Add Passion And Stir

Can we match excess food with need to better help people escape poverty? American University college student Maria Rose Belding, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Matching Excess And Needs for Stability (MEANS), discusses food waste and hunger with celebrity chef David Guas on a special episode of Add Passion and Stir made possible by generous support from the Sodexo Stop Hunger Foundation. At age 12, Belding imagined a better system for getting excess food to emergency food providers and the people that need it. She founded her nonprofit a few years later. “Food is really the key that unlocks the door to all of these other social services that help people actually leave poverty, but until we deal with the food, we can’t deal with anything else,” she says. Long-time Share Our Strength supporter Guas has always understood the importance of donating leftover food from his restaurants to local organizations. “At Bayou Bakery, since the beginning we work closely with A-SPAN [a homeless services organizati

In an episode that host Billy Shore calls “one of the most important conversations we’ve had,” U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling and Air Force Master Sergeant Jennifer Medeiros discuss how poor nutrition, lack of fitness, and food insecurity in society at large are impacting our troops and our national security. “77% of America is not fit enough to join the military,” says Lt. General Hertling. “This is a constant fight for the future of our country,” he warns. During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, he was given command of basic training for the entire U.S. Army “When [new recruits] were leaving basic training, many of them were going to war-fighting units and deploying right into combat, so they had to be ready to fight.” he says. However, 40-50% of these recruits couldn’t pass a simple fitness test, their injury rate was continually trending up due to poor nutrition, and 60% needed major dental work in order to be deployable. Master Sergeant Medeiros, who spent a year as a military dental tech, a

How can we create a groundswell of support to end childhood hunger in America? On this episode of Add Passion & Stir, No Kid Hungry champion Dorothy McAuliffe shares her insights on what became her signature issue as the First Lady of Virginia. She talks with chef Jason Alley about building awareness and tackling the issue of childhood hunger in Virginia and beyond. “As a first spouse, I learned pretty early that you do have an opportunity with this bully pulpit to raise awareness and to elevate the work,” she says. Chef Alley works hard to bring attention to child hunger in Richmond, VA - in part because he grew up experiencing food insecurity himself. “Food insecurity leaves a lasting impression,” he shares. “It’s inexcusable that we have hungry people in a country that’s this wealthy and produces this much food. That we have 13M hungry children… is embarrassing. It’s a travesty. And it’s entirely fixable.” McAuliffe agrees. “Even one child on one day experiencing hunger and food insecurity in

How does collective impact save ives? In this episode of Add Passion and Stir, philanthropist Karen Ansara talks with chef Michael Serpa about the transformative power of learning and doing within a group setting. Ansara and her husband founded New England International Donors in 2008 to create a network of donors, grant-makers, social investors, and advisors focused on ending global poverty. “How do you address poverty? It’s more than handing out food. Do people have livelihoods, safe communities, healthcare?,” she says. Serpa believes that you need to understand the problems better by exposure to different cultures. “If you work with Haitians and there’s a big disaster in Haiti, they’re going to be affected by that because everyone has family there. Getting exposed … really opens your eyes to what’s going on around the world,” he says. Both guests have experience with Haiti. In 2010, the Ansaras started a fund and issued a challenge grant in response to the devastation caused by the earthquake in Haiti

What is the distinction between helping individuals and helping entire communities? In this episode of Add Passion and Stir, Debbie Shore talks to Michellene Davis, Esq., Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer for RWJBarnabas Health, and celebrity chef Rahman "Rock" Harper about hunger, healthcare, and the vicious cycle of poverty. Both guests see the importance of thinking outside traditional provision of service. Davis works to make structural changes to healthcare delivery in America. “It is not just about the patients and the families that we treat in our hospitals, it’s also about the communities that we serve and vulnerable populations within those communities,” she says. Chef Harper served on the Board of DC Central Kitchen, which provides culinary job training programs along with meals to the community. Harper notes that the 80% job placement and greatly reduced rate of recidivism in their trainees begins to break the cycle of poverty. “It’s fulfilling work, because … when you se

