25 Years of Leadership to End Hunger
 In
2003 Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center will mark its 25th anniversary.
How Hunger Action began is a story that will be told by the principals
in the next few issues of “The Hunger Advocate”. Thanks to Pat
Temple-West, Russ Sykes and Mary Ellen Lloyd for their cooperation
in the telling.
Off and Running….
It began in early 1978 with a question. How
can we speak with a stronger and more unified voice to end hunger
in Pennsylvania? Very soon, the conversation moved to the practical
matters of money and resources. Who is willing to give something
up so that a stronger voice can be raised?
Mary Ellen Lloyd from Philadelphia was part of
the conversation from the beginning. She was an activist who provided
technical services and training around the state on school breakfast,
summer food and other nutrition programs. As Lloyd remembers her
work back then, “It was all about speaking to people in power
who didn’t understand that a hungry child could not learn”.
Russ Sykes, executive director of South Central
Community Action Programs, also was there from the beginning.
His agency, along with more than thirty similar community action
agencies across the state, already had small anti-hunger programs.
If something new and different were to begin,community action
agencies would need to be part of it, financially and otherwise.
The circle of dreamers included Pat Temple-West
and Barbara Baker-Temple from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s
Nutrition Development Services (NDS). Temple-West and Baker-Temple
led an array of child nutrition programs in Philadelphia and also
had been active statewide by providing training to community action
agencies.
Their conversations occurred at the end of a
decade when the scandal of hunger amid prosperity had fully dawned
on America. In Pennsylvania, each community action agency had
a little money to work at hunger and nutrition issues in their
service area. But no one had enough money to do anti-hunger advocacy
on a statewide basis. Could more progress be made by pooling the
money and creating a new organization?
“It wasn’t an elitist group that made this decision,”
says Lloyd. “The initial organizing meetings included 20 – 30
people from all around the state, including community action staff
and folks from the hunger coalition in Pittsburgh.” At the end
of the day, the group decided to form the Pennsylvania Coalition
for Food and Nutrition (PCFN), the organization that grew and
evolved into thePennsylvania Hunger Action Center. Lloyd and
Jim Stephenson, an employee of the community action agency in
Gettysburg, were chosen to serve as co-directors.
On June 26, 1978 the leaders took the formal
step of filing Articles of Incorporation with the Secretary of
State. The purpose was declared to be “assisting in the development,
coordination, and expansion of food and nutrition programs for
the poor on a statewide basis.” The first office opened in October
of that year at 112 Market Street in Harrisburg.
NDS contributed the funds for the initial months
of operation. Soon after, with the support of the community action
agencies, the PA Department of Community Affairs awarded the Coalition
a Community Food and Nutrition Program grant. The Pennsylvania
Coalition on Food and Nutrition was on its way.
Part Two: "Staying
Alert, Keeping Watch
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