“Do you hunt?” Imagine yourself an old woman, stuck in a dentist chair, mouth wide open, drill awaiting and being asked that question. You can’t laugh out loud or you’d spit out all the cotton balls surrounding the ruin of a tooth….

The wonderful dentist’s assistant, formerly having served as a soldier in Afghanistan, had regaled me with tales of her elk hunting, and abruptly stopped her detailing how she learned to dissect a deer in her childhood when she saw me blanching ever so slightly. When I shook my head to her question, she proceeded to talk instead about how much it meant to have access to food when you grew up poor in Oklahoma.

Provisional crown now in place, I have been wandering through the woods, trying to distract myself from sad thoughts of poverty and hunger with the beauty around me. To no avail. What stood out were the mushrooms, finally sprouting after a too dry summer and now a bit of rain, but they, too, reminded me of food. We have several neighbors who regularly hunt for mushrooms, including immigrants from Poland who are unafraid to identify what is (un)safe in the mycological realm. For them, I hope, a hobby, not a need – but for how many people will foraging become a necessity – and how many live in an environment where that is even possible?

This spring, the Trump administration canceled 94 million pounds of food aid, cut $500 million in deliveries from a program that sends U.S.-produced meat, dairy, eggs and produce to food banks and other organizations across the country — about a quarter of the funding the program received in 2024. (Here is a list of all the needed food that is no longer available.)

The Lancet newest study from June predicts the U.S. funding cuts to USAid food programs could result in more than 14 million deaths internationally, including more than 4.5 million children under age 5, in the next five years.

And a food crisis in general is predicted by our very own Labor Department, which publicly argued in a document filed in the Federal Register last week that Trump’s immigration raids have devastated the agricultural workforce. The document also indicates that American workers are simply not interested in and do not have the skills to perform agricultural jobs.

Why let a good crisis go to waste? The department seeks a new rule that brings in guest workers through the H-2A program at lower wages, potentially reducing wages across the spectrum for all farmworkers, regardless of legal status. Mind you, H-2A work has been likened to slave labor – the laborers have no protections, no bargaining rights, are not paid overtime, can work only for a year with a specified employer. Unclear if the proposed wages are enough to even attract foreign workers; they certainly will drive the remaining US workers to seek work elsewhere.

“Only one of two things can be true: Either Trump’s Labor Department actually believes that Trump’s immigration enforcement is destroying the agricultural sector and threatening food security, or they are pretending this threat is real in order to crush wages for both foreign and domestic agricultural workers. Neither look particularly good.” (Ref.)

Hunger: WIC runs out this week. Due to Republican’s government shutdown, healthy food benefits for women, infants and children are on the brink. That means going hungry for nearly seven million women and children in this country. WIC serves 53% of all infants born in this country! That includes many military families who now lose WIC support, while also not being paid during the shutdown. The consequences are real – which is why WIC was instituted in the first place: it reduces poor birth outcomes, supports healthy child growth and reduces future bad health costs. A win not just for the recipients, but society at large.

There are now claims that the administration will take money gained from tariffs and shift them over to fund special supplemental nutrition program during the shutdown. However, it is unclear how much money the White House intends to spend, how the process will unfold, or if it is even legal. So far, then, empty words, intended to calm an increasingly worried population.

WHAT WE CAN DO, NOW, when the need is spiking:

Get in touch with local food banks and start donating. (No expired or open packages, please.) For mothers with infants and children baby formula is an important item. So are baby food in jars, milk, cheese, yogurt, (if the particular food bank takes fresh items) Iron-fortified cereals, whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole wheat pasta, and whole grain tortillas. Eggs, dried or canned beans ( black beans, lentils, and peas), peanut butter, and canned fish (tuna, salmon, sardines). Canned fruits and vegetables. And, of course, money. It will go to what is most needed.

For us in Oregon it can be the Oregon Food Bank.

Here is a different idea: Two Can Tuesday. It is a project that our household has supported for a long time – for its ease and direct results. Every Tuesday we put a plastic bin with donations for the local food back at the curb and a neighbor makes the round to pick it up and bring it over to neighborhood house free food pantry. You can be a volunteer for an existing round, or establish your own program in your own neighborhood. TcT will train you and help. Just email TwoCanTuesday. In my particular hood donations go to Neighborhood House. Some generous businesses participate as donation drop off sites as well.

