[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 82 (Thursday, June 5, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7418-S7420]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     NATIONAL HUNGER AWARENESS DAY

  Mrs. DOLE. Mr. President, I first thank the majority whip, Senator 
McConnell, and the Democrat whip, Senator Reid, for their very kind 
comments this morning. Then I thank you, Mr. President, and other 
members of the leadership, for your unwavering support of this freshman 
class.
  I also recognize Senator Frist for the traditional courtesies of a 
maiden speech to be extended to the new Senator and express my 
appreciation for his commitment to the rich history of this great 
tradition.
  Tradition is held that, by waiting a respectful length of time, 
senior colleagues would appreciate the humility shown by a new Member 
of the Senate who would use the occasion to address an issue of 
concern.
  I come in that sense today to share my thoughts on a matter that 
weighs heavily on my mind. Hunger is the silent enemy lurking within 
too many American homes. It is a tragedy I have seen firsthand and far 
too many times throughout my life in public service. This is not a new 
issue.
  In 1969, while I was serving as Deputy Assistant to the President for 
Consumer Affairs, I was privileged to assist in planning the White 
House Conference on Food, Nutrition, and Health. In opening the 
conference, President Nixon said:

       Malnutrition is a national concern because we are a nation 
     that cares about its people, how they feel, how they live. We 
     care whether they are well and whether they are happy.

  This still rings true today.
  On National Hunger Awareness Day, I want to highlight what has become 
a serious problem for too many families, particularly in North 
Carolina.
  My home State is going through a painful economic transition. Once 
thriving textile mills have been shuttered. Family farms are going out 
of business. Tens of thousands of workers have been laid off from their 
jobs. Entire areas of textile and furniture manufacturing are slowly 
phasing out as high-tech manufacturing and service companies become the 
dominant industry of the State. Many of these traditional manufacturing 
jobs have been in rural areas where there are fewer jobs and residents 
who are already struggling to make ends meet.
  In 1999, North Carolina had the 12th lowest unemployment rate in the 
United States. By December 2001, the State had fallen to 46--from 12 to 
46. That same year, according to the Rural Center, North Carolina 
companies announced 63,222 layoffs. Our State lost more manufacturing 
jobs between 1997 and the year 2000 than any State except New York.
  Entire communities have been uprooted by this crisis. In the town of 
Spruce Pine in Mitchell County, 30 percent--30 percent--of the town's 
residents lost their jobs in the year 2001. Ninety percent of those 
layoffs were in textile and furniture manufacturing. These are real 
numbers and real lives from a State that is hurting.
  Our families are struggling to find jobs, to pay their bills, and, as 
we hear more and more often, to even put food on the table. In fact, 
the unemployment trend that started in 1999 resulted in 11.1 percent of 
North Carolina families not always having enough food to meet their 
basic needs. That is according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 
And North Carolina's rate is higher than the national average. This 
means that among North Carolina's 8.2 million residents, nearly 900,000 
are dealing with hunger. Some are hungry, others are on the verge.
  My office was blessed recently to meet a young veteran, Michael 
Williams, and his family. Michael served his country for 8 years in the 
U.S. Army before leaving to work in private industry and use the 
computer skills he had gained while serving in the military. He was 
earning a good living, but after September 11 and the terrorist 
attacks, he and his wife Gloria felt it was time to move their two 
children closer to family back home in North Carolina. As he said, ``It 
was time to bring the grandbabies home.''
  But Michael has found a shortage of jobs since his return. He worked 
with a temp agency but that job ended. It has been so hard to make ends 
meet that the family goes to a food bank near their Clayton, NC, home 
twice a month because with rent, utilities, and other bills, there is 
little left to buy food.
  Their story is not unlike so many others. Hard-working families are 
worrying each day about how to feed their children. As if this were not 
enough, our food banks are having a hard time finding food to feed 
these families. In some instances, financial donations have dropped off 
or corporations have scaled back on food donations. In other cases, 
there are just too many people and not enough food.
  At the Food Bank of the Albemarle in northeast North Carolina, 
executive director Gus Smith says more people are visiting this food 
bank even as donations are off by 25 percent. Thus Gus says, ``We just 
can't help everybody at this point in time.'' To try to cope, they 
recently moved to a 4-day workweek, meaning the entire staff had to 
take a 20-percent pay cut just to keep the doors open.
  America's Second Harvest, a network of 216 food banks across the 
country, reports it saw the number of people seeking emergency hunger 
relief rise by 9 percent in the year 2001 to 23.3 million people. In 
any given week, it is estimated that 7 million people are served at 
emergency feeding sites around the country.
  These numbers are troubling indeed. No family--in North Carolina or 
anywhere in America--should have to worry about where they will find 
food to eat. No parent should have to tell their child there is no 
money left for groceries. This is simply unacceptable.
  I spent most of the congressional Easter recess going to different 
sites in North Carolina: homeless and hunger shelters, food 
distribution sites, soup kitchens, farms, even an office where I went 
through the process of applying for Government assistance through the 
WIC Program, the Women, Infants, and Children Program.
  I was also able to meet, on several occasions, with a group known as 
the Society of Saint Andrew. This organization, like some others across 
the country, is doing impressive work in the area of gleaning. That is 
when excess crops, that would otherwise be thrown out, are taken from 
farms, packing houses, and warehouses, and distributed to the needy.