To change systems that perpetuate poverty and hunger, where do we start? Erin McAleer, President andCEO of Project Bread in Boston, discusses eradicating hunger with Bob Luz, president and CEO of theMassachusetts Restaurant Association (MRA) on this episode of Add Passion and Stir. McAleerdescribes a multi-level approach that uses on-the- ground learning to drive a wider systems-level change.“We’re in community health centers, we’re in schools, we’ve got this hotline, but we take that informationthat we’re seeing on the ground and pivot quickly to larger scale systems change,” she says. She cites asuccessful program they piloted where children enrolled in SNAP (food stamps) would automatically beenrolled in school breakfast programs. Luz sees a similar effect on systems in his industry. One out ofevery 10 jobs in America is related to the restaurant industry and almost 50% of the businesses areminority owned and 40% are women owned. Many workers come from disadvantaged backgrounds, andwhen they succeed, they

Where does the food come from that we feed our kids in schools? Laura Benavidez, Executive Director ofFood and Nutrition Services for the Boston Public Schools, discusses a program she’s spearheadingaimed at transforming how food is sourced, prepared, and served throughout Boston’s public schools.Currently, most of the food is prepared in New Jersey, frozen, and transported to Boston. “We’re going torevolutionize how we feed kids,” says Benavidez. Jill Shah, serial entrepreneur and president of the ShahFamily Foundation, is providing the funding to build school kitchens in the 75% of schools who do nothave them so that meals can be prepared on-site with fresh ingredients. Eventually the program, whichhas the support of the Mayor, will be expanded throughout the district and impact 57,000 kids. Theultimate goal is to create a blueprint for other school districts to replicate its success. “We’re more thanhappy to share [what we’ve learned] throughout the country,” says Shah.The ultimate judges of that success a

To start the new year, we are revisiting one our most important episodes of Add Passion and Stir when we spoke with sociologist, poverty expert and author Kathy Edin ($2 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America) and Washington, DC area social entrepreneur Tom McDougall of 4P Foods have a powerful and timely discussion with Share Our Strength founders Billy and Debbie Shore about poverty in America. Kathy and Tom illustrate how our current systems - political, social, economic, geographic - keep poor people from succeeding. They argue for more equity in our social programs and a more dignified way of serving the poor. Kathy shares stunning statistics and touching anecdotes of the impoverished families with whom she has worked. When she asked one young girl what it was like to be hungry, her response was, "It feels like you want to be dead, because it’s peaceful when you’re dead." Tom believes, "We can't talk about fixing the food system unless we talk about money and politics... subsidies... institutional ra

Architecture and design affect your attitude, your health, and even your life. Architect Michael Murphy, executive director of MASS Design Group, and Ken Oringer, one of Boston’s most notable chefs and restaurateurs, talk to Billy Shore about how good design can drive systems change. “We see architecture as a crucial piece … of our daily lives and as a systems approach to how we live either more productive or less productive lives,” says Murphy. Oringer knows the importance of design in his restaurants. “We work 16-hour days, and you have to create an environment that can make everybody happy … and inspire creativity,” he says. Murphy describes a hospital his group designed for a village in Rwanda that had to address tuberculosis. Because TB spreads through the air, they had to mitigate risk by designing better ventilation, creating outdoor waiting areas, and eliminating hallways. “A hospital is an incredible system… but it’s only successful if we’ve designed it well enough to influence medical policy on how

How can we move poor communities from hopelessness to hopefulness? In this fascinating episode ofAdd Passion and Stir, Pierre Ferrari, President and CEO of Heifer International, and Matt Bell, chef andowner of South on Main restaurant in Little Rock, share insights about creating value in poor communitieswith hosts Debbie and Billy Shore. Ferrari speaks about the success Heifer International has had in pooragricultural communities throughout the world by driving social psychological change before anythingelse. “We work with communities that could almost be described as clinically depressed...the despair is sodeep…they feel condemned to this situation,” he says. Heifer uses value-based training to demonstrate topeople their own ability and capacity to make change. “Without that psychological shift, nothing we do, noanimal, no training will actually catch,” he notes. Bell has first-hand knowledge of the success of thismodel in Arkansas. He sources his chickens from Grassroots Farm Cooperative, a cooperative of

