Community Food Injustice

When we first arrived at the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma on Monday, I remember feeling initially overwhelmed just by the scope of everything. The building was much larger than I anticipated, since I was expecting it to be more like the Food Pantry located in Iowa City. It was somewhat surreal to see so much food stored in one area, along with seeing a forklifts around just to take some materials around. The pace of service was much more intense than I was expecting as well. For the most part, our acts of service was fairly simple, such as putting labels on green beans cans or scribbling out scan codes on bread loafs. However, since we had so many people along with a lot of food to deal with, it made the work environment all the

I expected the visitors to mostly be middle aged to elderly. While I definitely saw a lot of people in that age range, I also saw a good number of younger people in need of food. Some of them even looked to be around my age, which I thought was incredibly disheartening. I should have known that food injustice could affect anyone at any age, but I didn’t fully come into my conscious until I was at the frontlines of the soup kitchen. There was a young couple with two little girls, making me realize how there are children literally born into food

After getting to know a few of them, it helped me develop a deeper understanding of Tulsa's community. Several of these kids had difficulties learning in a public school setting, whether it was because of a learning disability or ill-equipped teachers. It was enlightening to listen to their concerns on their community and how their lives have improved through this non-profit organization. One girl in particular described stated that she repeated a grade three times, due to the poor learning environment she was placed in. This was an instance where I felt like we were truly serving with the community as opposed to serving to a community. It also made me realize how intersectional food justice is to several fields, such as youth education. With the substandard conditions of these schools, they sometimes don’t provide offer nutritional food to their students. Food justice does not discriminate towards anybody, so when somebody offers to volunteer for the cause, they create more change than they