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♪ [Theme Music] ♪
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Hello, I'm Ronnie Eldridge, welcome to
Eldridge and Company. I'm shocked every time I'm
reminded that almost two million New Yorkers still have
difficulty affording food for themselves and their families.
For many years Kathy Goldman has worked with
determination and oft times outrage to end not only
this food poverty but also to provide access to affordable,
nutritious food for the even more people who live in low
income neighborhoods. And she's my guest today. Welcome.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Thank you.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: You spent what almost 50 years, or 50
years or more than 50 years?
KATHY GOLDMAN: Since 1965.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: 1965, worrying about food and
getting food to people who need it. Right, how did it start,
can you tell me.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Sure. I worked in the Bronx, I lived in
the Bronx and I worked in the Bronx for a group called
United Bronx Parents. A women named Evelina Antonetty
headed it up. And a group of Puerto Rican parents came
to us, quite a large group, about you know, like 12
people. Which is unusual. And they said to Mrs. Antonetty,
and I was working there, that the food was so bad in
their schools, their school for the children, that the kids
didn't eat. And it was very crucial to them to have these
meals. And to have the kids eat, because they
were living in serious poverty.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: So we had free lunches then.
KATHY GOLDMAN: That's done on a basis,
and that's a big discussion.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: We'll come back to that.
KATHY GOLDMAN: So let me just say. So what we did at
that time, and it's a good story actually. Is that we
invited every, we went over to the school and they were
absolutely right I mean the food was horrible. And the
working conditions, it was just awful it was P.S. 25.
So we invited every elected official from the area,
this is the real south Bronx, 149th street the school was
on, and we invited them to lunch. And they assumed
they were coming to lunch at our office, or where ever we
had it. The school bus took them over to the school,
made them eat, well.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Gave them the food.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Sey Posner I don't know if you remember him,
assemblyman, got sick. Which I didn't arrange, but it was
a great moment also. And it was really bad, and so a lot
got done. I mean, they were using regular dishes,
they never had a dishwasher, the whole thing was crazy.
And I noticed at that moment, that getting parents,
especially women and especially people who were
not comfortable in the language and so on.
You could get a lot of people to come about food.
And when you talk about reading or going to the
principal they were too nervous, they couldn't do that.
But food, that was their thing. I mean you know.
So, I stayed with it. And when we changed something
in the food program then people would say oh you
can change something. And learned to go on
to the next step.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: And how did the food bank come about.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Well that was much later than that,
cause I'm describing 1965. The food bank as I always say,
people ask me why'd you do it. It was 1980, actually by
the time we did it, it was 83, just 30 years this year.
Ronald Reagan got elected that's why we did it. Because we
knew that for poor people disaster was coming down
the road. And it's, can I just explain for a minute cause
people sometimes don't. A food bank is really a big
warehouse operation and in this case the warehouse is
in the Bronx, across the street from the produce market,
the big Hunts Point market. And it is in the meat market
part, and the food bank is basically warehouses, they
receive stuff. You know a big company isn't going to deliver
to every soup kitchen or every pantry. What the food
bank does is deliver to-
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: So it's the intermediaries.
KATHY GOLDMAN: A soup kitchen is a place where people come
and eat a meal. A food pantry is a place where they come
and pick up food and take it home and have the capacity
to cook it. So that's really the difference. And that's the
three elements that exist.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: And you were one of the founders
of that, or the founder.
KATHY GOLDMAN: No, not the founder,
there were a few people.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: But that part of the Bronx generated
great action didn't it, I mean it made change.
KATHY GOLDMAN: The south Bronx yeah, oh yeah,
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Was Ellen Laurie in that also?
KATHY GOLDMAN: Ellen Laurie, Evelina and I worked together.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: It's was a powerful trio, then we came
to the Community Food Resource Center.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yeah, that was in 1980, I started an
organization because I really wanted some freedom to be
able to do what we wanted to do, be as loud as we
wanted to be and all the rest of that. And it was unusual
because we did direct service and advocacy,
and I believe that those two things go together. A lot of
organizations, certainly at that time didn't do both.
They were either advocates who talked about policy and
stuff like that. But you have to know what's really
happening with people and if you do direct service than
you know about it. So we opened for example, the second
biggest soup kitchen in New York. And it was a dinner
program which was also a little unusual.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: In Harlem.
KATHY GOLDMAN: In Harlem on a 116th street, it's still there.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Did you feed 500 people?
How many people?
KATHY GOLDMAN: 500 people a day, sometimes more.
