September 29, 2024 • 15 mins
Original Air Date: September 29, 2024
Jenique Jones is the new executive director of Why Hunger @whyhunger. The annual Hungerthon, now partnering with IHeart Radio, is right around the corner!
Jenique Jones is the new executive director of Why Hunger @whyhunger. The annual Hungerthon, now partnering with IHeart Radio, is right around the corner!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, conversations about issues that matter.
Here's your host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I want to introduce you to Janique Jones. She is
the executive director of Why Hunger and we ordinarily speak
to Why Hunger as we get closer to Hungerthon, which
is around Thanksgiving every single year. And of course this
(00:31):
was started by the late great Harry Chapin, but we
are starting this a little early this year because there
is a big event coming up on October fifteenth at
Irving Plaza. So take it away, Janique.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well, well, thank you for having me and getting to
talk about this just really exciting. It's our second annual
concert to kick off our Hungerthon campaign, which is now
and it's thirty nine year and we'll officially launch Hunger
Thought on November first, all across iHeart. But for today,
I'm here to talk about our amplified concert at Irvin Plaza.
(01:12):
It's going to have the Roots, Grace Bowers and a
bunch of special guests really to celebrate the power of
music and activism.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
How do people get tickets?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
You can go to y hunger dot org slash amplified
get all the information.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Now, when did you start with Y Hunger.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's been about a year and two or three months.
I started in July of twenty twenty three, so it's
been an amazing year.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
How did you get involved?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
So for about fourteen years prior to coming to Y Hunger,
I worked at a food bank in New York City
and candidly that work was great, but you get tired
of just seeing those lines, that the pantries grow longer
and longer. And so when a recruiter reached out to
me about Why Hunger and I saw that it was
(02:05):
an organization set that's like we're going to end hunger.
We're going to get rid of those pantry lines. That
just got me super excited. And I mean, we have
music in our history, and I'm a big music fan,
so it just was like the planets.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Aligned, So how will Why Hunger end Hunger?
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I will say it's hard work.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
I don't want anyone to say next year that you know,
I failed at my job, because it's going to take
us some time. But we really believe that hunger is solvable. Right,
there's enough food actually on the planet for every person.
But until we as a country and even a world,
believe that nutritious food is a human right, it doesn't
(02:52):
matter how much food there is. So what we do
is in the meantime, we're partnering with organizations and social
movements across the US and twenty three countries, and we're
really focusing on how do these different communities want to
solve hunger? And so for some like in Detroit, they've
started a food cooperative which provides low cost foods to
(03:15):
people in the community. Or in India, we provided a
grain mill so that young women didn't have to spend
all day grinding grain by hand and can now go
to school, which changes their trajectory. So there's a bunch
of different ways that we're doing this, but really it's
(03:36):
helping people solve the problems in their communities around hunger
in whatever form that looks.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Like, why do I associate it? Maybe because of Harry Chapin,
I associate why hunger with Long Island? But your depth
goes far beyond Long Island, right ours does.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
But you know he was even such a champion for
people and around food and security that he did also
found Long Island Cares the food bank there, so he
was tackling it at both ends. He was tackling it
from the point of let's give people food for today
with Long Island Cares and then let's end this thing
with y hunger.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
But so many years later, we're still not only really
stuck in the same place, we're actually I think in
a worse place because people are you know, needing food
that are working.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yeah, yeah, it's you're right on No, I was going
to say, you're absolutely right. You know, we know that
there's forty seven almost forty eight million people, including fourteen
million children, who are living in you know, food and
secure households like that number just came out from the
USDA a few weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
But jan so, what percentage of the population would that be,
because that's a very big number, but let's put it
in perspective, or try to put it in perspective. Yeah,
I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
There's about three hundred million people in the US, so
that would be about twenty five percent.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Which is insane because that's one in four.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
That and that's I think that that's actually I hate
