebook and participation form the week of September 12.New participants can download the guidebook and forms at SecondHarvestMadison.org/SYHFFD. Or contact Laura Gaffney at FFD@shfbmadison.org or 608-216-7248 for a mailed copy. Register your drive by October 14.

Recently we had a chance to speak with two healthcare professionals who are on the frontline of dealing with the health implications of food insecurity in general, and as part of Second Harvest’s newest program designed to help those who are both food insecure, and have to manage their diabetes. The program is called the Diabetes Wellness Program.

Kristine Moses (KM) is a pediatric RN for UW Health, and Megan Neuman (MN) is a pediatrician at UW Health.

SHFB: What are some of the health impacts of food insecurity in kids?

MN: Kids can’t learn, they can’t play, they have headaches and stomach aches that may keep them out of school. In the long-term medically we know that chronic food insecurity contributes to chronic disease. We know that kids who come from food insecure or low-socioeconomic status households have higher incidences of chronic disease of all kinds – things like asthma and cardiac disease and a host of other chronic illness. Our hope is that if we can get at the fundamentals of reliable healthy food for kids we can hopefully subvert some of those long-term chronic illnesses.

SHFB: Why is the Diabetes Wellness Program important?

KM: Effects of food insecurity don’t just stop in childhood, it affects you throughout the lifespan. Many illnesses can be made better or completely resolved by having access to healthy and nutritious food.

MN: The moments people spend with people in the medical system are such a tiny fraction of what their disease care should be and what they need to do

to take care of themselves. The scope of impact on [the participants] wellbeing in their disease process from the kind of intervention that Second Harvest can do compared to what we can do proportionately is gigantically more helpful.

KM: The visit that we have with our diabetic patients to give diabetes education is so minute compared to what they can get through this program. Learning how to do this and being confident can lead to better self-esteem, and feeling more comfortable going to the grocery store and not needing to ask for help. It can also lead to more ownership that “I can help myself do this,” and that leads to better accountability, and could lead to an overall better mental health of their situation. That knowledge is invaluable and could be a huge lifestyle change that could affect them for the rest of their life.

SHFB: What is the long-term hope for the impact of the Diabetes Wellness Program?

KM: That this is a program we could do for the long-term, and not just a pilot program.

MN: I would hope that the medical community in Madison would increasingly look to Second Harvest as a partner. You guys do stuff for our patients that we can’t do. In education ways, outreach ways, and providing healthy food ways. Everyone kind of knows the resources you have and how awesome you are and how much benefit families get from what you do.

The Diabetes Wellness Program is part of our HungerCare Coalition. Thanks to the Dave and Mary Anderson Family Foundation and Dean & St. Mary’s for their support of these innovative programs.

DIABETES WELLNESS PROGRAM Q&A

UPCOMING EVENTS

WITH GRATITUDEThank you to the 163 teams and 5,073 participants that helped to achieve 1.82 million pounds this year during the 7th annual Million Pound Challenge sponsored by The Princeton Club. Teams from all over Southwestern

Wisconsin joined in to contribute pounds through exercise and weight loss. Necedah Schools in Necedah, Wisconsin was our top team this year raising more than 456,000 pounds of food! The entire community got involved in the challenge. The top 20 teams were invited to an awards reception at Second Harvest in May where we were able to hear the success stories from some of the teams. We’ll see you next year for the 8th annual Million Pound Challenge.

If you ask Mark Thompson, President of the Sun Prairie Emergency Food Pantry, his opinion of what the Sun Prairie mobile food pantry means to the community he’ll tell you:

“It’s us at our best. It brings out the best in the community. It’s a way to show people that you have compassion. It’s healthy for this community to be able to look at themselves and say, ‘we care.’”

For the past eight years the Sun Prairie mobile food pantry has been serving 100-150 families once a month. For those families it means so much more than the good feeling volunteers get when they help others. “It allows [pantry clients] to make better choices,” says Thompson. “When you’re living at or close to the poverty line you have to make some really difficult choices; like paying for medical care, transportation, or food. By providing them this food it gives them just a little bit of flexibility in their lives to hopefully get by.”

When asked to paint a picture of the typical mobile pantry client, Thompson passionately responds with:

“What people like to do is paint our clients with one brush and that brush is ‘they didn’t make it.’ Typically in this society we attribute that to something they did

wrong. That’s a total misconception. There are a lot of different reasons why people use the mobile food pantry. From young to old, employed to unemployed, from people who may not be emotionally stable to really intelligent, the only thing they have in common is that they’re in need at a particular time. I’d really like to dispel that notion that there’s a shame that’s associated with the people that use a food pantry; it’s just not the case.”

To those who may think that clients of the emergency food system (including pantries, meal sites and shelters) are taking advantage of the system, or “takers” as some call them, Thompson has one simple request. “I wish they would come to a mobile food pantry. That’s all they need to do. I wouldn’t need to say a word. Ask anybody that volunteers here, there’s no question in their mind that the people who are here need it.”

Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin supports 29 mobile food pantries thanks to the tremendous support of both community members and organizations like the Roundy’s Foundation - who recently provided a $15,000 grant to support our mobile pantries in Dane County. We are grateful for all the support we receive for this vital program.

"IT'S US AT OUR BEST"

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• This year marks the 10th annual Alliant Energy Foundation Drive Out Hunger Golf Classic. The outing benefits Feeding America member food banks throughout Alliant Energy’s two-state – Iowa and Wisconsin – service territory. Thanks to the Alliant Energy Foundation and the outing’s numerous sponsors this year’s outing will bring the total number of meals provided to more than 10 million.

• Thanks to Feeding America and the Kraft Heinz Company, a $25,000 grant supported our Kids Cafe Program improving access to healthy food for kids at risk of hunger.