Brown and White Vol. 128 no. 9

              The Brown and White
Vol. 128 No. 9
Friday, February 27, 2015
‘All the Lehigh News First’
Veronica Martinez sifts through cans at New Bethany Ministries, helping to sort leftovers after a crowd leaves the food pantry. An earphone humming in one ear, she wears a pale brown sweater under her apron, the result of a clothing donation a few weeks before.
Martinez is young, and her demeanor is mellow. She reveals none of the food collection havoc she just dealt with, and none of the chaos of the four children who wait for her at home. Her voice is firm, repeating, “When God puts you somewhere, he wants you to be there.”
Martinez’s time at New Bethany Ministries was two-pronged. One, she is a client of the organization. Two, she worked there for four weeks in December, a component of the program she is enrolled in that secures her with cash assis­tance from welfare. Martinez is one of the 21.6 percent of south Bethlehem residents who live below the poverty line — those who rely on food pantries, soup kitchens and food stamps to sus­tain themselves and their fami­lies.
“Food — and being able to get that food — is so important,” said Fiona Byrne, food pantry coordi­nator at New Bethany Ministries. “It’s our basic need. And there’s a huge number of people who lack that need on the South Side.”
Food insecurity: the basics
Living below the poverty line
RJ’s Mini Mart lies on the corner of East Fourth and Polk streets. Behind four gas pumps, it serves as the station’s base — a place people can pay for their fuel and stock up on tobacco, snacks and groceries.
Nestled between the Doritos chips and the Tostito’s salsa lay a bed of apples. They seem out of place, the shine of their red skin glinting off the fluorescent lights in the ceiling. These apples, along with boxes of flavored oatmeal, are a new addition to the mini mart, and a result of the Healthy Corner Store Initiative.
Working in collaboration with the Food Trust and the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the Healthy Corner Store Initiative hopes to bring healthier food into local stores where many south Bethlehem resi­dents shop.
The initiative provides a $100 incentive check for local bodegas to sell food that will benefit the com­munity, and stop people from merely buying the cheapest foods with aban­don to health risks.
“Cheap food is generally not as nutritious,” said Fiona Byrne, the food pantry director at New Bethany Ministries, “and low income fami­lies can only afford inexpensive food. Healthier foods and fresh produce will be secondary to larger quantities and dollar amount.”
Basing a diet solely on canned or packaged foods can lead to health problems or amplify an existing one, said Sherri Penchishen, the direc­tor of Chronic Disease Programs at the Bethlehem Bureau of Health. Diabetes and obesity are the most prominent chronic diseases in the area, as reported by the bureau.
“They are found across all income and education levels, but it’s harder for those with low income to control their diabetes and decrease their obesity status because they don’t have access to fruits and vegetables,” Penchishen said.
In fact, according to a study done by Judith Lasker at Lehigh, less than half of south Bethlehem resi­dents are satisfied by their house­hold consumption of fruits and veg­etables. And 27 percent of residents were very dissatisfied in the same regard.
Especially when people don’t have access to a valid form of transporta­tion, families can come to rely wholly on these corner stores for their sus­tenance.
Prior to partnering with the ini­tiative, bodegas like RJ’s Mini Mart, Nieves Grocery and La Favorita only stocked snack foods, canned foods
typically is an indicator of food insecurity — a lack of access to enough food for a healthy life­style. According to a study by a Lehigh sociology professor Judith Lasker, almost two-thirds of south Bethlehem residents are food insecure.
The study reports that there are a multitude of factors contribut­ing to this situation, including low income or unemployment, lack of education, lack of transportation and a high number of children.
Whatever the cause, the effect is severe: Those who cannot eat cannot operate. And Lasker found that those who cannot operate can sink deeper into a detrimental chronic state, such as homeless­ness, mental illness or unemploy­ability.
These states are all part of a cycle, and each one can be the cause or effect of another.
“Even with the addition of C-Town, the new grocery store on the South Side, Bethlehem is still defined as a food desert,” said Elena Martin, a Lehigh junior who works with local food pan­tries.
A food desert is an urban area with a lack of affordable and qual­ity foods, an added challenge for an area already struggling socio­economically.
The help – and the struggles within the help
Bethlehem has a number of
In an effort to foster a more gender-inclusive Lehigh commu­nity, many restrooms at the uni­versity have been converted from gender-specific to gender-inclu­sive facilities.
Initially pitched to the Pride Center for Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity by Elizabeth Pines, ’16, during the fall semes­ter, numerous gender-inclusive restroom fliers have replaced the former male and female signs on bathroom doors.
According to Trish Boyles, the director of the Pride Center, these gender-inclusive facilities are for all within the Lehigh community regardless of how they self-iden­tify.
She said they are more about rebranding the idea of restrooms, rather than physically remodel­ing the campus facilities.
“Pines brought the proposal for gender-inclusive restrooms to me and found that a lot of other schools were doing it,” Boyles said.
Giving Pines credit for bringing the idea to the Pride Center in
Food pantries and soup kitchens are helping to stop hunger in Bethlehem as
citizens fight against food
insecurity
By ELISSA MIOLENE
Special to the B&W
Fighting hunger in the Lehigh Valley
Moving toward healthy food options in stores
Nan He/B&W Staff
Fiona Byrne, the head of the food pantry at New Bethany Ministries, moves the food delivered by a local volunteer to the storage room Monday at the local food bank on Fourth Street.
See HUNGER Page 2
Gender-inclusive bathrooms open around campus
By RAVEN ATKINS
B&W Staff
See BATHROOMS Page 3
See HEALTH Page 4
Matthew J Cossel/B&W Staff
This sign designates the restroom on the third floor of Coxe Hall as “gender inclusive.”
By ELISSA MIOLENE
Special to the B&W