You can listen on our website or on iTunes.

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– Ron Shaich, founder of Au Bon Pain and Panera Bread

Based on business metrics alone, no one has been more successful in the food world than Ron Shaich, who built Panera to be the highest performing restaurant stock in the nation.  But the metric Ron pays the most attention to is personal: “Am I doing work that I respect?”   In this new episode of Add Passion and Stir, he is in conversation with Food Corps founder and CEO Curt Ellis who explains why “Food is the place where social justice and racial justice meet environmental sustainability and public health.”

We talk business, politics, schools, culture, health, the environment and more at our website and on iTunes. Thanks for listening and sharing.

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-Rep. Jim McGovern

On our new and timely episode of Add Passion and Stir, Congressman Jim McGovern offers an impassioned defense of the food and nutrition programs at the heart of our No Kid Hungry strategy, and speculates about what might change should Democrats re-take the House and should be become chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee.  He is joined by Equinox chef Todd Gray who has been part of Share Our Strength since our earliest days.   This episode is a great one to share with our anti-hunger partners across the country.  Listen in at our website or on iTunes.

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• Andrew Zimmern

“One of my sons was seriously addicted and went through a similar process and I had to say to my son when he didn’t have any food, ‘there is nothing I can do to help you. I’m working to end hunger in the world, but I can’t help’ …”

• David Beckmann

It gets personal with Andrew Zimmern and David Beckman as they not only talk about their work and passion for ending hunger, but also how their personal heartache and resilience has informed and driven their work.  I found this conversation to be especially riveting. You can listen on our website or on iTunes.

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“Investing in people and places and organizations that can lift the whole… that’s how I define community,”  – Danny Meyer

You can probably tell that I tend to enjoy all of the podcast episodes we’ve had the privilege to record. But this one is among those of which I am most proud.  In a compelling example of what principled leadership looks and sounds like, former Senator George Mitchell and our board colleague Danny Meyer take on the political dysfunction that has divided our nation, immigration, community building, poverty, and early childhood investments, among other topics relevant to what we work on every day.  I hope you’ll have the chance to listen on our website and on iTunes
. Thanks!

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When young (and eager, impatient, in a hurry) such a non-linear trajectory is the last thing one seeks. When older it feels as inevitable as the meandering course of all great and powerful rivers.

Many factors go into being successful and fulfilled: persistence, hard work, genetics, luck, courage, etc. but the older I get the more I see passion as foundational. Rosemary and I were at dinner the other night with our neighbor who is a lawyer and was speculating that our son Nate was going to do just fine because at 13 he already knew what his passions were: space flight, music, emergency medicine, etc. “He’s like both of you who know your passions,” she said and then sighed “I’m 52 and still trying to figure out mine.” Maybe… but I’ll bet that somewhere deep down she knows what it is and is afraid it’s not realistic, or acceptable, or meeting the expectations of others.

The great thing about true passion, if you trust it, is that it will get you through long odds, dark roads, and thin paydays. It’s like an EpiPen for the soul that gives you the boost you need to get past what otherwise might choke or kill you. When you are in a jam and can only make one call, dial up your passion. It’s your one sure bet.

Anyway, if you haven’t had the chance yet, here are a few episodes worth listening to in this regard:
http://addpassionandstir.com/luck-and-moral-obligation/
http://addpassionandstir.com/how-social-change-happens/
http://addpassionandstir.com/do-what-you-love-and-love-what-you-do/
http://addpassionandstir.com/enlightened-hospitality-the-power-of-building-community/

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Elise, whose cooking is inspired by her grandmother Winnie, is a graduate of Gallaudet University, cooked at our DC No Kid Hungry dinner, and had lobbied on Capitol Hill for us. Leslie, who is now executive director of Georgetown University’s Global Social Enterprise Institute discusses her research on common denominators driving recent successful social movements. “Successful movements turn grassroots gold. They invest in and nurture local leaders… It’s the combination of grassroots and organizations that put all the pieces together so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” and cites Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign as an example.

You can listen at Add Passion and Stir or on iTunes. Enjoy!

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Rick Russo, the author of Nobody’s Fool, and Pulitzer Prize winning Empire Falls, has been sharing his strength with us for more than 20 years. In our latest podcast Rick and Portland, Maine chef Ilma Lopez (who left her pre-med studies to become a pastry chef and open Piccolo and Chaval) talk about “the semi valid reasons people marshal to justify allowing the true passions of their lives to leak away” – and how to instead ensure that your work and how you live your life are authentic expressions of who you really are. It’s one of my favorite episodes and I hope you’ll listen and share. http://addpassionandstir.com/luck-and-moral-obligation/  or on iTunes at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/add-passion-and-stir/id1164624510?mt=2

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Mark Furstenburg is the James Beard award winning owner of Bread Furst on Connecticut Avenue (and before that, Marvelous Market)  His career spans working in John Kennedy’s administration on poverty issues – to feeding Washingtonians at his bakeries. He’s 78 years old, first turned to baking at 50 and opened Bread Furst at the age of 76. It is never too late!  Corby Kummer is a brilliant writer and restaurant critic who takes us behind the scenes for a fascinating look at how restaurant reviewers write their reviews.   As you will hear, their passion for food also translates into a passion for creating community.

You can find the podcast on Add Passion and Stir and as always, if you enjoy it, please share.

