As a freshman I applied to FYSOP after being introduced to the program by my DAD of all people. He had met someone at the Thursday night jazz reception during my orientation, who had said that FYSOP was their best experience at BU. And what do you know?! It’s mine too. I got accepted into the HIV/AIDS issue area, my number one choice…                                     FYSOP 19, HIV/AIDS,  Captain America’s

I was introduced to Sir Jasper, the pony that is ridden, the mode of transportation known as a little red wagon. I got the beat, hey FYSOP, I got the beat. But more importantly, I was introduced to a world of people who loved to do community service as much as I did. And that little tid-bit is what made applying for FYSOP the best thing I ever did for myself.

From there I had two amazing years as staff:                                         FYSOP 20, Disabilities, Mamma Mia’s

 FYSOP 21, Enviornment, Chernobyl Cheetahs

And now, FYSOP 22 has come (almost), and I cannot wait to have a new favorite picture to represent my HUNGER ALLIANCE experience. I cannot wait to watch everything come together after this amazing summer of planning. I cannot wait for you all to fall in love with FYSOP 22, and I’m most excited to fall in love with FYSOP 22 right alongside you.

See you guys super soon.

LOTSOFNOMLOVE, Alyssa

To try to get the parents thinking about how they and the school have been feeding their children, he shows them this demonstration.

How much sugar do you consume in a day? Enough to fill an entire bus??

NOMNOMNOM

S&A

With FYSOP drawing quite close we wanted to let you in on a little sneak peak of where you could potentially be volunteering during the week of service:

ELIZABETH PEABODY HOUSE

The Elizabeth Peabody House has been a staple in the city of Somerville. Its original mission was to support the families in the community that were need of extra help. In 2009 EPH created their emergency food pantry which has been growing at a huge rate for the past two years.

This pantry is where you will be during your service. You will be shopping with the families who utilize this pantry: helping to figure out certain amounts of food they can receive, as well as help them make healthy choices while they shop.

GREATER BOSTON FOOD BANK

The Greater Boston Food Banks (GBFB)’s mission is short and sweet: To help end hunger in eastern Massachusetts. GFBF helps to supply food to over 545,000 people in over nine counties annually, this equates to more than 34 million pounds of food and grocery products a year!

Local food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless and residential shelters, youth programs, senior centers, and day-care centers visit GBFB day in and day out to load cars, vans, and tractor trailers tons of food, literally, TONS.

Fun fact: Alyssa does her Student Food Rescue run to GBFB and has transported over 2,000lbs of food to the Brookline Food Pantry in one day!

Volunteers at GBFB help to inspect, sort, and repack the salvaged food and grocery products they receive. You will all then help to make food boxes that will be distributed out into the Boston community!

OPEN DOOR FOOD PANTRY

Open Door’s mission is to help alleviate the impact of hunger in the community of Gloucester, MA. Open Door has the capabilities to run many different services including their

• Food Pantry: provides emergency groceries to those in need.
• Community Meals: offers free, nutritious meals to those in need of food or companionship.
• Second Glance Thrift Store: provides the public with reduced-cost clothing and household goods.

They also offer other services to the community like free summer lunches for kids, food stamp assistance, a farmers market, a job training program, and a food rescue program!

You will be volunteering in all of these aspects of Open Door while also being able to see some lovely scenery that you can’t get staying in Downtown Boston.

Get excited!

NOMNOMNOM

S&A

Take Our Poll

Alyssa isn’t allergic to any foods, but she is a vegetarian and is allergic to grass.

Shoshie is lactose intolerant, an allergy shared with an estimated 60% of the  population.

Did you know….

More than 12 million Americans have food allergies. That’s 1 in 25 Americans.

Our food supply is being increasingly polluted by record amounts of pesticides, artificial growth hormones, antibiotics, artificial dyes and genetically mutated foods that we are all consuming. As the pollution of our food supply increases, so does our susceptibility of developing new food allergies.

To learn more about the growing food allergy dilemma, watch this AMAZING video of Robyn O’Brien at TEDxAustin.

Robyn authored “The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It.” A former Wall Street food industry analyst, Robyn brings insight, compassion and detailed analysis to her research into the impact that the global food system is having on the health of our children.

35 DAYS TIL FYSOP

NOMNOMNOM,

S&A

NOMNOMNOM

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One in six Americans will get sick from food poising this year alone, and food poising send over 100,000 Americans to the hospital each year. These are illnesses that can be prevented by taking time to make sure you prepare and handle your food correctly. As the campaign states: Clean, Separate, Cook, and Chill.

Check out their website further at FoodSafety.gov for answers to the questions like, “Do you think these eggs went bad,” and other related food concerns.

Eat Safely.

NOMNOMNOM

S&A

As we plan for the week of FYSOP we’ve made a couple of site visits to see the organizations you will be working with and the type of service you will be doing while there!

One of the sites we’re extremely excited about is The Food Project. We went to visit them at their rooftop garden atop of the BU Medical Campus! It’s not at a farm where you guys will be working at, but it is the same organization with the same idea: community farms and gardens IN THE CITY, allowing for residents of Boston to purchase locally grown produce while helping to create a more SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY!

Check out our day:

NOMNOMNOM,

S&A

Affordable Access to Food
We live in the world’s wealthiest nation. Yet 13 percent of people living in the United States live in poverty.
Low-income households already spend a greater share of their income on food. Food accounts for 17.1 percent of spending for households making less than $10,000 per year compared to the U.S. average of 12.6 percent.

We believe that a person is not himself when he is hungry. Everyone should have equal access to affordable and nutritious food without it impeding a comfortable healthy lifestyle.

http://www.bread.org/hunger/us/facts.html

Sustainable Farming
Every day millions of Americans venture to their local grocery stores in hopes of procuring ingredients for breakfasts, dinners, and snacks.
They turn over shiny green apples and squeeze ripe, red tomatoes. Rarely do they stop to ask how their food was produced. Whose hands touched their apples? Where was their carrot pulled from the ground?
Did you know that the food on your plate has traveled an average of 1500 miles to get there?

We believe that we should not be helping to feed the world, rather we should be helping the world to feed itself. By promoting the benefits of sustainable farming, we can help society move towards a self-sustaining path.

http://www.localsustainability.net/educate/local-food-statistics/

http://thefoodproject.org/local-food

Nutritional Health
Poor diet and physical inactivity are the most impor¬tant factors contributing to an epidemic of overweight and obesity in this country. The most recent data indicate that 72 percent of men and 64 percent of women are overweight or obese, with about one-third of adults being obese. Even in the absence of over¬weight, poor diet and physical inactivity are associ¬ated with major causes of morbidity and mortality. These include cardiovascular disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and some types of cancer

We believe that obesity and nutritional health are the most neglected sub-topics of our issue area, Hunger. By raising awareness of the connection the two sub-topics have with starvation and sustainable farming, we can help to better the obesity epidemic in America.

http://www.cnpp.usda.gov/DGAs2010-PolicyDocument.htm

(Barker & Mander, 1999, Invisible Government: The WTO Global Government for the New Millenium)
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Consumer Expenditure Survey, 2006

NOMNOMNOM

S&A

NOMNOMNOM

S&A