Hunger Free Vermont

Mission

Why is there hunger in Vermont?
The simple answer is that people don’t have enough money to cover their most basic needs.

The more complex answer is that hunger is caused by systems and structures that go back a long time in history.

Hunger is caused by policy decisions. Some of the policy decisions that lead to high levels of hunger were made a long time ago, and some continue to be made by our current federal, state, and town governments. (Not acting to change long-standing policies that cause hunger is another kind of policy decision that we and our elected representatives often make.)

Many of these policy decisions were–and continue to be–justified by biases and unchecked assumptions;

• About different groups of people (Indigenous people, Black people, immigrants, women, older people, people who don’t conform with gender norms, etc.);
• About who is deserving of resources and who is not (children but not adults, workers but not family caregivers, single mothers but not single fathers, etc.);
• About human nature (for example, believing that people are fundamentally lazy and must be forced to work by the threat of starvation versus believing that people fundamentally want to contribute to their community, but are sidelined from doing so when they lack the basic needs that enable them to thrive);
• About how the economy works (for example, “Raising taxes on the wealthy will cause them to leave Vermont and stifle new business development,” versus “Raising taxes and using the money to meet basic needs will make people want to stay and grow Vermont’s economy.”)

These underlying causes of hunger remain unresolved and unaddressed.

Organization Information