to scare folks, but I think that that's an undercount
because I think that when you talk, I think people
sometimes equate food in security with poverty, and they don't
count those folks who are probably like here in New
York City, where you know, we all know that New
York City costs a living is crazy. So if you're
(05:45):
making sixty thousand dollars a year, even as like a
single person, it's going to be so hard for you
to make ends meet. So you might have days where're
you make that very that stretched spaghetti that I used
to call it, where you make that lot of spaghetti
that last before a week because that's what you can afford,
Or you skip breakfast because you can only afford lunch
(06:07):
and dinner, or you know, just all of those kind
of things. I think that, so I think that number
is a little higher. But this is where I think
someplace like why Hunger, which you know, yes, we've been
around for forty nine years, but we are making change, right,
we are there are like that that place in India
that I talked about, Right, those girls are going to
(06:27):
school now or some of the other interventions. But it's
going to take time, it's going to take resources, and
it's going to take all of us. So and that's
why we want people. You know, we don't want to
just say, oh, please give us your money. I mean, yes,
please give us your money, but also, hey, how about
you support y hunger by coming to this concert? Right,
(06:48):
So we want to also create opportunity for gathering and
togetherness and for joy, right, and so it's really amazing
when we get to say come hang out with us
and the Roots and such, and that's the way you
can support our calls.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I'm speaking with Janique Jones. She is the relatively new
executive director of Why Hunger and again the kickoff to
Hunger Thon is actually starting October fifteenth at Irving Plaza
with the Roots and so many other guest performers. So
(07:25):
I want you to do some brainstorming here for me,
because what are some of your ideas in this area
that can help end hunger because as we've just noted,
it's actually worse, yeah, right now than it was even
a year ago.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
So I mean I think this is where and this
is you know, like you said, I'm relatively new, and
one of the areas that I want us as an
organization to lean more into is policy because I think
that we have to make some change, is there so
right now? In order for people to get access to say,
food benefits and things like that, you have to make
(08:09):
I think for a family of three, you can't make
more than twenty nine thousand dollars a year, so imagine
that in New York City. I believe they should change
the law so that it's not tied to the federal
poverty line, but to the cost of living where people are,
you know, so that we can give people a little
extra support, because I don't think I genuinely don't think
(08:30):
people want necessarily handouts. I think people want to work hard,
but they want a little bit of help. So I
think if we were able to do that, and I
know that, and I cannot remember the congress person off hand,
but there has been something introduced in the House to
do just that, to tie people's ability to access benefits
(08:50):
to the cost of living where they are, I think
that we could cap or tie minimum age more to
the business world, you know, CEOs or I think it's
one to three hundred compared to the salaries of the
(09:11):
CEO and their average worker, whereas in like nineteen sixty
that was one into twenty. So I think we can
do more to put more of the money that people
are going to work and working hard for into their
pockets and not just the folks at the top, which
I think would have a huge impact on New York.
When you think about it as a business state, I think, oh,
(09:33):
you can get me one. Don't get me talking about policy.
I'll be here forever.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
But now I want you to talk about policy, because
you know, when you talk about ending hunger, it's going
to take a policy change. Why hunger does fantastic work,
but you can't do it on your own. It's just impossible.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Yeah, I mean, I think you know, we have some
really great elected officials out there who are for things
like this or even thinking about Sometimes it's not even
about food, because what we know is that part of
what drives food and security is people making choices between
their other needs. So I think expanding that cap on
like insulin to everyone, not just seniors, will on medicaid
(10:16):
so that you know, again, somebody who's working really hard
isn't paying thousands of dollars for insulin. So I think
that there are folks out there who are putting these
things in place. I think it's up to us to
you know, make sure that they either get in office
or stay in office, or and push those who are
in office to vote for these things.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
So if somebody is listening right now and says to themselves,
all right, I could really use some help or I'm
in a tough situation right now, and they contact y
hunger dot org, what what sort of services are they
going to get? What are how are they going to
find their help?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
So, you know, we have a hotline where we connect
people to free local food and resources in your community.
So if you're looking for food, we can point you
in the direction of either whether it's a food pantry,
a soup kitchen, or even that low cost food cooperative.
