Hunger 101

One in six Americans faces hunger. One third of those people have limited resources that force them to make difficult decisions between purchasing food or providing for other necessities, such as rent, utilities or medical needs.
Across the country, community members provide food resources to ensure that their own neighbors don’t have to go hungry—we exist to provide a healthy and nutritious meal to the people here in our Central New York community.
Here at the Samaritan Center, we find that our guests’ demographics reflect the national picture:
- Only about 17% of people eating with us are currently homeless or living at a shelter. However, 51% have experienced homelessness in the last year.
- About 13% of our guests are part of a household with children.
- 67% have their high school diploma or GED – 49% have gone on to pursue higher education.
- 12% of our guests are currently employed
- At least 11% of our guests are seniors.
- 22% of those who eat with us have no income at all and a total of 54.5% have resources that total less than $500 in a month.
Many of our friends and neighbors don’t know where their next meal will come from. If this is true for you or someone you love, please visit www.mybenefits.ny.gov to see if you are eligible for help and call us at the Samaritan Center so we can navigate this difficult road with you.
Make an Impact
If our guests and our mission have touched your heart, we urge you to join us in the fight to eradicate hunger in our community and around the globe. You can make a world of a difference in so many ways:
- Share Your Time – Volunteer your talents at the Samaritan Center.
- Share Your Loot – We are constantly in need of both goods and donations to keep our kitchen producing nourishing meals for our guests.
- Let People Know – Share these facts and stories via social media. Talk with your friends, family, in your places of worship and classrooms about hunger. Plan an activity for Hunger Action Month in September. Engage your local Member of Congress about issues related to hunger.
- Share the Journey - Take the SNAP Challenge by using only $4.50 (the amount of money allotted by SNAP or Food Stamps) to plan and purchase your meals for the day. Take this quiz to see how much you would need to make at a minimum wage job to support yourself. Host a hunger banquet to live out the world’s wealth disparity in a single meal.
- Keep on Learning!
- Local Resources
- New York State Resources
- National Resources
- Feeding America
- Aging in Place - The Facts Behind Senior Hunger
- USDA Food Environment Atlas
- USDA Food Distribution Programs
- Food Research and Action Center
- Global Resources
- Quizzes and Games
- Hunger Notes' Hunger Quiz - Take a hunger quiz! Learn more about hunger and take a short quiz. Hunger Notes will make a donation to assist hungry people for each quiz taken.
- Free Rice - Free rice asks questions on a variety of subjects, including vocabulary, chemistry, math and SAT prep. For each correct answer selected, they will donate 10 grains of rice to the World Hunger Programme to help end world hunger.