by Jen Stephenson
As a former collegiate runner, I live by the equation Stress + Rest = Growth.
Hunger and poverty work can feel insurmountable at times because causes are multifaceted and interwoven together. My first few months, I overworked myself and became overwhelmed by how complicated it is to solve hunger.
And I thought I was doing everything possible.
However, the way I enter and leave Texas has stuck with me. I have lived in North Carolina most of my life, and moving to Texas to serve for a year seems random. I saw an opportunity to mature and challenge myself to commit my life to joining the brilliant minds who are devoted to solving hunger. This is why I chose to serve with BCHP and the wonderful people who are making a difference.
The stress of working smarter requires more time listening to community needs and their vision of how best to address root causes of hunger and poverty. COVID-19 has allowed plenty of rest and a slower pace to allow myself to enter into a community thoughtfully and establishing relationships with people in BCHP and in the San Angelo region I am serving. Seeing how the community of San Angelo cares for one another, especially during the pandemic, has been a growth experience for me in recognizing how self-sufficient communities can be with the shared tools, resources and collaboration to address and solve hunger.
I gained important leadership and communication skills as a research assistant and Division I cross country and track runner at Furman University, graduating with the class of 2020. I participated in community-based participatory research evaluating the impact of nutrition and physical activity policies in early childcare centers, and researched how policies, systems and environments directly impact health outcomes. I am learning that the issues of hunger and poverty are melded together and cannot be solved without the other. Solving hunger includes providing basic needs security, and providing social support and empathy in collaborating with communities and organizations to bring all members to the table to discuss community-led solutions. No community is the same, and I am learning how to humbly enter a space where I do not organically belong. My VISTA project focuses on developing Hunger Free Community Coalitions on college campuses and supporting the Tom Green County Hunger coalition. My development of health communication skills allows me to share college hunger data and information to galvanize collaboration from colleagues, professors, students, non-profit organizations and other hunger coalitions in Texas.
Moving forward, I want to see coalitions include advocacy from real-life experiences of those in their community to be a part of the decision making processes to solve hunger and poverty. I believe humanizing hunger and poverty is forgotten when we see statistics and apply policies to communities blindly. I hope that coalitions can engage more with government and civic offices to humanize the important issues that affect hunger and poverty as a call to action for effective change.
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Jen Stephenson is an Americorps VISTA serving in the West Texas regional office of BCHP.