  Gleaning immediately brings to my mind the Book of Ruth in the Old 
Testament. She gleaned in the fields so that her family could eat. You 
see, Mr. President, in Biblical times farmers were encouraged to leave 
crops in their fields for the poor and the travelers. Even as far back 
as in Leviticus, Chapter 19, in the Old Testament, we read the words:

       And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou 
     gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shall leave them for 
     the poor and the stranger.

  So gleaning was long a custom in Biblical days, a command by God to 
help those in need. It is a practice we should utilize much more 
extensively today. It is astounding that the most recent figures 
available indicate that approximately 96 billion pounds of good, 
nutritious food, including that at the farm and retail levels, is left 
over or thrown away in this country.
  It is estimated that only 6 percent of crops are actually gleaned in 
North Carolina. A tomato farmer in North Carolina sends 20,000 pounds 
of tomatoes to landfills each day during harvest season.

[[Page S7419]]

  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to present an example of 
produce on the Senate floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. DOLE. Sometimes the produce cannot be sold. Sometimes it is 
underweight or not a perfect shape, like this sweet potato I show you 
in my hand. This would be rejected because it is not the exact 
specification. Other times it is simply surplus food, more than the 
grocery stores can handle, but it is still perfectly good to eat.
  Imagine the expense to that farmer in dumping 20,000 pounds of 
tomatoes each day during his harvest season. And this cannot be good 
for the environment. In fact, food is the single largest component of 
our solid waste stream--more than yard trimmings or even newspapers. 
Some of it does decompose, but it often takes several years. Other food 
just sits in landfills, literally mummified. Putting this food to good 
use, through gleaning, will reduce the amount of waste going to our 
already overburdened landfills.
  I am so appreciative of my friends at the Environmental Defense Fund 
for working closely with me on this issue. Gleaning also helps the 
farmer because he does not have to haul off and plow under crops that 
do not meet exact specifications of grocery chains, and it certainly 
helps the hungry, by giving them not just any food but food that is 
both nutritious and fresh.
  The Society of Saint Andrew is the only comprehensive program in 
North Carolina that gleans available produce and then sorts, packages, 
processes, transports, and delivers excess food to feed the hungry.
  In the year 2001, the organization gleaned 9.7 million pounds--almost 
10 million pounds--or 29.1 million servings of food. It only costs a 
penny--1 penny--a serving to glean and deliver this food to those in 
need. Even more amazing, the Society of Saint Andrew does all this with 
a tiny staff and an amazing 9,200 volunteers.