Do you feel more empathy for certain people in need than you do for others? Feeding America CEO Diana Aviv says we need to “close the empathy gap.” She discusses empathy and food with Nick Stefanelli, chef/owner of Masseria Restaurant in DC, and Share Our Strength founders Billy and Debbie Shore on this episode of Add Passion and Stir. Aviv cites recent research that found people who were sympathetic toward people using food banks changed their attitudes when asked about people using public assistance. “The only group they didn’t change their attitude towards was kids,” she says. This indicates that in order to solve the hunger problem, we need to help people extend their empathy for children to the whole family. Stefanelli fights child hunger by supporting No Kid Hungry and teaching about food and cooking in kindergarten classes. “[Hunger] is an issue that we’ve been looking at since ancient Rome, with the grain sheds and giving out bread, and we’re still dealing with it in 2017,” he says.Aviv notes tha

Do you think beyond the statistics to the individual lives affected by conflict, poverty, and hunger? In this episode of Add Passion and Stir, two powerful and passionate advocates, Abby Maxman, President of Oxfam America, and Tatiana Rosana, executive chef at Outlook Kitchen & Bar at the Envoy Hotel in Boston, discuss national and international humanitarian problems through the lens of personal stories of suffering, courage, and hope. Both women rose to the top of male-dominated professions and believe their work ethic was in part a response to having to work harder than male counterparts to gain the respect they deserve. This fierce determination informs the work they do helping others. Maxman, who has spent her career doing international development and aid work, recounts meeting a woman named Faith in South Sudan who walked an entire month with her four children after being displaced by conflict, all the while making decisions like which child gets to eat today. “It fuels a sense of urgency, passion a

Have you ever wondered how people who motivate others stay motivated themselves? In this episode of Add Passion and Stir, two high-powered changemakers talk about what drives them as they inspire those around them. Dr. Clint Mitchell, Principal at Mount Vernon Woods Elementary School in Fairfax, VA works in a low-income community school. In a career that has unusually high turn-over (statistics say most teachers will quit after three to five years) Mitchell finds he has to hire teachers who are passionate about the work and willing to go the extra mile for underprivileged kids. “It’s my job to keep them positive,” he says. Relating it to passion in the cooks he hires, Zack Mills, chef at Wit & Wisdom in Baltimore, jokes, “It’s a slight craziness. You have to be slightly off to be that passionate.” Host Billy Shore asks his two guests how they themselves avoid burnout. Chef Mills considers himself lucky because he’s always had a passion for cooking and enjoys helping those who work for him achieve success.

Have you ever wondered how helping another person can cause a ripple effect of positive impact? In this heartfelt episode of Add Passion and Stir, host Billy Shore and guests celebrity chef Curtis Stone and attorney and foster care advocate Miles Cooley discuss the far-reaching effects that occur when we act as an advocate for people in need. Cooley, who experienced profound neglect as a young child and lost his mother at age five, grew up in the foster care system in California. “The great part of my story, and why I think an advocate can make such a difference, is there was a school psychologist…who took an interest in me. Her name is Leslie Cooley and she is the woman I now call Mom.” Stone has seen an advocate make an impact in his own family. “It’s really unbelievable, isn’t it? … It’s just that one decision a person makes to say ‘I’ll give a damn about this person and I’ll actually go out on a bit of limb,’” he says. He recounts the story of his own mother-in-law, a Korean War orphan who lived on the st

How do we tackle the big social problems that government should be solving? In this episode of Add Passion and Stir, Jamie Leeds, chef/owner of Hank’s Oyster Bars in Washington DC and long-time supporter of the No Kid Hungry campaign, and Bruce Lesley, President of First Focus, an organization dedicated to making children and families the priority in federal policy and budget decisions, talk about the best ways to have an impact on the most important social problems. Leeds - who just completed the James Beard Foundation Chefs Bootcamp for Policy and Change - uses her platform to bring more attention to the issue of hunger and food waste in America. Lesley is focused on children’s healthcare issues. “When people think about the Medicaid program … they don’t realize that half of the enrollees in Medicaid are kids. That’s 37M across the country,” he points out. “The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)… serves another 8.9M kids.” However, a proposal in the Senate would have slashed Medicaid 31% for childre

