I recently posted about the concept of large numbers. The idea is that when we are confronted with very large data points or statistics, in particular about people or the environment, our brain does this very interesting thing of freezing in inaction, concluding that we can’t do anything about the situation because it is so large. One of the large numbers is a data point that FRN references every day: 42 million people are currently food insecure today. Forty-two million people is a huge number of people who are hungry, and it’s a hard number to visualize in our minds. What does 42 million people in one place look like? And if all of those people are hungry, it’s easy to slip into the mindset of, this is such a huge issue that I couldn’t possibly begin to help unless I gave up my day job.
I encourage you to read the blog post, but I’ll offer a spoiler if you don’t have a chance to read it: you can help, and you do not have to drop everything to help solve this societal issue. You can help by focusing on smaller numbers that are in the scope of your local community. You can, for example, help start an FRN chapter at the college or university closest to where you live, or share educational information about food waste, or donate financially to support the efforts of food recovery.
I wanted to write about this idea of large numbers and what it can potentially make us not do — how it can leave us in a state of inaction — and encourage us to get comfortable with hearing large numbers and converting them into ones that mean something to us. From there, when we think about the 42 million people who are food insecure, we can then say, I know that there must be food insecure people in my neighborhood. And from there, we can then find action steps we can take with even just a little bit of time to make positive change in our immediate surroundings to support food recovery efforts.
I have just the opportunity to share with all of you to support you in moving into action. On September 29, at 2pm EST, I am talking with Emily Broad Lieb of the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic about another very big idea: food policy. Policy can seem very conceptual and difficult to place in our day-to-day lives. Emily will talk with all of us about what food policy is, what are some familiar federal food policies, and what are some state policies. We’ll then talk about how these policies can ensure people have the food they deserve, what happens when those policies cannot feed everyone, and what we, as community members, can do to help get food to those who need it most.
Please consider yourself formally invited! Don’t forget to register, and see you then!