Basics Market in Hillsdale, Butterfly Effect Art Space in Multnomah Village, Driftwood Coffee on SW Vermont, Garden Home Community Library,KinderSpirit Preschool

Then there is the Congregation Neveh Shalom food pantry: 2900 SW Peaceful Lane, deliver items directly between 8am-5pm Monday-Friday. Please leave your donation in bins with the security guard outside the synagogue’s main gate.

Canned Veggies: corn, green beans

Canned Fruits: peaches, pineapple, pears

Tomato Products: diced tomatoes, jars of tomato sauce

Pasta: spaghetti, penne

Rice: white, brown

Beans: black, pinto, garbanzos, refried, kidney

Protein: peanut butter, canned tuna, salmon & sardines Broth: veggie, beef, & chicken

Baking supplies: oats, flour (whole wheat, white), Crisco, oil (vegetable, canola), sugar, cake & muffin mixes,

Drinkables: boxed alternative milks (oat, rice, soy, almond), coffee, tea, juice boxes

Kid Friendly Foods: jam, jelly, chips, crackers, fruit snacks, cereal, granola bars, pouches of veggies, protein, fruit for babies

Spices: salt, peppers, garlic powder, onion powder, oregano

It is all about protecting the children, children who have lost so much security already since this administration started to wield the cutting ax. Here are some facts assembled by ProPublica, as of April this year. It has gotten worse since. ( Full article here.)

“The staff of a program that helps millions of poor families keep the electricity on, in part so that babies don’t die from extreme heat or cold, have all been fired. The federal office that oversees the enforcement of child support payments has been hollowed out. Head Start preschools, which teach toddlers their ABCs and feed them healthy meals, will likely be forced to shut down en masse,some as soon as May 1. And funding for investigating child sexual abuse and internet crimes against children; responding to reports of missing children; and preventing youth violence has been withdrawn indefinitely.

The administration has laid off thousands of workers from coast to coast who had supervised education, child care, child support and child protective services systems, and it has blocked or delayed billions of dollars in funding for things like school meals and school safety.

Trump’s goal of shuttering the Department of Education: in the works, already, some 2,000 staffers there have lost or left their jobs.

At the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the agency’s secretary, has dismissed all of the staff that had distributed $1.7 billion annually in Social Services Block Grant money, which many states have long depended on to be able to run their child welfare, foster care and adoption systems, including birth family visitation, caseworker training and more. The grants also fund day care, counseling and disability services for kids. (It is unclear whether anyone remains at HHS who would know how to get all of that funding out the door or whether it will now be administered by White House appointees.)

Next on the chopping block, it appears, is Medicaid, which serves children in greater numbers than any other age group. If Republicans in Congress go through with the cuts they’ve been discussing, and Trump signs those cuts into law, kids from lower- and middle-class families across the U.S. will lose access to health care at their schools, in foster care, for their disabilities or for cancer treatment.”

And that is all before we consider the effects of environmental deregulations, harming the children of the world, not just our nation’s, and the outcome of the anti-vaccination campaigns imposed by DHS. Or zip-tying toddlers in pajamas with hands behind their backs during nightly raids (Chicago), while using chemical agents, repelling down from black hawk helicopters onto the roofs of apartments buildings. Can you imagine the panic a three year old feels, ripped out of bed, separated from parents, standing in the cold darkness, zip-tied?  Reported by ABC7, the local news affiliate in Chicago:

When we have reached a point where violence towards and blatant disregard for kids – their hunger, their safety, their health – is met by “F— them kids!”, you wonder if we’ll ever get out of the woods again.

(And, for what it’s worth, I am not the only one focused on this. I wrote this Monday; on Tuesday this came to my inbox, with obvious parallels in slightly more professional form…)

Music today by Mirel Wagner, a two album wonder from 10 years ago. This song captures hunger like no other.

When the Cellar Children see the Light of Day is the full album. I don’t understand why we no longer hear from her. Such a talent.