  These are the types of innovative ideas we should be exploring. I 
have been told by the Society of Saint Andrew that $100,000 would 
provide at least 10 million servings of food for hungry North 
Carolinians.
  I set out to raise that money for the Society in the last few weeks, 
and thanks to the compassion of a number of caring individuals, 
companies, and organizations, we were able to surpass our goal and 
raise $180,000--enough for over 18 million servings of food. More than 
ever, I believe this is a worthy effort that can be used as a model 
nationwide.
  I am passionate about leading an effort to increase gleaning in North 
Carolina and across America. The gleaning system works because of the 
cooperative efforts of so many groups, from the Society of Saint Andrew 
and its volunteers who gather and deliver the food, to the dozens of 
churches and humanitarian organizations that help distribute this food 
to the hungry. Indeed, gleaning is, at its best, a public-private 
partnership.
  Private organizations are doing a great job with limited resources. 
But we must make some changes on the public side to help them leverage 
their scarce dollars to feed the hungry. I have heard repeatedly that 
the single biggest concern for gleaners is transportation. The food is 
there. The issue is how to transport it in larger volume.
  I want to change the Tax Code to give transportation companies that 
volunteer trucks for gleaned food a tax incentive. And there are other 
needed tax changes. Currently, only large publicly traded corporations 
can take tax credits for giving food to these gleaning programs. But it 
is not just large corporations that provide this food; it is the family 
farmers and the small businesses. Why should a farmer who gives up his 
perfectly good produce or the small restaurant owner who gives food to 
the hungry not receive the same tax benefits? The Senate has already 
passed legislation as part of the CARE Act that would fix this 
inequity. Now the House of Representatives needs to complete work on 
this bill.
  However, but the answer to the hunger problem does not stop with 
gleaning. That is just part of the overall effort. There are other ways 
we can help, too.
  This year, we will be renewing the National School Lunch Program and 
other important child nutrition programs, and there are some areas I am 
interested in reviewing.
  Under School Lunch, children from families with incomes at or below 
130 percent of poverty are eligible for free meals. Children from 
families with incomes between 130 percent and 185 percent of poverty 
can be charged no more than 40 cents. This may seem to be a nominal 
amount, but for a struggling family with several children the costs add 
up. School administrators in North Carolina tell me that they hear from 
parents in tears because they don't know how to pay for their child's 
school meals.
  The Federal Government now considers incomes up to 185 percent of 
poverty when deciding if a family is eligible for benefits under the 
WIC program. Should we not use the same standard for School Lunch? 
Standardizing the guidelines would even allow us to immediately certify 
children from WIC families for the School Lunch Program. It is time to 
clarify this bureaucratic situation and harmonize our Federal income 
assistance guidelines so we can help those most in need.
  The School Lunch Program is the final component of our commitment to 
child nutrition, and we must do everything to maintain and strengthen 
its integrity so that it works for those who need it and isn't viewed 
as a Government giveaway.
  There are a lot of interesting ideas being discussed such as 
adjusting area eligibility guidelines in the Summer Food Program. But 
these need to be looked at carefully, and we need to ask important 
questions such as how many people would be affected and what is the 
cost. I have discussed many of these ideas with groups such as 
America's Second Harvest, Bread for the World, the Food Research and 
Action Center, and the American School Food Service Association. I look 
forward to the opportunity of exploring them further during 
reauthorization of these important programs in the Agriculture 
Committee, on which I am honored to serve.
  Our work cannot stop within our own borders. The Food and Agriculture 
Organization of the United Nations says hunger affects millions 
worldwide. During my 8 years as president of the American Red Cross, I 
visited Somalia during the heart-wrenching famine. In Mojada, I came 
across a little boy under a sack. I thought he was dead. His brother 
pulled back that sack and sat him up and he was severely malnourished. 
He couldn't eat the rice and beans in the bowl beside him; he was too 
malnourished. I asked for camel's milk to feed him.
  As I put my arm around his back and lifted that cup to his mouth, it 
was almost as if little bones were piercing through his flesh. I will 
never forget that. That is when the horror of starvation becomes real, 
when you can touch it.
  There are many things that will haunt me the rest of my life. When I 
visited Goma, Zaire, which is now Congo, this was a place where 
millions of Rwandans had fled the bloodshed in their own country but 
they stopped at the worst possible place, on volcanic rock. You 
couldn't drill for latrines so cholera and dysentery were rampant. You 
couldn't dig for graves, so I was literally stepping over dead bodies 
as I tried to help those refugees. Those bodies were carried to the 
roadside twice a day. They were hauled off to mass graves.
  Former Senators Bob Dole and George McGovern are the architects of 
the Global Food Program, which has a goal of ensuring that 300 million 
schoolchildren overseas get at least one nutritious meal a day. The 
Department of Agriculture estimates that 120 million schoolage 
children around the world are not enrolled in school in part because of 
hunger or malnutrition. The majority of these children are girls. The 
Global Food for Education Program is now operating in 38 countries and 
feeding 9 million schoolchildren.

  I want to see this program expanded. I plan to work on Appropriations 
to advance that goal. Just helping a child get a good meal can make 
such a difference in developing countries. Feeding children entices 
them to come to school which allows them to learn, to have some hope, 
some future. And improved literacy certainly helps the productivity, 
thereby boosting the economy.

[[Page S7420]]

