Join Walt's Team! Help Cure Blindness

It's too late for me to see, but there are millions of others who might
see again or see for the first time. And you can help make that possible
by supporting VisionWalk 2010 in Kansas City. It's a fund-raiser for the
Foundation Fighting Blindness and I'm pleased to be honorary walk
chairman of the walk, June 26th. Please join my team! Here's how:
http://www.fightblindness.org/goto/Bodine

'My Story' Summed up by Fox4

Here's "My Story" as reported by Fox4's Tess Koppelman and crew. (If the embedded video below doesn't play, try this direct link to the video.)

National Study On Hunger Underscores Magnitude Of Harvesters’ Task

Hunger In America 2010 

A new national report, Hunger In America 2010, reveals an alarming increase in need for emergency food assistance. In the Kansas City area, the most important resource for that assistance is Harvesters Community Food Network. 

The name Harvesters is well known to most folks in our area. Their familiar food donation barrels and numerous cooperative programs have made the food assistance network a household word. Harvesters is by far the most utilized, and sometimes the only, source of food for area food pantries and kitchens. But behind the image is an impressive large-scale effort to collect, distribute, and utilize contributions to the emergency food program from a wide array of sources. 

Harvesters Super Bowl Week Of Caring

The new study released last week makes a dramatic case for such emergency food relief in our area, and the importance of increasing community support for the regional food bank. Hunger in America 2010 studied 185 food banks like Harvesters, conducted 61,000 face-to-face interviews, and surveyed more than 37,000 individual relief agencies. According to the study, Harvesters provides 73 percent of the food distributed by regional food pantries, 53 percent of food served at soup kitchens, and 35 percent of food provided at emergency shelters.

The Hunger in America survey quantifies the severity of increasing need with some compelling statistics. Covering 26 counties across northwestern Missouri and northeastern Kansas, the new study reveals that a staggering 295,200 different people have received emergency food assistance each year through agencies served by Harvesters. “As a result of the most severe economic recession since the Great Depression and the highest unemployment rates since World War II, more people than ever are seeking emergency food assistance,” said Karen Haren, Harvesters’ president and CEO. “In 2009, we distributed 36.6 million pounds of food, which is 30 percent more than at any time in our 30-year history.” 

Links to the report’s key findings, as well as the full report in both local and national versions can be found at the Harvesters Hunger In America 2010 web page.

Startling Statistics:

Consider these disturbing study results released by Harvesters last week in the key study findings for Kansas City and the surrounding region:

• 37 percent of all members of households served in 2009 are children (up to 109,224 children overall).

• 45 percent of these children come from single-parent households.

• 39 percent of households have at least one adult who is working. Yet nearly three quarters (73 percent) have incomes at or below poverty level.

• 74 percent of food pantries and 82 percent of kitchens report an increase in need at their facilities since 2005.

• 25 percent of households have at least one member in poor health, thirty-one percent have no health insurance, and fifty-three percent have unpaid medical bills.

The study compared Harvesters food recipients to the U.S. government’s official food security scale. According to the USDA, Missouri ranks sixth nationally in food insecurity, and Kansas, eighth.

• 78 percent of households with children are considered “food insecure” and 34 percent are classified as having “very low food security.” In other words, there are a lot of children out there who would go hungry without the benefit of the Harvesters Network.

• Seniors are also at risk of going hungry, with 76 percent of recipient households with seniors classified as “food insecure”.

Working Families Also At Risk

Hunger threatens the employed as well as unemployed: “When people lose jobs, have a sudden illness or simply need a car repair, it can be devastating to a family,” said Haren.

K.C. will miss Wendall Anschutz

My hat is off to a long-time K.C. broadcaster Wendall Anschutz, who died Jan. 8, 2010.  The old cliche, "he was a gentleman and a scholar," applies well to Wendall. My sympathies go out to his wife, Nita, their family, and Wendall's many colleagues and friends. Here is a collection of photos from Wendall's career.