We can give you access to those things. We can
(11:20):
also connect you to resources in terms of where to
go to get or apply for benefits and such. And
you can call one eight hundred five hungry or texture
zip code to one eight hundred five four eight six
four seventy nine. You can also visit our website. But
I wanted to give all the ways that people could
connect with us and get support.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
We only have a few minutes left, Jennik. What have
we not touched on that you would like to talk
about First of all, if you don't have something off
the top of your head, what sort of volunteers do
you need, because I know people listening would like to
help out.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Well, we always i mean, think about how many people
we said are food insecure, So we always need support
and help with our hotline. And the amazing thing about
that is you can actually help with the hotline from
your home, answering calls or feeling, you know, things from
the website. So we always need volunteers for that. Again,
(12:23):
anytime you can volunteer from your home is great. We
also have partners, you know, all across the country, So
if you're hearing this and you're not in New York,
don't fret. You know, we have folks in Maryland and
Indiana and California and all over the place and part
so really great partners that we can get you connected
(12:43):
with to volunteer.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
You said that you started out working at a food
bank in New York City, So what drove you there?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
So I've been in public service my whole life, worked
in politics, were and then found myself working in a school.
And there was a young lady she had a genetic
disease her family that had very little money, and essentially
most of her meals that were guaranteed, I'll say, came
either from school meals or sadly when she was admitted
(13:16):
into the hospital. The hospital. And that was my first
introduction to people being food and security. You know, I'd
seen it in movies and things like that, but as
far as I knew, you know, I'd never experienced food
and security, and I didn't know anyone who experienced food
and security. And this is earlier in my career, and
I just never wanted that just stuck with me. She's
(13:39):
stuck with me, and it's been twenty years, so that
was really the driver for me. I just don't I
don't understand how we live in a world where children
have to come to school to get a meal.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Do you know something? Speaking of that, do you know
who actually started the free breakfast in schools? The ones
that really started free food in school. It was a
Black Panther Party.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Oh, you're right, that's right, with part of the te
you were right.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Part of it was the Black Panther Party that would
have free breakfast for kids before school, and that's how
it ended up in the schools. They were the first,
you know, as much as they're demonized. They were the
first to acknowledge that if you want to give a
(14:34):
kid a good education, that can't be coming to school hungry.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, it doesn't. Radicals sometimes have radical ideas that are good.
So and yet and they did free clinics too.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
You're right, that's right, that's right. That's right. People, people
you know, don't know that or they forgot about it again.
October fifteenth, Irving Plaza, the Roots and many other special guests,
kicking off Hunger Than season and if you want more
(15:09):
information on all this, y hunger dot org. Thank you
so much, Janique Jones, and welcome to Y Hunger.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
You've been listening to Sunsteen sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
three
Welcome to Sunstein Sessions on iHeartRadio, conversations about issues that matter.
Here's your host, three time Grasie Award winner, Shelley Sunstein.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I want to introduce you to Janique Jones. She is
the executive director of Why Hunger and we ordinarily speak
to Why Hunger as we get closer to Hungerthon, which
is around Thanksgiving every single year. And of course this
(00:31):
was started by the late great Harry Chapin, but we
are starting this a little early this year because there
is a big event coming up on October fifteenth at
Irving Plaza. So take it away, Janique.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Well, well, thank you for having me and getting to
talk about this just really exciting. It's our second annual
concert to kick off our Hungerthon campaign, which is now
and it's thirty nine year and we'll officially launch Hunger
Thought on November first, all across iHeart. But for today,
I'm here to talk about our amplified concert at Irvin Plaza.
(01:12):
It's going to have the Roots, Grace Bowers and a
bunch of special guests really to celebrate the power of
music and activism.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
How do people get tickets?
Speaker 3 (01:23):
You can go to y hunger dot org slash amplified
get all the information.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Now, when did you start with Y Hunger.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's been about a year and two or three months.
I started in July of twenty twenty three, so it's
been an amazing year.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
How did you get involved?
Speaker 3 (01:44):
So for about fourteen years prior to coming to Y Hunger,
I worked at a food bank in New York City
and candidly that work was great, but you get tired
of just seeing those lines, that the pantries grow longer
and longer. And so when a recruiter reached out to
me about Why Hunger and I saw that it was
(02:05):
an organization set that's like we're going to end hunger.
We're going to get rid of those pantry lines. That
just got me super excited. And I mean, we have
music in our history, and I'm a big music fan,
so it just was like the planets.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Aligned, So how will Why Hunger end Hunger?
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I will say it's hard work.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
I don't want anyone to say next year that you know,
I failed at my job, because it's going to take
us some time. But we really believe that hunger is solvable. Right,
there's enough food actually on the planet for every person.