Now it's a, we bought the building which is another whole
story, which I won't tell. So downstairs there's a pantry
and I don't know if you remember Doreen Wohl, but she ran
a place on 86th street which is still there West Side Campaign
Against Hunger. And she got the idea that rather than
packing a package for people to take home. Generally the
pantries try to give three meals for three days for each person
in the family. So it's really valuable for people to take,
and important for them to have. And she got the idea,
that instead of that to put things on shelves and make it
like a mini supermarket so that you had some choice.
Because those of us who have the pleasure in some ways,
and really have learned by working with a lot of poor
people, people don't have choice. Their always being
given something, or asking for something, or filling out a
form, or doing something.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Regulations always attached.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Everything. She got this idea, and I think
it was one of the brilliant moves. So that's what we
did and it's like a little supermarket, you have little
supermarket carts. And people, you can't take 10 cans of
black beans or tuna fish or something. Tuna fish is not so
often that we have protein items. But in any case.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Did you take donations?
Private donations?
KATHY GOLDMAN: Oh yeah, they're dependent on donations;
also the food bank delivers the central stuff. Because the
city and the federal government do provide on a big scale
and then stuff happens. Early days of the food bank
I remember we had, all of a sudden we got a call from
Tropicana. They were introducing, this is 30 years
ago, they were introducing these combination juices.
Banana, and strawberry and whatever combined. And nobody
was buying it, so we were like happy. When they first started
Nutra-Grain, a healthy cereal one of the companies started,
they couldn't sell it, it was impossible. So we got it.
Tropicana was also once, they were doing their bottles of
grapefruit juice, and they left it in the, somebody left it for
like three seconds extra in the pasteurizer, it came out
looking a little grey, nobody would buy, they wouldn't
even put it on a shelf. We got tons of it, it was great.
Today to tell you the truth it's much harder because with
computerizing, all these places have much, they know
exactly what they got, they know exactly what went out,
they know what they need to make. Its, not been good
for the giving away.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: The thing about the Community Food
Resource Center, which was a long title. Aside from the
direct service was the advocacy and the way you pushed the
city how to use the federal funds that were available.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yeah that was the big thing.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: I mean that was really important. And that
was what TANF, TANF then? Or WIC? Food stamps?
KATHY GOLDMAN: We worked on welfare issues which was TANF.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Temporary Assistance to Needy Families.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Right, that was the welfare program.
We worked a lot on food stamps, an awful lot.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: I remember that, when I was at city
council, that was also a major issue. But you were consistent
with the city on that.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yeah, and look. We killed ourselves
to get these federal programs, I mean people years ago,
people used to line up. Usually at a project, a low income
project, but people would line up for hours and get a
package of food. And the food was anything that
the government bought.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Food stamps, instead of having to lineup.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Getting food stamps, where somebody
could go to a store, and pick out within certain parameters.
You can't buy for instance toilet paper on food stamps,
it has to be a food stuff. And you can't buy, and all
this stuff about steak and ***. And I don't know
about all, its absolutely nonsense. It's very constrained
in many ways. But the fact is that, people who
are on food stamps to this day buy healthier food
than the average family.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: How much does the food stamp add to the
family budget for food?
KATHY GOLDMAN: The food stamp can add as much
as $280 a month.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Does that come with a meal,
it's like a dollar.
KATHY GOLDMAN: It's a $1.41 a meal, with this latest cut
that came in. Which is, I mean anybody who's listening to this
will say what a $1.41, yes. Because it's impossible to
really do anything. And what happens basically, is that on
a good year when things are going well. People will run out
of food stamps by the third week of the month. So the
fourth week of the month, in all of the soup kitchens and food
pantries they get a lot more people.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: That's so interesting, so it's a pattern.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yeah, people who have some money.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: And now with the cut in food stamps,
there will be more people going to the pantries.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yes, but since.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: But there's not more food in the pantries.
KATHY GOLDMAN: No, that's really the truth. And since the
recession, since 2007, New York City, about 200 to 250
of these emergency food providers have closed.
They can't, it's just overwhelming them with the
number of people that come there. Because people
who were working, and most of the people on food
stamps by the way, there's somebody in the family
who's working. You know you listen to the Republicans,
you think its all deadbeats, first of all it's mostly
children, senior citizens and the disabled people,
is the majority.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: And the majority, nationality
are white people.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yes.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: It's not even to the stereotype that they've
given us which is so outrageous. And also the veterans.
And especially the new veterans
KATHY GOLDMAN: It's a million vets on food stamps.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: From Iraq and Afghanstanian
KATHY GOLDMAN: And in New York City, 40% of the
vets are on food stamps, I mean it's outrageous.
And this is somebody that's shiftless and lazy.
Which is what one of their Republican brains said not
to long ago, I mean it's horrible.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: It's interesting we pay so much
attention to oil, because it's the thing that's needed to
make all the engines run. But we don't pay the same
attention to food, which is what makes people work
and operate. It's just an incredible kind of relationship.
