At least once a year, every household in the small neighbourhood of Skoklefall just outside of Oslo, Norway assembles with their mowers, garbage bags, clippers and weed wackers to clean up all the public areas in the community. Playgrounds are maintained to ensure longevity, hedges in small parks or picnic areas are trimmed, lawns mowed, flower beds renewed with fresh blossoms, garbage cleared – all to beautify the neighbourhood and make it a nicer place to live in and share. Everyone does it willingly and voluntarily and they all have fun catching up with neighbours. This admirable practice is what they call a Dugnad (literally meaning “voluntary (community) work”) and is held whenever there’s a need to better a certain aspect of a community as a whole. Should a school start looking a bit drab, a Dugnad could be called where all the parents convene to roll out a new fresh coat of paint. It saves buckets of money and engenders feelings of citizenship and pride. There are even nation-wide Dugnads! My question is, why don’t we see this across the pond in Canada?! If everyone contributed in their own small way, we’d all be better off as a whole. It’s not a difficult concept to grasp but tougher than nails to implement.

Take our most basic need for instance. In a country as rich as ours, how can it be that over 720,000 Canadians need to use a food bank to make ends meet in any given month? Even with a job, some of these people struggle to feed their families. Something has to be done to eliminate the need for the nearly 300,000 children that went hungry last month. We have over 33 million people in this country. That means that even if only 3% of us donate a can of food a month, there would be no need for a National Hunger Awareness Day. So on Thursday June 5th, get into the spirit of Dugnad and do something to help eliminate hunger in Canada. We are all connected to each other so everything we do has a potentially monumental ripple effect on everyone and everything else, especially when our actions are focused on improving more than just ourselves and our lives. Just your signature in a National Hunger Awareness Day petition to urge Federal Government to take action can do the trick. But while you do that, also box up a few non-perishable food items and haul it down to your local food bank, cause even though we can persuade the House of Commons to develop a national anti-poverty strategy, you can rest assured that they’ll be takin’ their sweet time doin’ it! Please read on to learn more about National Hunger Awareness Day and what you can do to affect change.

Official press release for National Hunger Awareness Day:

The Face of Hunger Will Surprise You
Many Working Canadians resort to food banks for essential food

Thursday June 5, 2008 is National Hunger Awareness Day; Canadian Association of Food Banks calling for increased awareness of hunger in Canada, public engagement, and government action on 4-step plan to reduce need for food banks.

Toronto, June 2 — The Canadian Association of Food Banks (CAFB) is calling on all Canadians to learn about and act on hunger in Canada. On June 5, 2008, National Hunger Awareness Day (NHAD) will provide an opportunity for Canadians to get involved through activities at their local food bank, and by signing the CAFB Hunger Awareness Day petition. The CAFB is also putting forward a 4-step plan that, if implemented, will reduce the need for food banks in Canada.

More than 720,000 Canadians are assisted by community food banks every month. 39% of those helped are children under age 18, and 51% of assisted households are families with at least one child.

It is a discouraging reality that, of the more than 720,000 individuals assisted each month, 19% – more than 133,000 people – live in households where the primary source of income is from employment or Employment Insurance.

“I’ve been working all my life,” says Glenn Kitchener, a food bank client and volunteer living in Toronto. “But I had some bad luck with my health, and worked for an employer that didn’t support me while I got better. I was able to find a food bank that provided me with much-needed food, and also an opportunity to volunteer and contribute to the community. Now that I’ve started working again, the food bank is continuing to help me until I’m up to full-time hours.”

“Most people likely know someone in their community who uses a food bank, even if they don’t realize it,” says Katharine Schmidt, Executive Director, CAFB. “Working people, seniors, families with children, people with disabilities can all face barriers to earning sufficient income to provide food for themselves and their families. This has been a problem for over 20 years, and we need support from all Canadians – and all Canadian governments – to solve it.”

The CAFB Hunger Awareness Day petition provides 4 steps the federal government can take to reduce the need for food banks:

· Develop a National Anti-Poverty Strategy

· Reform the Employment Insurance system to make it more fair

· Move forward on a $5,000 Canada Child Tax Benefit

· Invest in affordable housing and child care

For more information on hunger in Canada, please click here for some of the statistics

About the Canadian Association of Food Banks (CAFB)

The CAFB is a national charitable organization representing the food bank community across Canada. More than 720,000 people access food banks each month – 39% are children. CAFB conducts research, engages in public education and advocates for public policy change to eliminate the causes of hunger and poverty in Canada. In 2007, the CAFB acquired and shared 8 million pounds of food industry donations through its National Food Sharing System for hungry Canadians.