But until we as a country and even a world,
believe that nutritious food is a human right, it doesn't
(02:52):
matter how much food there is. So what we do
is in the meantime, we're partnering with organizations and social
movements across the US and twenty three countries, and we're
really focusing on how do these different communities want to
solve hunger? And so for some like in Detroit, they've
started a food cooperative which provides low cost foods to
(03:15):
people in the community. Or in India, we provided a
grain mill so that young women didn't have to spend
all day grinding grain by hand and can now go
to school, which changes their trajectory. So there's a bunch
of different ways that we're doing this, but really it's
(03:36):
helping people solve the problems in their communities around hunger
in whatever form that looks.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Like, why do I associate it? Maybe because of Harry Chapin,
I associate why hunger with Long Island? But your depth
goes far beyond Long Island, right ours does.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
But you know he was even such a champion for
people and around food and security that he did also
found Long Island Cares the food bank there, so he
was tackling it at both ends. He was tackling it
from the point of let's give people food for today
with Long Island Cares and then let's end this thing
with y hunger.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
But so many years later, we're still not only really
stuck in the same place, we're actually I think in
a worse place because people are you know, needing food
that are working.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
Yeah, yeah, it's you're right on No, I was going
to say, you're absolutely right. You know, we know that
there's forty seven almost forty eight million people, including fourteen
million children, who are living in you know, food and
secure households like that number just came out from the
USDA a few weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
But jan so, what percentage of the population would that be,
because that's a very big number, but let's put it
in perspective, or try to put it in perspective. Yeah,
I know, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
There's about three hundred million people in the US, so
that would be about twenty five percent.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Which is insane because that's one in four.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
That and that's I think that that's actually I hate
to scare folks, but I think that that's an undercount
because I think that when you talk, I think people
sometimes equate food in security with poverty, and they don't
count those folks who are probably like here in New
York City, where you know, we all know that New
York City costs a living is crazy. So if you're
(05:45):
making sixty thousand dollars a year, even as like a
single person, it's going to be so hard for you
to make ends meet. So you might have days where're
you make that very that stretched spaghetti that I used
to call it, where you make that lot of spaghetti
that last before a week because that's what you can afford,
Or you skip breakfast because you can only afford lunch
(06:07):
and dinner, or you know, just all of those kind
of things. I think that, so I think that number
is a little higher. But this is where I think
someplace like why Hunger, which you know, yes, we've been
around for forty nine years, but we are making change, right,
we are there are like that that place in India
that I talked about, Right, those girls are going to
(06:27):
school now or some of the other interventions. But it's
going to take time, it's going to take resources, and
it's going to take all of us. So and that's
why we want people. You know, we don't want to
just say, oh, please give us your money. I mean, yes,
please give us your money, but also, hey, how about
you support y hunger by coming to this concert? Right,
(06:48):
So we want to also create opportunity for gathering and
togetherness and for joy, right, and so it's really amazing
when we get to say come hang out with us
and the Roots and such, and that's the way you
can support our calls.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I'm speaking with Janique Jones. She is the relatively new
executive director of Why Hunger and again the kickoff to
Hunger Thon is actually starting October fifteenth at Irving Plaza
with the Roots and so many other guest performers. So
(07:25):
I want you to do some brainstorming here for me,
because what are some of your ideas in this area
that can help end hunger because as we've just noted,
it's actually worse, yeah, right now than it was even
a year ago.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
So I mean I think this is where and this
is you know, like you said, I'm relatively new, and
one of the areas that I want us as an
organization to lean more into is policy because I think
that we have to make some change, is there so
right now? In order for people to get access to say,
food benefits and things like that, you have to make
(08:09):
I think for a family of three, you can't make
more than twenty nine thousand dollars a year, so imagine
that in New York City. I believe they should change
the law so that it's not tied to the federal
poverty line, but to the cost of living where people are,
you know, so that we can give people a little
extra support, because I don't think I genuinely don't think
(08:30):
people want necessarily handouts. I think people want to work hard,
but they want a little bit of help. So I
think if we were able to do that, and I
know that, and I cannot remember the congress person off hand,
but there has been something introduced in the House to
do just that, to tie people's ability to access benefits
(08:50):
to the cost of living where they are, I think
that we could cap or tie minimum age more to
the business world, you know, CEOs or I think it's
one to three hundred compared to the salaries of the
(09:11):
CEO and their average worker, whereas in like nineteen sixty
that was one into twenty. So I think we can
do more to put more of the money that people
are going to work and working hard for into their
pockets and not just the folks at the top, which
I think would have a huge impact on New York.