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Just look at the diverse examples:

• Sarah Polon, Soupergirl, changing the world one bowl of soup at a time, through a locally sourced, plant-based business
• Mary Sue Milliken addressing “the broken food system”.
• Bill Telepan and Marc Murphy, advocating for healthier school means via Wellness in Schools,
• Sam Polk, making healthy prepared foods affordable for all thru EveryTable
• Jose Andres working with the UN Foundation to promote clean cookstoves to end the epidemic of disease killing women and children in Haiti

Today’s new generation of chefs  are about more than charity fundraising events. They are about advocacy, sustainability, policy and systemic change.. They are helping to feed America’s hungry kids, but are also going beyond that. They see food policy as a social justice issue. They are creating options for their customers to impact agriculture, supply chain, energy and the environment, and children’s health.

For many, Share Our Strength and our No Kid Hungry campaign helped plant the seed. Shoots and leaves have sprouted in many different directions but all have blossomed toward the sun – and are still growing.

You can listen to Add Passion and Stir episodes here.

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One of my favorite passages, from Ming Tsai, evokes the wonder behind virtually everything we eat: “I love this book called Savor by Thich Nhat Hanh:  It’s about when you are eating an apple, don’t be texting, don’t be driving, don’t be watching TV, eat the apple, think about the apple, savor it. Where did it come from? How did it grow?  How did it get here? It got washed, it got put on a train, finally one farmer got you that apple. When you start thinking about the apple , when you start appreciating the actual apple, you eat more slowly, which is one of the biggest issues with obesity because you are full 20 minutes before your mind knows you’re full, and when you are full you stop eating, and you stop food waste.”

Thich Nhat Hanh writes about many manifestations of mindfulness and I’m glad it’s made its way into our podcast – as greater mindfulness about food, hunger for it, and how food both satisfies and heals is an important element of achieving No Kid Hungry.

The episode can be listened to here

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Founders Sam Goldstein, age 24 and Sarah Rosencranz, 25 gave us a tour while half a dozen Harvard students scrubbed bathrooms, cleared breakfast tables, and loaded a mountain of dirty laundry – bed sheets and towels – into 3 of the 4 working machines.  Some volunteer as much as 20 hours a week on top of a full course schedule.

About 36% of the guests have previously been in the foster system. 32% have spent a night in jail.  Approximately 30% are LGTBQ who left home once they came out to their parents which today happens at a younger age than before. “Our goal is to help them break the cycle so they don’t become chronically, permanently homeless” says Sarah who explains that 89% of their guests say that they have a concrete plan out of homelessness after their stay at Y2Y. Click here for more information.

From there we went to record a podcast with chef Ming Tsai and Dr. Debbie Frank from the Grow Clinic at the Boston Medical Center. Dr Frank’s patients are mostly under two years of age. She says “public policy is written on the bodies of the babies I see … Some come in with rickets, from lack of vitamin D, which causes a bending and bowing of their legs.”   But not everything lends itself to an “eyeball diagnosis” Dr Frank tells us.  She described an 8 month old whose mother didn’t understand why he was failing to thrive. She’s been feeding him a cornmeal and sugar water mush and he wasn’t complaining but was getting sicker. “They were saving on food costs because they anticipated their landlord evicting them soon – not for failure to pay rent, but because of the need to make space for one of the landlord’s family members.”

Our morning and afternoon conversations had a common thread: the young – from college students to infants and toddlers –  are vulnerable in unique ways most don’t appreciate, and fail to adequately serve.  That’s why children have been our focus at Share Our Strength and why we need to be especially vigilant in the days ahead as those we serve could be impacted by potential changes to Medicaid, SNAP, and other policy shifts.

(Also, because national security advisors are in the news this week, it’s worth noting that former President Bill Clinton’s national security advisor Anthony Lake who is now the Executive Director of UNICEF,  wrote an op-ed called Dark Days For Children about the tremendous suffering on the global scale that made 2016  “one of the worst years for children since World War II.”   He  underscores the need “to harness innovation to expand our capacity to reach children who are cut off from assistance in besieged areas or communities.”)

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“I’ve got to step up my game in terms of doing more for my community” chef Tony Maws (Craigie on Main, in Cambridge, MA) told me prior to recording an episode of our podcast Add Passion and Stir last Friday morning. Tony, active on behalf of Share Our Strength and other nonprofits is already doing a lot, and more than most, but it’s a sentiment I’ve heard at least a dozen times in the last 2 weeks days as so many people respond to the presidential election by committing to become more active either politically or civically.

A challenge facing those of us in the nonprofit sector is to create vehicles that go beyond fundraising appeals, in which people can share their strengths and engage in ways that feel meaningful to them.   We’ve got to provide paths for direct service and paths to advocacy that improve public policy as well. In addition to Share Our Strength, there are organizations like Be The Change, of which I’m on the board, that offer creative and powerful ways for everyone to get involved here.

I wish you a great Thanksgiving holiday and well-deserved time with friends and family. Thanks to all of our supporters for making this another incredibly productive and impactful year.  Compared to when we launched the No Kid Hungry campaign, American children at risk of hunger are substantially better off today by virtually every measure – participation rates in school meals, USDA food insecurity statistics, access to emergency food assistance via food banks and pantries, and especially the consensus we’ve helped build that childhood hunger is a solvable problem and that we can and will solve it.

We still have a ways to go to finish what we started. But it’s hard to imagine anything more worthy of our gratitude than the opportunity we’ve had to make a difference in the lives of millions of kids and families in every part of America who are healthier, stronger, and  more secure because you shared your strength.  Thank you and have a wonderful holiday.

Billy

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If you haven’t tuned in to the podcast lately, download from iTunes or catch up here.

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