Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:18 Hi, everyone. Welcome back to just a bite. It's Sarah here, and I get to talk to William Lambers. He's an author journalist, an advocate on anti-hunger and anti-poverty issues and particularly world hunger. So we're able to talk to him today about the Ukraine crisis, um, hunger that Ukrainians are facing, but also how interconnected global hunger is with domestic hunger. So I hope you enjoy Well. Hi William. Thank you so much for discussing such a timely and important issue with us today. Could you start out by introducing yourself to the listeners?
Speaker 2 00:01:11 Yes. Uh, thank you for having me. I'm I'm ha, always happy to talk about hunger. Uh, there's so much to do to tackle hunger, both domestically and globally. And I think in my case, how I got started, uh, fighting hunger, I really, I was in graduate school actually, and I, I really didn't know an awful lot about global hunger. I mean, I knew some basic things, but I didn't know who the world food program was or different, uh, relief agencies, uh, that were tackling hunger. And I was in a, in my graduate program and I was in a class called the spirituality of leadership. And at one point we were talking about Suan the crisis in Suan and, and I was following this in the news while I was in graduate school. I was also a journalist writing for the history news service. So I would do articles for them.
Speaker 2 00:02:03 And I made the decision. Then let me try to do an article about hunger because I wanted to, you know, have a voice in this crisis that was going on. Um, there was a lot of hunger, uh, at that time in Sudan and it still is. Actually, I remember when I was doing research for history news service, I used to see this program name in the, uh, library archives of the Eisenhower library and the Lyndon Johnson library have this program called food for peace. And I always wondered, well, what is food for peace? And I, I would see the name, but I was doing other research. So I didn't quite look it up at that moment. And then that's when I found out about what food for peace was, food for peace is the United States, uh, leading, uh, our main program for tackling hunger globally.
Speaker 2 00:02:51 And, um, so I made, what I did is I contacted the world food program in Washington, DC. I just sent out an email, a press email to ask for information, and the representative got back to me immediately. And it turned out that, uh, Jennifer Parmley was her name and she was a former reporter for the Washington post. And, um, turned out she actually went to school in the same town I was from in Massachusetts. So good connection right there. And then she helped sort of get me introduced to writing about hunger. And I decided to then to take it on and learn about all the different ways that we fight hunger and learn about the, the issues. And that obviously takes time. And so that's sort of when I got started, uh, writing about it and I've been writing about it ever since. I mean, once you get started, you cannot stop until hunger is eradicated.
Speaker 2 00:03:41 You know, you're not gonna stop. So that's sort of how I got started in that spirituality of leadership class taught by sister John Miriam Jones, a great instructor, great program. And, uh, at Mount St. Joseph university, I'll mention that to, uh, just by the way, won the conference softball championship, going to the NCAA tournaments. I'll mention that too. I'll give a sports update for the, for the listeners, but yes, that's how I got started writing about hunger. My first article was in the Cincinnati Inquirer on my birthday, actually. So once you learn about it, you think of different ways that you can help out and then you become like an advocate. Um, cause I remember I, I would help the world food program. And at one point we had a teleconference, uh, with George McGovern and he was the former right former Senator and, um, someone who, who really did a lot to fight hunger, both at home and overseas.
Speaker 2 00:04:35 And one of the things he mentioned in the, the teleconference that we had was that people would ask him about fighting hunger at home and overseas. Why not just focus on fighting hunger at home. And, and he said, well, why not do both? And I think that's a good example for everyone that we can, you know, tackle both. You don't have, it doesn't have to be one or the other, uh, there's enough food in the world for everyone, or there should be. And you know, if enough, uh, dedication and priority is given to the issue of domestic and global hunger, we can do something about it. And most importantly, everyone can be a leader in this process.
Speaker 1 00:05:17 Yeah. Before we kind of get into the meat of the episode, could you explain what the world food program is?
Speaker 2 00:05:24 World food program is whilst the largest hunger relief organization in the world? Well, you know, in the United States, speeding America is the big, the large network. This would be the, the largest international, uh, food aid organization and, and really got start from the food for peace program. See Dwight Eisenhower, president Eisenhower started food for peace, uh, in his term in the 1950s. And that's when they sent United States surplus food overseas to feed the hungry, you know, we had so much food and they didn't want it to go to waste, obviously. And of course it was expensive to store as well. So they wanted to move that food overseas. And this was just a great program, a great idea. And, you know, the United States had always fought hunger, you know, during world war I world war II and had programs to fight hunger. But now this gave a consistent program, a one that would be there year after year food for peace.
