Writings on Resilience by Carla A. Wise

Blog

  • A little more about food aid

    A little more about food aid

    In my last post, I promised to share more about food aid. I was hoping to get a better handle on how the network of food assistance programs in our community works, how much it alleviates hunger, and how much it fails to do. Although I’ve attended food security meetings, read articles, had conversations with experts, and started volunteering at the local food bank, I’ve only been partly successful. I know more about the programs that exist, but I can’t really say I have any idea exactly how many folks are struggling to get fed. Yet it’s not an exaggeration to say that exploring the food security network more deeply changed the way I see our community and our country.

    Here are some things I learned: both poverty and food assistance vary tremendously across states, regions, cities and neighborhoods, resulting in dramatically unequal hunger and access to food aid depending on where you live. Here in Oregon and my home town of Corvallis there is an often unseen world of folks working to get everyone the food they need. I discovered an amazing bunch of committed people striving to give those facing hunger access to food. But the uneven nature of food assistance, the cost of living, employment opportunities, state governments, and other factors dramatically affect the prevalence of food security across the country. Arkansas is the hungriest state, with 18.9% of the population experiencing low or very low food security. The rate in Oregon is 10.3%.

    I also learned that the network of food aid in the U.S. has several components. There is the food bank system, which operates throughout the country. Food banking began in 1964, partly as a way to distribute surplus food the government was buying from farmers. Today, food banks collect, store, and distribute donated, purchased and rescued food, and are funded mostly through donations and grants. They provide food to shelters, food pantries, meal sites, agencies, food assistance programs, and various charities.

    Then there are three national anti-hunger programs funded by the federal government; SNAP, WIC, and the School Lunch Program. SNAP provides low-income individuals and families with funds to buy groceries, and serves an average of 41.7 million Americans a month (12.5% of the population). SNAP is administered by the states, who screen for eligibility and distribute benefits. State programs to administer SNAP vary tremendously: Oregon does a better job of getting SNAP benefits to those who qualify than most states: as a result, almost 18% of Oregonians received SNAP in 2024.

    WIC, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, focuses on maternal health and early childhood nutrition for women, infants and children at or close to the poverty line. WIC provides monthly benefits to purchase specific foods like milk, eggs, whole grains, produce, and baby food. The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) provides free or reduced-price lunches at school for children from low-income families.

    Some communities have additional programs and resources to get folks fed. In our area, there are food pantries, gleaning groups, walk-in meal sites, double up food bucks for SNAP card holders to use at farmer’s markets, and other informal ways people get fed. A Corvallis non-profit called Stone Soup serves free meals 7 days a week, in partnership with two area churches, no questions asked. In 2024, they served approximately 125 meals per day, all 365 days of the year.

    Yet even with this web of programs and funding mechanisms trying to address hunger, many people still don’t have enough to eat. According to USDA’s most recent annual household food security survey, 18 million households (12.2% of the population) reported low or very low food security. The Republican’s reconciliation bill cut SNAP funding by $186 Billion and added stricter work and other requirements which will result in an estimated 2.4 million Americans losing food aid. These changes will inevitably result in more people going hungry across this country.

    This blog is about local resilience efforts in the face of a destabilizing world. So I want to leave you with this: in the face of Trump’s efforts to dismantle the federal food safety net, I’ve discovered many wonderful folks striving to help people in our community get fed. These people welcome volunteers, money, and help. Being part of local food assistance work feels really good. Here are a few links to explore if you’d like to donate time or money:

    Linn Benton Food Share

    Benton County Food Resources (PDF)

  • Shining a light on hunger

    Shining a light on hunger

    Just before 9 AM on a Tuesday in mid-November, I pull in to the gravel parking lot of a green warehouse in Tangent, Oregon. This building belongs to Linn-Benton Food Share, which distributes food at no cost to folks throughout Linn and Benton Counties. I’m here to volunteer to pack food into around 450 boxes, which we then load onto pallets so they can be distributed to organizations such as food pantries and gleaning groups throughout our two-county region.

    There are 5 new volunteers here today, along with an equal number of veterans. I’m impressed right away by how well-organized the operation is. From the layout of the food to the printed food lists and directions from staff and experienced volunteers, it’s carefully designed to run smoothly.  Within a few minutes, I’m fully trained and packing food. The tasks of labeling boxes, filling them with the proper items, closing them up and loading them on pallets based on where they’ll go goes quickly, even with so many new folks. After our 2 hour shift I admire the neatly stacked cubes of full boxes on pallets ready to make there way out to fill peoples’ bellies.