Now you've got a new organization.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yes, I retired a few years ago.
Ten years ago.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: But you couldn't stay retired.
KATHY GOLDMAN: For about a minute, with my colleague
Agnes Molar. We worked with the food bank, and we
worked with other-
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Children's Defense Fund.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Children's Defense Fund and, but,
I don't know there's something the matter with me
Ronnie, I can't work for anybody else anymore.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: That's bad, well it's good for us
because then you go ahead and start a new
organization. So you got a new organization.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yes, Community Food Advocates. Which is
exactly what we do. I'm a little past the point of direct
service, I can't do it. And there's a lot of people
that are doing it.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: And your emphasizing now
school lunch, right?
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yes.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: And food in schools.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Let me just say briefly. There was a big
fight in the 60's and the 70's. And we got a whole bunch
of federal programs. And what that means. And it really
was in tandem and in partnership in some ways with the
farm block. Because it was you know Richard Lugar,
these people whose constituencies are dependent
on selling the food, and moving the food, so we have
food stamps. In the child nutrition, which is where
I now really focus, we have a breakfast program in every
school in New York City. We have school lunch in every school.
And it's much healthier than it ever was.
And it's much better than it ever was. It's got a bad rep
for a variety of reasons, you know we have childcare food,
we have some support, not enough for senior meals.
And the WIC program, which is Women, Infants and Children,
and it's really a program that gives women who are pregnant
good nutritious food. And makes a huge difference in the-
Its changed many many things, but including
that the early death.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: So now what are you really pushing?
KATHY GOLDMAN: So we're really pushing, in the early part
of the Bloomberg administration we managed to convince
them that breakfast was absolutely crucial. And if a
kid comes to school and they haven't eaten, go try to teach
them algebra or something in the morning. And so they
actually made breakfast free for everybody in 2003.
However there's not much you don't hear about it. So a lot
of people don't realize what's there and what's available
and so on. But now we want to add to that, lunch. Free lunch
for everybody. And let me explain this a little bit.
You're a parent, you come into the school. You're five
year old to register for the school, and everyone is
cheerful and happy. They do not ask you if you can afford the
desk, they do not ask you if you can afford the teacher,
they don't ask if you can afford anything in the school.
And all of a sudden they say oh, but can you afford the food.
And that's when you have to fill out this big complicated
application, giving all your family income, and all
the rest of that stuff.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: And if you go over what? $35,000?
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yeah, approximately $35,000 for
a family of three.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Family of three?
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yeah, then you have to pay for the meals.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: I see, for lunch.
KATHY GOLDMAN: For lunch, and we're running a program.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: So that segregates already,
it segregates the kids from poor families. Which by the time
you get into grade school and high school, bad. Right?
KATHY GOLDMAN: It's terrible, I mean you're absolutely right.
In the elementary schools we have over 80% of the kids
are eating. You get to junior high school, all of a sudden
they notice that their friends are, this friend has money,
this one doesn't, I don't want anyone to think I'm poor.
That's the end of that. It drops to 60% somewhat,
63% I think. And then in high school, forget about it, 34%
of the kids are eating, and I will take you to any
high school, we go all the time. And there are 100's
of kids sitting there, and you ask them why aren't you eating,
I'm not hungry. Did you ever meet a teenager who
wasn't hungry? I didn't.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: And they just won't take advantage.
KATHY GOLDMAN: They will not. How they are perceived
by their friends and their peers is more to them at
those ages than anything else, and they will go hungry.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: So you're pushing that the
breakfast program be extended to the lunch program.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yeah, essentially. That all the
means be free.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: And how much is that going to cost us.
KATHY GOLDMAN: It would cost the city an additional
20 million dollars a year.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: A year.
KATHY GOLDMAN: That's 20 buck a kid.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Which in city, really.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Which is chump change in the city budget.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: So how successful. You going to get it?
KATHY GOLDMAN: I think so.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Will you have to lobby for a law,
or is it just a regulation at the board of Ed.
KATHY GOLDMAN: No, no they don't care. The federal
government doesn't care. If you're going to pay, what do
they care. But the bulk of this money comes from the
federal government. It always amazed me.
Truthfully, Giuliani when he was mayor, really didn't like
poor people much. That's a nice way of saying what I
usually say, and didn't take advantage of these programs.
You were stopped at the door when you tried to get
food stamps, you were stopped at the door with everything.
And where do you think that money goes, people don't
save food stamps, they're not stamp collectors. They are
going immediately to buy. And it is a huge boom to
the economy of the city of New York.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Right because if you have the money
you buy, and that helps the people who are in business.