Speaker 2 00:06:13 So Eisenhower got that started. And then while they were doing that, they thought, well, why not have an international food for peace effort where the surplus food from all the nations would be combined. And that's sort of where the world food program was developed and Eisenhower proposed the world food program, but it didn't get started in his administration. It didn't, uh, got started in John F Kennedy's administration, which came right after the United nation's world food program is like an international food for peace effort. And it's, it works in oh, uh, over 70 countries. Uh, in fact, uh, they're fighting hunger right now in the Ukraine, which we all know about in the news, the, the hunger crisis there. So, so a country who is in desperate condition will call for help from the world food program. And the w FP will then go into that country and try to help that country overcome hunger through emergency aid, obviously.
Speaker 2 00:07:04 And then, and then also by developing different programs in the country, you know, obviously the ultimate goal is that they can stand on their own and, and tackle hunger within their border. So that's, that's sort of what, uh, world food program is. And the United States food for peace, uh, you know, that would be like the largest donor to the world food program. It's, it's, uh, voluntarily funded organizations. So it depends on the donations from governments and the public and governments, uh, determine, you know, like the Congress will determine how much resources to allocate toward the food for peace program that will fund WP. And when we talk about ways you can get involved, that obviously is one way is to be an advocate for global food aid, uh, with your representative. That's a very important, uh, aspect of this.
Speaker 1 00:07:54 Yeah, definitely. And I think you sort of touched on earlier, um, that we tend to think of global hunger and domestic hunger as two separate issues and the national and global food systems as two separate systems. But I think that you kind of got to the idea that these are pretty interconnected. So could you kind of go into more detail about how, um, interconnected these issues are and how interconnected our, our food systems are.
Speaker 2 00:08:25 I wanted to talk about an, an example of this relative to Ohio since, um, you know, this is the Ohio association of food banks. So let's mention a great Ohio story. Uh, there was a teacher in Cincinnati in the early 19 hundreds, and she would come to school and she noticed the children were very sick and, uh, they were hungry. What am I gonna do? She, she wondered. And what she did one day is she set up a little kitchen and table, uh, and part of the school and started serving lunch. And what day she would call these penny lunches. Of course, the student didn't have a penny. They still gave him a lunch, but, but, but a lot of the students were very poor, had this distribution of food at, at school. And that was something unique at that time. This was the early 19 hundreds, I guess this was about 1903 or so her name was Ella Walsh teacher at the Jackson school in Cincinnati.
Speaker 2 00:09:17 And, uh, she sort of pioneered, uh, what, uh, we know now as a school lunch program and they, and they came to the rescue so many different times, like when the great depression happened, one of the school board representatives said that the penny lunches even saved the lives of some of the kids, because it was so much hunger during the depression. So school feeding was pioneered right here in Ohio, and that's what we're trying to do overseas as well is solution. The fighting hunger at home is school lunches for every child. That's our goal here, uh, which we're still trying to achieve with legislation. And that's what we're trying to do overseas. We want every child in the world to have school lunch. We want all these countries to have penny lunch programs like George McGovern said he wanted every child in the world to have a school lunch.
Speaker 2 00:10:04 If we stick with that goal and fight for it, that's something that can be achieved and would go a long way toward eliminating hunger. And we know how hard it is here to do this. And you know, this from the Ohio association of food banks, how challenging it is to feed hungry children right here in Ohio, and the different challenges that come up, even though we have established programs, um, like for one is the, the summer feeding, uh, issue that we've had for many years where a lot of kids would go hungry during the summer schools are closed. There's not enough summer feeding sites, different issues like that. And so we're still trying to solve that particular problem. And of course, in a great need for afterschool programs like the free store food bank has the weekend backpack. You know, we, we have a lot to do here to try to eradicate child hunger. And then obviously overseas, you can see what the incredible challenges are. And now of course we have a major global hunger crisis happening. So it's, there's a lot of, um, a need for these programs in different, in different countries where there's severe droughts. Sometimes the school lunch program is the only thing that keeps a family from, uh, from having to withdraw their child from school and having to search all day for food. You know, we really wanna get school lunches for every child in the world. We wanna finish what L Walsh started.