    This warehouse has been here for many years, but this is my first time inside. I’m not proud to admit this, but I hadn’t focused all that much on hunger in our community until the Trump administration tried to withhold SNAP food assistance during the recent 43 day government shutdown. The many ways that decision rippled through our town, state, and country really got my attention. The enormity of the role SNAP plays for so many in our community woke me up to all I don’t usually see.

    According to the Oregon Department of Human Services, about 757,000 people in Oregon, or about 1 in 6 people, rely on SNAP benefits to supplement their food budget. While SNAP provides support for folks to purchase food at participating grocery stores and Farmers’ Markets, Linn-Benton Food Share distributes food directly through a network of food pantries, meal sites, gleaning groups, and agencies. To get SNAP benefits, you must apply and meet eligibility requirements and income limits. However, no proof of income or documentation is required to receive food through the food bank system Linn-Benton Food Share is part of. The idea is that these two systems together provide a safety net to prevent hunger in America. The reality, however, is quite another matter.

    As I’m packing, I ponder what’s going into each box. While this food could perhaps meet some basic nutritional needs, there are quite a few items here I wouldn’t eat unless I was really hungry. But there is also boxed milk, cereal, peanut butter, canned fruit, and pasta that are more appealing.

    When I volunteered, I was told some of these boxes go to low-income seniors once a month. But we’re packing boxes for a variety of destinations. I wonder how many of the calories the recipients need are supplied by this box, and what they eat for the rest of the month. I wonder where the food box recipients get their fresh food. I wonder how many of the items I’m packing in each box get thrown away.

    The two hour volunteer shift is a satisfying experience. The movements of packing and loading warm me up quickly in the chilly warehouse. The time goes fast, I chat with other volunteers, we finish packing all the boxes needed that day, and I get a peek into one of the components of a food assistance system I know very little about. I have many unanswered questions, but when I come back next month, I can learn more.

    I’m here because the recent SNAP crisis and efforts by the Trump regime to take away food aid from the most vulnerable people has jolted me into taking action. Whatever else I may question, I don’t ever doubt that no one should go hungry in our community, state, or country.

    I’m also here because I’m trying to understand, through volunteering, conversations, and research how the network of food assistance programs in our community works, how much it alleviates hunger and food insecurity, and how much it fails to do. I’ll keep posting about what I learn.

  • This is not a book review: Some thoughts on Sun House

    This is not a book review: Some thoughts on Sun House

    This past winter, I read Sun House, by David James Duncan. It was the best book I’ve read in a really long time, yet I’ve been reluctant to recommend it. At 764 pages and telling many interwoven stories spanning six decades, it requires a big commitment. It’s not for everyone: Duncan’s style, language, and world view is intense and unusual; reviews have been mixed. A few months after finishing the book, I read it again, and decided it’s worth the risk. So I started suggesting to friends and family that they read it. I even bought extra copies to lend out. This is a book that is helping me to imagine a different way of living at this moment in America and on Earth. Seeing a different way feels like a lifeline. 

    Sun House starts with the stories of three unconnected people and a pair of twin brothers in Oregon, Colorado, and Washington. It follows each of them through various formative experiences, joys, tragedies, and spiritual journeys until eventually they cross paths, connect with other kindred spirits, and form a community in rural Montana. 

    This is not a book review. I’m not going to try to summarize the plot, or explain what characters or story lines I found most compelling. I’m not even going to explore the big themes or messages of the book. What I will say is that Sun House is an attempt to create a new mythology for our times. If, like me, you feel trapped in a civilization that seems headed for collapse once it destroys most of the living beings, natural beauty, and life support systems on Earth, and you don’t see another way, this book might be for you too. 

    For at least 20 years, I’ve felt that I’m part of a political and economic system that is destroying the biosphere that provides us with everything we need, love, and depend on. I’ve taken many small steps to try to do less damage, yet none of them have felt adequate. As the climate continues to destabilize, and those in power slither towards fascism and kleptocracy, this feeling has deepened into heartbreak and dread. 

