The Better Information Group, the parent organization of HungerMaps.org, is now a legally-recognized non-profit in New York State! Next up, federal recognition. Anyone know a good lawyer?

Hunger Maps for Free Summer Meals

By Jennifer 8. Lee

Can you fight hunger through a Google maps mashup?

The New York City Coalition Against Hunger believes that, in part, you can, which is why it has rolled out maps of the five boroughs showing where kids can get free summer meals. Last year, the city began an aggressive program to offer free breakfast and lunch in housing projects, libraries, day camps and church groups. Only about one-fifth of the children who get free school meals during the academic year nationwide also get access to the summer meals.

"This is one of the biggest problems with summer meals - it's completely federally funded but drastically underutilized because there is a lack of outreach," said J. C. Dwyer, who helped organize the project while at the coalition.

The plotting of food resources was sparked by a 2006 project that mapped the city's soup kitchens and pantries. That technology drew wide interest from the social services community. "We started getting phone calls from people around the nation asking how to do it," said Mr. Dwyer, who now works in Texas.

Mr. Dwyer, along with a Eamon Johnson, a management consultant, and Brody Berg, a former Microsoft programmer, started Hungermaps.org. "I think there is large number of software developers out there who would want to do something more meaningful with their time," Mr. Dwyer said.

So far their software has been used to map soup kitchens in Anchorage; food stamp offices in Minnesota; summer meals in Boston; and urban food recovery in Seattle.

"With this we tried to hone in on a specific issue, one that I had a background in and one that is imminently mappable. You are talking about physical resources that exist," he said. "It's a logistical problem."

So far, they have 95 registered users on Hungermaps.org who have made some 250 maps.

"It does seem obvious. but the non-profit realm tends to be five years behind the technology curve," Mr. Dwyer said. "I think it speaks to tack of technology adoption by nonprofits. They are really risk adverse. They don't have a lot of money to throw around and make mistakes with."

The coalition said it has encountered skepticism about whether or not it makes sense to invest the resources in technology for low-income families.

Joel Berg, the executive director of the coalition, argues that indeed it is. "One pantry director told me that his clients actually now have more access to Internet than food," he said.

HungerMaps has been working for some time with the New York City Coalition Against Hunger to create maps of free summer meals programs for NYC children. Last month, the maps finally caught the attention of the media, with both the Staten Island Advance and NY Times lauding NYCCAH's innovation.

As a result, NYCCAH has seen a massive increase in the use of their website - from 9,688 to 11,279 visits in the last year, most of which came this summer!

...just got easier. HungerMaps is proud to be working with Boston's Project Bread this summer to direct parents and children to the hundreds of free Summer Meals sites in Massachusetts.

The neighborhood maps, which will soon be accessible through Project Bread's website, are created and edited exclusively by Project Bread staff using an enhanced version of our free mapping utility.

The maps also feature dynamic text listings to search within neighborhoods, and user-controlled URL naming, two new tools available to client organizations with custom map needs!

HungerMaps is proud to be teaming up with the Laredo Independent School District, United Independent School District and the South Texas Food Bank to present the Laredo Summer Meals Map!

Summer meals is one of the most underutilized anti-hunger programs in the nation - and one of the most accessible. It is a rare example of a federal program where the only real obstacle to participation is knowledge - knowledge that HungerMaps is happy to help spread.

HungerMaps was glad to join the Seattle Public Utilities, Food Lifeline and the Food Donation Connection last week in beautiful, rainy Seattle for the second "Seattle Food Recovery Seminar."

The audience seemed genuinely excited to take advantage of the new Seattle HungerMap (and we were genuinely excited to sit in the back and soak it in). Afterwards there was some excellent discussion about the future of food recovery in Seattle -- we hope to share some more news on that front soon.

Many thanks to Mark Musick and the FDC team for inviting us out!

Labels: Food Waste, Seattle

Once again, HungerMaps got some great exposure at this year's FRAC Conference in D.C.
Check out our workshop presentation to see how HungerMaps can fit into a research-based advocacy strategy!

Labels: advocacy, data presentation, FRAC