Speaker 1 00:11:33 Yeah, I think during the pandemic, there were some flexibility for the school lunch program and for summer feeding that made it a little easier for families,
Speaker 2 00:11:46 Right. Uh, that's a good, excellent point that we wanna, um, like cuz they had the, the pandemic E B T the family would get the benefits card to shop at the grocery. And that would make up for the missing school meals during the summer, if that could be expanded and done every year, every summer we could then cover all the kids during the summer, like has been done during the pandemic. But to my knowledge, it has not passed at this point, uh, as separately. But that if that passed, that would be a big help to get that year after year. And it solves a lot of problems when you eliminate hunger, um, because you improve the health of the child, the education level goes up, uh, the health of the community goes up, the healthcare costs go down, different things like that. I mean just is an avalanche of good stuff.
Speaker 2 00:12:38 It just has to be made a priority. I think that's the key is making it a priority. And, and oftentimes it does not become a priority, um, especially with global hunger that, that, uh, doesn't get to be the prior. It certainly doesn't get to be the priority it needs to be. And you were, it was already getting too low of funding, not enough a priority. It needs to be stepped up and that, and, and of course, um, you know, that's where the, the, the Congress needs to come through in those cases and, and respond. And that's where the public as advocates is very important. You know, I was just writing about the, uh, the friendship train, uh, that rolled across the United States in 1947, uh, collecting food donations for Europe. Uh, well did two things. One obviously collected those donations for the European countries, but it also sent a message to the Congress that American people thought this was important. And so there was no way that they, the Congress was going to vote down things like the Marshall plan and different aid programs, if the public was so passionate about, that's why it's important to be that advocate for domestic and global hunger.
Speaker 1 00:13:51 Yeah, absolutely. And I, I appreciate your stories cuz I think they really paint the picture and show the importance of, of being an advocate. You know, I think a lot of the attention right now, rightfully so is on the war and conflict in Ukraine. Could you go into detail about how the war will one of course impact the, the folks that are there, the Ukrainian citizens, um, but also impact the hunger crisis kind of worldwide, particularly like in Yemen or you know, other countries that are, are really facing hunger crises within their borders.
Speaker 2 00:14:36 I mean, I think this is a very important point about the Ukraine now, um, before the war in Ukraine started, if you had, if we had had this podcast before the war Ukraine started, I would've talked about how severe the global hunger was in those countries. You mentioned Yemen in south Suan and many other countries on the brink of famine and the world food program and the other relief agencies. They were well short of funding. Uh, at that time then you have this massive, this horrible conflict and where there's war, there is hunger that's to be clear and that's the case in Ukraine, but there's something extra element that you refer to with Ukraine is that the Ukraine is a big supplier of food to other countries. So now you have obviously the, the people in the Ukraine or the refugees are eating food aid.
Speaker 2 00:15:29 But because now that the food supply that other countries were counting on is now cut off. Uh, in fact, the world food program director was just, uh, talking about how the grain silos in Ukraine. There's a lot of food in them. They can't get to 'em because of the war they're totally blocked off. He said, there's enough food there to feed about 400 million people. That's more than the population of the United States. I mean, that's how many people can be fed by Ukraine. I mean, this is a, a country that has a large food supply. So now you can't get to that food or at least they they're, they're trying to get access to it, but they obviously can't, uh, because of the war, if the war goes on, they may never get to it. The second thing is is that the, the farmers, obviously in a war zone, you can't really grow food.
Speaker 2 00:16:23 So now you have food that is ready, uh, in storage. It's just going to rot there. If it's not, um, if they can't get to it, that's gonna be totally wasted. And then they have to grow for future plantings, but are they going be, even be able to do that under the conditions? Um, obviously in a war zone, they may not be able to do that. So it is just a complete disaster on, on top of a disaster really that they can't get to this food and that the future supply of food coming from the Ukraine is in jeopardy. And it's leading to high food prices. In fact, the agricultural minister of Ukraine said, um, the other day that even if the war ended today, which we would like it to end immediately, even if that happened, but it still would affect the food prices for three to five years even.