    Yet opting out of the system, finding an alternative, has seemed impossible to imagine, futile, costly and detrimental to my well-being. It’s felt futile because me opting out didn’t seem like it would make any discernable difference, and personally costly because I’d have to give up the comforts of modern life, and live cut off from much of what brings me ease, safety, and straightforward access to necessities, pleasures, and those I love who are far away.

    Sun House creates an alternative that feels meaningful and perhaps even possible. Here’s what I took from the story: As our politics, economic system, and extreme wealth and power inequality continue to destroy life and climate stability, small bands of people can start and build communities and modes making a living that will serve as lifeboats: protected reserves of living things, skills, information, cooperative systems, love of nature, integrity, and sacred knowledge. As end-stage capitalism destroys huge swaths of life on earth, these lifeboat communities might provide shelter to preserve enough life, beauty, skills, and knowledge to restore life and beauty and reinhabit earth after industrial civilization has fallen and the great cycle of destruction we’re in has run it’s course.

    Duncan’s tale is an attempt to show how such a lifeboat might be born and develop in the midst of our human-shattered world. And for me, his fable succeeds. 

    There’s just one more thing I want to say about why I loved this book. In Duncan’s tale, there are no litmus tests for entry into the community, except to value and revere other living creatures.  People there still use cars and machinery and run businesses—although with a focus on reducing consumption and waste. Some live lives that include frequent flying or driving, and some eat meat. I could write a whole separate essay on why this lack of purity testing is so important to me, but I won’t. I’ll just say that anyone who has been working for environmental progress and climate action for any amount of time knows that our different approaches have often prevented us from uniting enough to fully work together. 

    Sun House took me on a journey that fully enveloped me, as only the best books can do. It took several hundred pages to get into, and I found it somewhat uneven going. There were some sections of the book I didn’t even like. Yet this book allowed me to start imagining new possibilities for building lifeboats. I now see the seeds of these lifeboats in people and places I didn’t see before. I am now seeking out ways to contribute to a lifeboat in my community. Sun House did this for me. Maybe it won’t do that for you. But on the chance that it might, I suggest you give it a try.

  • How to prepare for the unknown

    How to prepare for the unknown

    We humans are notoriously bad at predicting the future. I personally was blindsided by all three of the life-threatening crises we faced in 2020 in western Oregon – a global pandemic, a deadly heat dome, and an air quality crisis from wildfires that made it unsafe to go outdoors or even open the windows. Disaster preparedness in our region, such as it is, has been focused on preparations for a major earthquake.  And certainly, given the seismic history of the Pacific Northwest, there could be a catastrophic earthquake here anytime. But the next disaster might also be something no one is thinking much about.

    As the climate destabilizes along with America’s political and social fabric, I’ve been wondering if it’s possible to prepare for events you never saw coming.

    Maybe, maybe not. I really have no idea. But here is what I do know: Taking actions to increase our household’s disaster preparedness and resilience feels worthwhile and empowering. So I’ve developed a kind of three way test to decide what steps to take. 

    1. Does the action have benefits in some imaginable crisis situation? 
    2. Does the action have other benefits that I can feel or see in my daily life?
    3. Is the action relatively easy and affordable?

    Here are some of the actions I’ve taken because the answer was yes to all three questions. I put together a go bag.  I put a box in the back of my car with several bottles of water, an emergency blanket, a map, a large garbage bag, and a few snacks. We now keep one of our vehicles fully fueled up and ready should we need to leave quickly. I bought a radio that can be recharged with a solar battery or by winding a crank.  I made a list of things to grab in case of an evacuation and put it on my bulletin board.  I started maintaining a non-perishable food supply in our garage that includes about a week’s worth of water and gas for our camping stove. We also put together an earthquake kit in a big duffel bag.

    There are other things I’m giving extra attention to as I focus more on resilience. These include gardening for food and pollinators, connecting more with our neighbors, shopping more at the farmers’ markets, and seeking other ways to build and support a vibrant local food system. I signed up for emergency text alerts from the city and county. We have a fully electrified home, so I was able to get the gas line to our house shut off permanently.

    I’ve also been thinking about ways to connect with other people nearby who want to build local resilience and share ideas and support. I haven’t found a local resilience group yet, so it’s possible I’ll need to try to start one. That’s a topic for another day!