KATHY GOLDMAN: How crazy is that, when they did this
last cut the city, the city lost 19 million dollars.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: You lost the support of the farm group,
because they got the subsidies and we lost the food stamps.
So who do you have to go to? Who's going have to say all
right we're going to do school lunches?
KATHY GOLDMAN: The chancellor and the mayor.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: So hopefully that'll happen this year.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yeah I don't know. You know, I think they
have an awful lot of things to take care of. I mean it is so
sensible. The other thing that goes on, is that all of
the high schools, most of the high schools I should never
say all, most of the high schools are surrounded
by fast food places.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Deliberately.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Deliberately.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: They know where the market is.
KATHY GOLDMAN: In my neighborhood, 7-11 opened
on 93d street and Amsterdam Avenue and I'm like why
would they do that, oh cause there's a junior high school
down the block. And you watch what happens at the end of
the day. And it's very serious.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: So we're interested in the nutrition,
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yeah.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: You're also interested in the availability
of food. And you've made a suggestion which I think is
really very good. And that it is, we don't pay enough
attention to food. So why doesn't the city council
have a committee.
KATHY GOLDMAN: You're asking me?
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: And why doesn't the city have somebody
who is doing the food. Right? You want more attention to it.
KATHY GOLDMAN: And it's not just New York City,
because truthfully food policy in the United States has really
always been agriculture policy. It's not the eaters that they
worry about, they worry about the producers.
And so, there's never been a committee. And to me it
flabbergasts me, I'm very happy that there all these
committees and they do some wonderful things.
But food is a necessity of life, I mean and we've talked
about this. New York City has approximately three days
of fresh food. If something happens and the bridge isn't
available or whatever, you know it's very dangerous you can't
just mess around with this.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: So it's not included in crisis planning
you don't think.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Well-
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: We don't know, but we don't think so.
KATHY GOLDMAN: When the Bloomberg administration
did plan New York City 30 years ahead.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: No mention of food.
KATHY GOLDMAN: I don't know if I can say this,
but I went to a meeting with the head person who
had written the report. And I said you left out a four letter
word starting with "F", food. I mean, it was unbelievable,
there was no mention of it. Eventually they did
a supplement, because people were like that's crazy,
you can't do that.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: So we not only have to give people food,
it should be nutritious. Do you think we're making strides
in the schools and some places?
KATHY GOLDMAN: Oh in the schools absolutely, every high
school and most of the junior highs have a salad bar that's
a big change from what used to be. They have a make your
own sandwich area, I mean it's really.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: On top of that is availability, and you
took on that fight years ago with Pathmark on east Harlem.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yeah, we were helpful. It was
Abyssinian Baptist Church that really.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Has there been more distribution of
food, places of food availability. Do you know in
the city? Do they map it?
KATHY GOLDMAN: Advocates have mapped it, Coalition
Against Hunger did some mapping, but they have to
take a look at this. I mean you're absolutely right.
It's called food deserts. And by the way I want to
say that we talked about the two million people who are
on food stamps and so on. Food anywhere is not only
a poor people's issues. When 9/11 happened no trucks
were permitted to go south of 14th street. You couldn't
get anything. And the electricity was out, so all of
these stores closed up. I mean I have been yelling for years
that there should be a requirement that at least a
significant number of food stores and other things.
But in my case that's what I look at. That food stores
have a generator, how hard is that. I was in Cape Cod once
when there was a hurricane. And I figured oh there won't
be anything available. Every single store had a
generator, cause they know it happens. Well something's
going to happen. I mean then we had hurricane Sandy and
they haven't changed anything, so the same damn thing
happened all over again.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: So if we had more attention in the government
to food, we'd be able to do a lot of these things.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yeah, we need it. You said there's no city
council committee. There's no agency, there's no department
of food. There's a department of everything, I mean you can
find a lot of departments.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: And they all deal separately
with the food issue.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Yes, but a department would look at all
of this, and again I really repeat that this is not just a
poor people's issue. If food is not available that's serious
for everybody. You cannot mess around with this.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Well we're going to end our conversation
with this. Your website is.
KATHY GOLDMAN: I don't remember the website.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: But we know it.
KATHY GOLDMAN: But it's community food advocates
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Right dot org. and it's a very informative
KATHY GOLDMAN: It's foodadvocatesnyc.org
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Thank you, and thank you Kathy Goldman.
And just thank you for all the work you've done
it's just amazing.
KATHY GOLDMAN: Well, thank you.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Don't say well. I never even talked
about the White House award to you. That was,
I'm sorry about that but congratulations
KATHY GOLDMAN: Well next time.
RONNIE ELDRIDGE: Thank you, bye.
♪ [Theme Music] ♪
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