  This problem deserves national discussion. Hunger affects so many 
aspects of our society. In the spirit of that landmark conference held 
by the White House in 1969, I am asking President Bush to convene a 
second White House conference so that the best and brightest minds can 
review these problems together.
  I am honored to work with leaders of the battle to eradicate hunger: 
Former Congressman Tony Hall, now the United States Ambassador to the 
U.N. food and agricultural programs, and former Congresswoman Eva 
Clayton from my own State of North Carolina, now an assistant director 
general for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. Both 
were champions on hunger while in Congress. And there are many others. 
Former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, a leader on gleaning; 
Catherine Bertini, Under Secretary General of the United Nations who 
was praised for her leadership to get food aid to those in need 
throughout the world; Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson, cochair of the 
Congressional Hunger Center who carries on the legacy of her late 
husband Bill who was a dear friend and leader on this issue.
  Here in this body, my chairman on the Agriculture Committee, Thad 
Cochran, and ranking member Tom Harkin, Dick Lugar, Patrick Leahy, Pat 
Roberts, and Gordon Smith are leaders in addressing hunger issues.
  Partisan politics has no role in this fight. Hunger does not 
differentiate between Democrats and Republicans. Just as it stretches 
across so many ethnicities, so many areas, so must we.
  As Washington Post columnist David Broder wrote yesterday: America 
has some problems that defy solution. This one does not. It just needs 
caring people and a caring government working together.
  I get inspiration from the Bible and John, chapter 21, when Jesus 
asked Peter: Do you love me? Peter, astounded that Jesus was asking him 
this question again, says: Lord, you know everything. You know that I 
love you. And Jesus replies: Then feed my sheep.
  One of North Carolina's heroes, the Reverend Billy Graham, has often 
said that we are not cisterns made for hoarding; we are vessels made 
for sharing. I look forward to working with Billy Graham in this 
effort. Indeed every religion, not just Christianity, calls on us to 
feed the hungry. Jewish tradition promises that feeding the hungry will 
not go unrewarded. Fasting is one of the pillars of faith of Islam and 
is a way to share the conditions of the hungry poor while purifying the 
spirit and humbling the flesh. Compassion or karuna is one of the key 
virtues of Buddhism. This issue cuts across religious lines, too.
  I speak today on behalf of the millions of families who are 
vulnerable, who have no voice, for this little Sudanese girl in this 
picture, stumbling toward a feeding station and so many like her. I saw 
this picture some years ago in a newspaper. It broke my heart. I went 
back to find that picture today because, as I recall the story, she had 
been walking for a long, long way and she had not yet reached that 
feeding station. That has been emblazoned on my mind since that time.

  Anthropologist Margaret Meade said: Never doubt that a small group of 
thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the 
only thing that ever has.
  One of my heroes is William Wilberforce, a true man of God. An old 
friend John Newton persuaded him that his political life could be used 
in the service of God. He worked with a dedicated group. They were 
committed people of faith. His life and career were centered on two 
goals: abolishing slavery in England and improving moral values. He 
knew that his commitment might cost him friends and influence but he 
was determined to stand for what he believed was right. It took 21 
years and Wilberforce sacrificed his opportunity to serve as Prime 
Minister. But he was the moving force in abolishing slavery and 
changing the moral values of England.
  In my lifetime, I have seen Americans split the atom, abolish Jim 
Crow, eliminate the scourge of polio, win the cold war, plant our flag 
on the surface of the Moon, map the human genetic code, and belatedly 
recognize the talents of women, minorities, the disabled, and others 
once relegated to the shadows. Already a large group of citizens has 
joined what I believe will become an army of volunteers and advocates.
  Today I invite all of my colleagues to join me in this endeavor. Let 
us recommit ourselves to the goal of eradicating hunger. Committed 
individuals can make a world of difference, even, I might say, a 
different world.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that my letter to President 
Bush be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                  U.S. Senate,

                                     Washington, DC, June 4, 2003.
     President George W. Bush,
     The White House,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. President: The White House Conference on Food, 
     Nutrition and Health, convened by President Richard Nixon on 
     December 2, 1969, may well have been one of the country's 
     most productive and far-reaching White House conferences. At 
     the time, President Nixon said that the conference was 
     ``intended to focus national attention and resources on our 
     country's remaining--and changing--nutrition problems.'' In 
     hindsight, it achieved that and more.
       So much has been accomplished since that historic White 
     House conference. With bipartisan support in Congress, the 
     food stamp program has been reformed and expanded, school 
     nutrition programs have been improved and now reach over 27 
     million children each school day, WIC was created, and 
     nutrition labels now appear on most food items.
       At the same time, however, the mission is not complete. 
     There are children who qualify for reduced price meals in 
     North Carolina, and throughout the country, but their 
     families cannot afford even this nominal fee. And while 16 
     million children participate in the free and reduced school 
     lunch program, in the summer many children go without. 
     America's Second Harvest, an extraordinary organization, 
     reports that demand often exceeds the supply of food in local 
     communities. Further, the country is challenged by the 
     paradox of hunger and obesity.
       Mr. President, it is time, I believe, for another White 
     House conference to assess the progress we have made in the 
     fight against hunger and to recommit the country to the 
     remaining challenges. I was pleased to work with President 
     Nixon on the 1969 conference; I would be honored to work with 
     you on a second historic conference.
       There is a very special tradition in America when it comes 
     to fighting hunger. Perhaps it is a function of our 
     agricultural bounty, the famines in Europe that led to early 
     migration, or the teachings of all major religions, but 
     Americans are intolerant of hunger in our land of plenty.
       Mr. President, I hope you will convene a second White House 
     conference with the business, civic and charitable 
     organizations, educators and advocates who continue to work 
     tirelessly to address hunger in America and around the world. 
     Hunger is not a partisan issue and I know that we can work 
     together, with our colleagues on both sides of the political 
     aisle, to address the problems and needs that still exist. 
     Thank you very much for your consideration.
           Sincerely,
                                                   Elizabeth Dole.

  Mrs. DOLE. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up 
to 5 minutes as if in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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