25 Years of Leadership to End Hunger
 In
2003 Pennsylvania Hunger Action Center will mark its 25th anniversary.
This is the second in a six-part series that tells a few of the
stories of those years. Thanks to Jim Stephenson, Martha “Sam”
Crouse and Barry Shutt for their cooperation in the telling.
Staying Alert, Keeping Watch
From the beginning, the Pennsylvania Coalition
on Food and Nutrition was put together by other organizations
already involved in anti-hunger work. The reason for forming
“the Coalition”, as it was called, was to raise a voice strong
enough to grab the government’s and the public’s attention. Within
a year of its inception, that purpose was put to the test.
Martha (Sam) Crouse vividly remembers one of
the first crises. It was the spring of 1979, and she was serving
as the first director of WIC in Washington and Greene counties.
On a Friday afternoon she received a telephone call from the
Department of Health in Harrisburg. “Close down your WIC program,”
Crouse was told. “Call the grocery stores in your area and instruct
them not to accept WIC checks. WIC is out of money.”
“I thought about it for a few minutes,” remembers
Crouse, “and then I made a decision that could have cost me my
job. Instead of calling grocery stores, I called the Coalition
and asked Jim Stephenson if he could help. He told me that if
I would find five WIC participants who were willing to go to court
to keep WIC open, he would find a lawyer to handle the case.
I found five women willing to step forward and he found a lawyer.
By Monday morning a judge in Philadelphia had issued an injunction
ordering the Commonwealth to reopen the WIC Program. I never
did call those grocery stores.”
WIC wasn’t the only program in jeopardy in those
days. During that same spring of 1979, the newly installed Thornburgh
Administration decided to pull out of the Summer Food Service
Program. This time the Coalition organized a demonstration at
the Capitol and worked behind the scenes with Summer Food sponsors
in Philadelphia. Again the State reversed its decision.
“In those years the State didn’t take food and
nutrition programs very seriously,” recalls Crouse. “Good management
and commitment were lacking. We needed someone to keep an eye
on things. That’s what the Coalition did for us.”
Two years later, as the Reagan cuts in the Food
Stamp Program began to be implemented in Pennsylvania, the Coalition
was again in the thick of things. Stephenson asked the Department
of Public Welfare (DPW) to implement the cuts on a case-by-case
basis, thus providing ample opportunity for due process. DPW
Secretary Helen O’Bannon responded by suing the Coalition and
asking a federal court to declare that a case-by-case approach
was not required. Once again the Coalition prevailed; on October
27, 1981, Judge R. Dixon Herman dismissed DPW’s lawsuit.
And then there were problems with the distribution
of federal commodities. In the early ‘80s, the Reagan Administration
was taking heat for the huge amount of food that was piling up
in warehouses and caves accross the country. The USDA furiously
began trying to get the product moving. But the states had no
administrative money and lacked the required infrastructure. In
Pennsylvania only a few warehouses were available and transportation
costs were exorbitant.
As the controversy raged on, the Coalition found
out that Pennsylvania had been turning down product in the midst
of a recession. Stephenson alerted the news media and the story
took off. The House Appropriations Committee, chaired by Rep.
Italo Cappabianca from Erie, held hearings. Mike Spencer from
Westmoreland County and Chris Rebstock from Pittsburgh, both food
bankers, and Bonnie Baehr from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia,
all testified and called for changes in the way the program was
handled. The Coalition and other advocates staged an event at
the Capitol distributing empty cheese boxes from an empty truck.
Cappabianca and Senator Allen Kukovich participated in the event.
Again, positive changes followed. Pennsylvania
instituted a “no turn-down policy” to federal offerings of commodities
and adopted procedures to effectively deal with TEFAP product.
By the mid-‘80s, the problems had been largely corrected.
Part Three:
“The Coalition, Food Banks and the State Food Purchase Program.”
Back to Top
|