Speaker 2 00:17:17 And it's affecting food prices everywhere. So where, so it, it has this massive global vacation and that the world food program has seen its operational costs go up by millions of dollars. So they were already struggling. They had the reduced rations in Yemen before the war in Ukraine. That's how low on funding they were, uh, for a big relief operation, like Yemen, where there's a civil war and they're on the brink of famine and, and they had to reduce rations. Then now the prices of food are higher. They can't get to this food supply. We're looking at famine potentially in Yemen. We're looking at famine potentially in Ethiopia, South Sudan, many other kind, Afghanistan that just don't have the funding that don't have the food supply. This is just a disaster. So really what is very important right now is that we do everything we can to try to help the situation by, by trying well, we've gotta increase the global food aid program.
Speaker 2 00:18:19 There's no question about that. So I expect, um, that we're going to increase our assistance and do everything possible to save people from famine because, uh, you know, that's just our tradition. I, in fact, I wrote an article on the Washington post about this for Easter. Uh, there was the we're, we're probably in the worst global food crisis since Easter of 1946. And I wrote about what we did then to, to, uh, fight hunger. And of course at that time, um, Harry Truman was the president of the United States and, uh, he actually cut back on his Easter celebration to conserve food. That's another thing, a very important thing about preventing food waste. And I know we talk about this both domestically and, and for global. And we responded when that, when that famine threatened the world in 1946, a lot of people may not know too much about it.
Speaker 2 00:19:10 Uh, hundreds of millions of people could have starved to death. You know, that's the thing about hunger is that it often is the enemy that, that far outlast the, when the guns go silent, that's the enemy that keeps on going is the enemy of hunger. And often long after the last gun has been fired in the, in the war, the, at the time we would, you know, the United States would, uh, you know, people would, you know, they'd buy care packages of food to send to the hungry overseas. And this was just a powerful symbol of hope, uh, that, that people had not been forgotten.
Speaker 1 00:19:45 Yeah, absolutely. And that was part of the reason why the us and Europe got involved in the Ukraine crisis. I mean, um, you know, always trying to make sure that there's peace in the world and with peace comes, um, food <laugh>
Speaker 2 00:20:04 You're right, right. Exactly. Food for peace, you know, absolutely. You cannot have, uh, you cannot have a true peace in this world if people are starving to death and, and, you know, uh, food is an important part of the, the stability for countries. So, you know, that's what we're trying to do. We wanna get food and peace to you. Ukraine. We wanna end to that war and we want a food to get to the hungry, the millions of refugees that have fled and the people inside the country, some who are being starved by the Russian SES that, that, you know, that's something that, so that's just another, you know, reason we have to get a cease fire and get a, you know, when trying to get a, we've had some successes of getting aid, but more people need the aid cuz that's what happens, you know, in some of these war zones, people get cut off from a so, you know, that's a lot of things that the, the world food program and, um, you know, different charities have to do is they have to negotiate, uh, to get access to different, to different cities and, and, and parts of the country, uh, whether it's Ukraine or, or Syria or Yemen or different, uh, you know, humanitarian age is hard enough to provide, even in a relatively peaceful setting, you know, all the challenges you have to do now, if you put it in a war zone.
Speaker 2 00:21:22 So that's why, and of course, obviously it costs a lot more too to do that. I mean, some cases they have to do airlifts. So, you know, it's really hard enough to grow food and supply food, even in relatively peaceful conditions because you can have disasters like drought happen. Um, now if you have a country that's suffering drought and war at the same time, that's another element. So, uh, war right now is causing a lot of hunger, uh, in different countries. Peace making is very important that we needed stop these conflicts. And then, and in, in the meantime, we have to make sure that people, uh, don't starve to death in these, in these conflicts. So I think Hoover, Hoover said, he said, the famine is the inevitable aftermath of war. Um, I will add interestingly enough, that when we fought hunger after the war and really that's what won the piece, um, you know, like George Marshall said hunger and insecurity of the worst enemies of peace, uh, general Marshall was a very big advocate for, for fighting hunger, for feeding the hungry.
