At Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank our mission is to feed people in need and mobilize our community to eliminate hunger. We envision a purposeful effort where members and organizations in the community join forces to ensure that each person has reliable access to food, resources, support and can be a full participant in our society.
It is critical that we continue to educate and bring awareness to the complex nature of hunger and poverty. We must operate with the knowledge that hunger and poverty are not primarily the result of personal choices. We know that one major root cause of hunger is social inequalities — including the intersectionalities of racism, classism, sexism and more — which create and perpetuate the conditions that sustain hunger and poverty. Such conditions do not drive resources to–but intentionally pull needed resources away from individuals and communities based on race, ethnicity, gender, etc. We also understand there are other major individual factors that create conditions of hunger and poverty, such as: unemployment, a major health issue(s) that limits one’s ability to live self-sufficiently, homelessness, lack of support, substance abuse, criminal records, language barriers, geographic access, etc. In addition, there are families that are one paycheck or major life altering circumstance away from slipping into hunger and poverty.
With this knowledge, we commit to center focus on those who most disproportionately experience hunger across our service area. To solve hunger, we commit to partner more collaboratively with our community stakeholders, donors, volunteers, local organizations and most importantly people with lived experiences of hunger. We must continue to self-educate, give voice to and learn from those who have experienced hunger or poverty. We believe in the power and necessity of collectively and radically changing the systems, programs and practices that cause and perpetuate food insecurity and hunger in our communities.