Jeff Bridges, the award-winning actor and national spokesperson for Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry campaign has recorded a very special message for you.Jeff is helping us celebrate the anniversary of our new passion project, Add Passion and Stir, a weekly podcast I host with my sister Debbie about making a difference in the world through an examination of the central role food plays in all of the issues we care about. Every week, we talk with dedicated and compassionate culinary leaders and inspirational change-makers in a lively and thoughtful exchange unlike any other.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How can we focus our empathy for others to solve big social problems? The two guests on this week’s episode of Add Passion and Stir use their empathy to make the world a better place. AARP Foundation President Lisa Ryerson’s conscience led her to mission-driven work. Right now, that mission is hunger among America’s older population. “Ten million people who are 50 and older are hungry each and every day in this nation. And older adults who are hungry living in poverty don’t often ask for the help they need,” she says. Buttercream Bake Shop owner and long-time No Kid Hungry supporter Tiffany MacIsaac also carefully considers how she gives back. “It really is so hard because you… want to help everyone… but for us, food is such an important part of our life. We’ve invested most of our energy into helping with hunger,” she says. Both of these changemakers are focused on real impact. “Focus does matter when you’re trying to drive outcomes,” says Ryerson. “It’s way past time to solve for hunger in America,” she sta

Did you know that low-income kids get 80% of their calories from school meals? How can schools push the food system to provide better food? On this episode of Add Passion and Stir, hosts and Share Our Strength cofounders Billy and Debbie Shore chat with Washington, DC chef and restaurateur Mike Isabella and social impact innovator and strategist Josh Wachs about child hunger and improving school food programs. Both have seen how demand can drive food systems to be healthier and more sustainable. Wachs advises the Urban School Food Alliance, a coalition of 10 large urban school districts from around the country that serve about three million kids over three quarters of a billion meals each year. “They are a collection of districts that came together and said, ‘we can collectively through our joint purchasing power radically change the school food market,’” says Wachs. “Because more low-income kids are getting school breakfasts and lunches through programs like Share Our Strength, parents of low income kid

This episode marks the one year anniversary of Add Passion and Stir, and we celebrate with a special introduction from the legendary Jeff Bridges, who serves as national spokesperson for Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign. How can you make a difference if you are passionate about the intersection of food and political, social, and environmental issues? “Mindfulness and inquisitiveness, which go hand in hand,” says Mitchell Davis, Executive Vice President of The James Beard Foundation. “The more questions we can ask about where food comes from, the more mindful we are about the decisions we make. By asking questions, you force change and transparency into a system that is otherwise opaque in so many ways,” says Davis. Michael Anthony, long-time Share Our Strength supporter and Chef/Partner at the landmark Gramercy Tavern in New York, agrees. “The future is restaurants that are tuned in and listening carefully. The questions can be profound about where does the food come from, how is it produced, who w

How can a focus on hospitality create the relationships that build and transform communities? In this episode of Add Passion and Stir, host Billy Shore explores the concept of hospitality with Chef-owner Will Gilson (Puritan & Company in Cambridge, MA) and Sarah Rosenkrantz and Sam Greenberg, social entrepreneurs and co-directors of Y2Y Harvard Square (a youth homeless shelter in Cambridge, MA). Although from different professional backgrounds, the guests share how they are building community by focusing on relationships. “Volunteers and guests work together to prepare meals. Bonding that occurs in the kitchen spills out into the dining area. Meal preparation and sharing meals is creating communities and bridging communities,” says Rosencrantz. Gilson wants his restaurant guests to feel like they’re in someone’s home. “Are we creating relationships or is it just a transaction?,” he asks regarding every aspect of his business. Y2Y Harvard Square has more than doubled the number of easily accessible beds fo