Speaker 2 00:22:22 That was a key component of the Marshall plant. Um, but at the same time we were fighting hunger overseas. Like we did. We also started the national school lunch program in the United States. 1946 was the, when that was signed into log, we still have to do more to make sure there's no, uh, hunger gaps so that no child in this country goes hungry. And then we have to make sure that we help other countries develop these programs. Um, I mentioned the school lunches, uh, and of course the other critical aspect is the infant nutrition. We have to make sure that every country that needs the supply of infant, uh, nutrition, nutritional foods to save children's lives get has that supply of food, uh, because, uh, you know, a lot of times, uh, the funding, um, may not allow it. And a lot of these deaths could be prevented.
Speaker 2 00:23:16 Um, in fact, I think there's one statistic. Um, a child dies every 75 seconds in Yemen because of the malnutrition. I mean, that's a very severe problem. The first thousand days of life are, uh, critical window. Uh, if they suffer malnutrition child, uh, irreversible physical and mental damage at that point or death. So, um, it's critical that we have these infant nutrition, you know, George McGovern, he wanted to do something like we have the WIC program in the United States that helps mothers and infants, um, in this country, he wanted to do something like that globally, have a sort of a program, um, sort of based, uh, a little bit on the McGovern doll program that, uh, he did with Senator Bob doll, the, um, McGovern doll global school lunch program. I write a lot, a lot about that program. That's one we need to expand, uh, globally and then have an infant nutrition program that go along with it.
Speaker 2 00:24:14 Uh, in fact, uh, we just passed the Congress, the house just passed the, uh, global malnutrition prevention and treatment act. And I was very happy that Mount St Joseph university's human rights course wrote letters to Congress about this. I spoke to the class and asked them the, to, to write these letters and, uh, Dr. Jennifer Morris, who teaches that class, uh, organized the, the letter writing effort. And, um, that legislation passed the house overwhelmingly. There are only 44 who voted against it. So it was a vast majority. That's pretty good. You'd have a lot. Most of the people, uh, should have been all of them, really. Um, the vast majority of them passed it. And to get that now that has to pass the Senate, Senator shared brown, excellent advocate for hunger relief, I believe will support it. And I believe Senator Rob Portman will support it as well.
Speaker 2 00:25:03 In fact, the two of them have combined in the past on proposals to fight hunger and different bills. So usually they, uh, will team up in the, the way it should be done. You know, in Congress, you shouldn't have, um, people bickering, uh, across the aisle. You know, you should have, uh, a unity. Um, George McGovern and Bob Dole had, were different parties and partnered on all these hunger relief programs and Herbert Hoover and Harry Truman were of different political parties, but that didn't matter. They were had to do more, something more important than that in, in the famine relief. And, um, you know, and during the Cuban missile crisis, white Eisenhower advises, president Kennedy, they were different parties, but who cares if you have different parties, you have something more important to do. So I think that's another, you know, thing that people can advocate for is, uh, the hunger relief programs at home and, and abroad.
Speaker 2 00:25:54 And you can write letters to your representatives to do that. Just like the class that Mount St. Joseph did. I was very happy. They did that. And, and, um, now we just gotta get that bill to pass the Senate, and that will help boost our, our fight against, uh, global malnutrition, that important, uh, bill. Uh, I thank like to thank, uh, Nicole Schmidt and Heather Valentine are BR for the world for helping to distribute those letters. Um, once they were done, they helped to move that along. So you definitely reach out to, you know, if you were, are someone at home and wants to get involved, reach out to the organizations like Ohio association of food banks, to help with that, or read for the world, contact the experts and sort of tell 'em what you're doing. And then they'll, they'll be a great partner, great organizations that will want to have advocates to, to help out.
Speaker 2 00:26:44 Um, and there's all kinds of ways. I mean, there's, those are more ways than you realize to get involved. And letter writing is one of 'em of course, but there's even ways on your phone. I mean, you, I was doing the charity miles. I did 200 miles for running and walk running for feeding America, raised a bunch of meals for them with the charity miles app. You just download the app and it raises money paid for by sponsors, for feeding America, for world food program. And, um, the online game free rice, which I love talking about one, I'm one of the, uh, volunteers that writes questions for it. And, um, that's a game where you go online, answer questions, trivia questions, and everyone you get right is a donation of rice to the world food program. So every school could, could do free rice. A lot of, lot of 'em do that. A school that wants to do that, get in touch with me, I'll help you do it.
