Hunger Hotline offers Rhode Islanders instant help finding food

8/20/2016 – Rhode Islanders in need can now find a helping hand and a bite to eat at the end of a phone line. Hunger Free America has launched a toll-free “National Hunger Hotline” that aims to put those in search of food in touch with private and government resources that can help provide it. The coast-to-coast initiative, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, operates Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., at (866) 348-6479 or (877) 842-6273.  More

The Invisible Helping Hand

June 7, 2016 – Slate Magazine: How a network of food banks learned to feed more people by embracing the free market. By Ray Fisman and Tim Sullivan

Canice Prendergast is an economics professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. He works in the language of dense mathematical models that aim to clarify why, for example, service at airport security is so dismal and why that might actually be a good thing. (Because a few of the Department of Homeland Security’s “customers” may be bomb-carrying terrorists, it’s not exactly a customer-is-always-right setting.) He’s a serious enough art collector that when Booth built a $125 million campus across the way from Frank Lloyd Wright’s landmark Robie House, Prendergast was put in charge of a million-dollar budget for decorating its hallways. Instead of the usual array of bland landscapes and oil paintings of old white men in suits that populate the walls of many business schools, Booth’s walls are filled with abstract, conceptual works that challenge and often mystify its faculty and students.  More

Monthly Resource FAQs

Rhode Island Community Food Bank

Website

Monthly and up-to-date list of links to basic needs resources focused on a specific topic. The topics are selected based on timeliness or concerns expressed by member agencies. All resources are verified before being added to the list, so users can be assured they are accurate and relevant on the date published. If you would like to recommend a specific topic or contribute a useful resource, email or call 401-230-1701.  Contact: Kristina Fox.

Nobody’s Just Hungry Community Resource Training Kit

Rhode Island Community Food Bank

This kit was designed to train and support agency member staff & volunteers on how to make quality referrals for their guests. With minimal training on these resources, your program will have the basic ability to assist your clients in those critical moments when their needs are immediate and pressing. Community Resource Coordinator Kristina Fox will provide on-site training to member agencies to show you how it’s done!  Website  Email