  • How to build a go-bag

    How to build a go-bag

    There is a scene from the rom-com “Leap Year,” in which Amy Adams is standing in her beautiful apartment in the midst of throwing a party when the fire alarm goes off. She stands there frozen, having absolutely no idea what to grab on her way out the door. Although the message in the movie is that she isn’t living the life she craves, for me that scene has always brought up something else— fear. More specifically, the fear that if I ever need to evacuate, I will be unable to make quick decisions that will allow me to gather the items that are most vital and precious. Several weeks ago, unimaginably destructive wildfires leveled entire Los Angeles neighborhoods, reminding me of how profoundly unpredictable living in our era has become. So I’ve been diving into learning about emergency preparedness and putting together a go bag.

    Two things I notice almost immediately. First, there are a lot of useful resources out there; I’ve explored advice from the Red Cross, FEMA’s Ready.gov, Habitat for Humanity, and the Benton County Sheriff’s Office, among others. I have a list called “The 6 P’s of evacuation” and one that has advice on items to take in an evacuation if you have 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 2 hours to get out. The Red Cross sells ready-made emergency kits for your car and your home, first aid kits, and more.

    The second thing I notice is how weirdly enjoyable I find learning how to prepare for an evacuation or other emergency is.  Addressing my fears head on feels good.  Although I know that our weather disasters are no longer predictable based on historical precedent, it’s immediately clear to me that there are things I can do to improve our family’s chances of staying safe in emergencies. This is empowering; I find that once I get started, I want to keep going.

    I start with an extra backpack I have lying around, and an old brochure from the Benton County Sheriff’s office for an emergency vehicle kit. Because it’s winter and it’s been so cold, I pack a warm layer of clothes, gloves, and an emergency blanket. I add water purification tablets, energy bars, a flashlight and headlamp, matches, and a four days worth of necessary meds. Then I get hand sanitizer, paracord, several respirator masks and a couple of heavy duty garbage bags.

    There are things I need to add, so I make a list: a swiss army knife, a liter of water, an extra charger battery for phones, paper maps, and a basic first aid kit. I make a list of emergency contacts, bank account numbers, copies of my passport and driver’s license, and add some cash.

    I decide on one last step for my go bag. To address the fear that movie scene brings up, I make a list of what to grab in the event of an evacuation where I have a few minutes to spare. I put a copy in my go bag and one on my bulletin board.

    Here’s my list:

    Keys, purse, checkbook and passport
    Extra meds, glasses, water, and food
    Laptop and charger
    Cell phone and charger
    Dog food, toys, leash, etc.
    Bag of favorite clothes
    Favorite photos
    Important medical and financial records
    Safety deposit box keys

    This feels like a good start.

    Next, I’ll start working on emergency supplies at home in case we need to shelter in place. I’ll write about that in an upcoming post.

  • Introducing Lifeboating! A new blog about local resilience

    Introducing Lifeboating! A new blog about local resilience

    What if we imagine that our political, economic, food, energy, and governance systems are destabilizing along with our global climate? What might a life-affirming and hopeful response look like? How might we begin to find a new path in our communities?

    This is the question I’ve been obsessed with lately, and what I want to write about here. But let me start with a disclaimer: First, the future is unknowable. As obvious as this sounds, it took me many years of placing too much stock in predictions, models, and assessments made by experts before I fully took this to heart. Still, I’ve loved biology since I was 14, and I’ve been doing climate work in some form for the past 20 years. If experience leads to insight, I may have something useful to say 😊.

    I’m starting up this blog to share my thoughts about how I see our current situation, and the work that is calling to me going forward. I plan to explore ways to build and strengthen local resilience and to live with more integrity in our destabilizing world. This includes shifting toward a life supported by clean energy, rebuilding local food systems, exploring disaster preparedness, waste reduction, and much more. I will also be looking for ways to do effective climate work at the local level. In his new novel Sun House, David James Duncan refers to this as lifeboat work, and I am drawn to the image of community lifeboats to help us weather an uncertain future.

    I don’t see a pathway for avoiding truly major climate harms in the coming decades. Protecting and strengthening life support systems on scales within our communities feels like the most useful, constructive and life affirming work I can do right now. At the same time, the clean energy transition has begun, and the faster it proceeds, the more chances we’ll have to protect what we need and love on earth. So local resilience and local climate solutions are what I’ll be writing about here. I hope you’ll come along with me on this exploration. If you have ideas, feedback, or questions, I’d love to hear from you!