Speaker 1 00:27:36 <laugh> absolutely. And you're personally a really fierce advocate for ending hunger and really using your platform for good, including raising donations for feeding America and the world for food program through charity miles. Um, and I was just wondering, could you go into a little bit more detail about how people could get involved,
Speaker 2 00:28:02 But just speaking out about it. And like I said, like I gave the example of the friendship train, how powerful that was for everybody in the country, whether it was, um, celebrities or school kids doing their own program, um, you know, uh, taking part in the friendship, train it just United Americans and made a powerful statement against Hungary. It was more than just the, the, um, the donation itself, but just what it meant. It was a symbol of hope for people around the world that you, they were doing this, but also it led to those other programs. I mentioned, uh, whether the Marshall plan, you know, the, the friendship train that came before the Marshall plan, the food aid, uh, you know, took time for the Marshall plan. The past two Congress that friendship train was done, um, was set up before then and really made a, you know, powerful impact on that whole process.
Speaker 2 00:28:59 And then at that same time at the friendship training, there was another program. They did a Thanksgiving and this is something every school could do. You don't, don't do it just a Thanksgiving. You do it year round where you feed a silent guest, they put a empty plate at the table and, um, people would make a donation to pay for the, the silent guest who would be the silent guest was one of the world's hungry people. So you would actually pay for them to have a meal, and then they would mail that donation. And that led to care packages going overseas at that time to feed the hungry, uh, in Europe, uh, through the silent guest program. So just powerful programs like that, um, you know, showed where the heart of America was and what was important to them. And so I think that's important why, um, you know, any, whether you're school or a business, any organization that you do take action for those very reasons, uh, to, you know, not just to get the donations, obviously you wanna get the donations up, but just to make that statement, that this is important, you know, that, that we're not gonna forget about the hungry, um, you know, just cuz they're thousands of miles away, which I guess in some sense is easy because many people may not realize what is happening.
Speaker 2 00:30:18 They may not see it. Um, you know, a lot of times in the news, um, you don't, uh, I mean we know about the, the hunger and Ukraine, I think because of the, the news coverage, it has been asked some excellent news coverage, but there's not a lot of coverage of, uh, other countries that have, are going through severe pain, um, and suffering on the brink of famine. So a lot of people may not know about those. So I think, um, anything you can do to sort of educate people, um, one, uh, one, uh, representative of the Truman administration said be a one man information bureau. That's how I described it. He said, be, you know, you be, you be the, the source of the news, uh, tell PE, you know, find out, you know, find out what's going on and spread the word at, at, uh, you know, whether you're writing a letter to, to the editor. That's another thing you can do or just hosting an event and, uh, be that one man information bureau.
Speaker 1 00:31:17 That's a great way to put it. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Um, I wanted to ask you where the listeners can find your work and, um, maybe even connect with you.
Speaker 2 00:31:30 I would go to Twitter. Yeah, because I post all my articles on Twitter. William Lambers is the name. And, uh, if you go there, I always post all my articles there. I have some real good ones that just came out. Um, one I did for mother's day with a mother's day care package one year in 1948, the, the women's club, uh, decide we're gonna send care packages overseas for mother's day. And, uh, I also have a website, uh, William lambers.com that you can visit and, uh, you know, you can get links to different articles there. Um, I have a column at Newsweek magazine. Uh, I put, uh, a lot of articles up there.
Speaker 1 00:32:11 Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1 00:32:20 I hope you found my conversation with William. Interesting. I really appreciate him sharing his expertise and time with us today. Um, we'll be sure to link everything that he had mentioned in the show notes, so that you're able to work towards ending global hunger and supporting the world food program. And I wanted to end with this quote about the Ukraine crisis. It's a quote from the world food program's executive director, David Beasley, and he warns the United nations security council on March 29th. The times article that I'm quoting from says, quote, rising food prices would devastate the humanitarians organizations ability to feed some 125 million people on the brink of starvation because Ukraine had gone from the bread basket of the world to the bread lines. So with that, we will talk to you soon.