When you think about it as a business state, I think, oh,
(09:33):
you can get me one. Don't get me talking about policy.
I'll be here forever.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
But now I want you to talk about policy, because
you know, when you talk about ending hunger, it's going
to take a policy change. Why hunger does fantastic work,
but you can't do it on your own. It's just impossible.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Yeah, I mean, I think you know, we have some
really great elected officials out there who are for things
like this or even thinking about Sometimes it's not even
about food, because what we know is that part of
what drives food and security is people making choices between
their other needs. So I think expanding that cap on
like insulin to everyone, not just seniors, will on medicaid
(10:16):
so that you know, again, somebody who's working really hard
isn't paying thousands of dollars for insulin. So I think
that there are folks out there who are putting these
things in place. I think it's up to us to
you know, make sure that they either get in office
or stay in office, or and push those who are
in office to vote for these things.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
So if somebody is listening right now and says to themselves,
all right, I could really use some help or I'm
in a tough situation right now, and they contact y
hunger dot org, what what sort of services are they
going to get? What are how are they going to
find their help?
Speaker 3 (10:59):
So, you know, we have a hotline where we connect
people to free local food and resources in your community.
So if you're looking for food, we can point you
in the direction of either whether it's a food pantry,
a soup kitchen, or even that low cost food cooperative.
We can give you access to those things. We can
(11:20):
also connect you to resources in terms of where to
go to get or apply for benefits and such. And
you can call one eight hundred five hungry or texture
zip code to one eight hundred five four eight six
four seventy nine. You can also visit our website. But
I wanted to give all the ways that people could
connect with us and get support.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
We only have a few minutes left, Jennik. What have
we not touched on that you would like to talk
about First of all, if you don't have something off
the top of your head, what sort of volunteers do
you need, because I know people listening would like to
help out.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Well, we always i mean, think about how many people
we said are food insecure, So we always need support
and help with our hotline. And the amazing thing about
that is you can actually help with the hotline from
your home, answering calls or feeling, you know, things from
the website. So we always need volunteers for that. Again,
(12:23):
anytime you can volunteer from your home is great. We
also have partners, you know, all across the country, So
if you're hearing this and you're not in New York,
don't fret. You know, we have folks in Maryland and
Indiana and California and all over the place and part
so really great partners that we can get you connected
(12:43):
with to volunteer.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
You said that you started out working at a food
bank in New York City, So what drove you there?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
So I've been in public service my whole life, worked
in politics, were and then found myself working in a school.
And there was a young lady she had a genetic
disease her family that had very little money, and essentially
most of her meals that were guaranteed, I'll say, came
either from school meals or sadly when she was admitted
(13:16):
into the hospital. The hospital. And that was my first
introduction to people being food and security. You know, I'd
seen it in movies and things like that, but as
far as I knew, you know, I'd never experienced food
and security, and I didn't know anyone who experienced food
and security. And this is earlier in my career, and
I just never wanted that just stuck with me. She's
(13:39):
stuck with me, and it's been twenty years, so that
was really the driver for me. I just don't I
don't understand how we live in a world where children
have to come to school to get a meal.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Do you know something? Speaking of that, do you know
who actually started the free breakfast in schools? The ones
that really started free food in school. It was a
Black Panther Party.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Oh, you're right, that's right, with part of the te
you were right.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Part of it was the Black Panther Party that would
have free breakfast for kids before school, and that's how
it ended up in the schools. They were the first,
you know, as much as they're demonized. They were the
first to acknowledge that if you want to give a
(14:34):
kid a good education, that can't be coming to school hungry.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Yeah, it doesn't. Radicals sometimes have radical ideas that are good.
So and yet and they did free clinics too.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
You're right, that's right, that's right. That's right. People, people
you know, don't know that or they forgot about it again.
October fifteenth, Irving Plaza, the Roots and many other special guests,
kicking off Hunger Than season and if you want more
(15:09):
information on all this, y hunger dot org. Thank you
so much, Janique Jones, and welcome to Y Hunger.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
You've been listening to Sunsteen sessions on iHeartRadio, a production
of New York's classic rock Q one O four point
three
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