December 2, 2002

CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES TO HELP
PHILABUNDANCE OPTIMIZE FOOD DISTRIBUTION

Poverty and hunger aren’t issues that are happening “elsewhere.” Families are struggling to feed their children right in your own neighborhoods. According to the USDA, more than 500,000 in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are suffering from hunger.

The Center for Sustainable Communities at Temple University Ambler has entered into a partnership with Philabundance, a non-profit, Philadelphia-based organization that collects and distributes donated food, to optimize its hunger relief operation.

“We will be primarily involved in the mapping of hunger relief agency service areas and the neighborhoods that are more prone to instances of poverty. We want to help Philabundance ensure that the agencies are in the areas of greatest need,” said Dr. Jeffrey Featherstone, Director for the Center for Sustainable Communities and Chair of the Department of Community and Regional Planning at Temple. “The proposal will be submitted by Philabundance and the Center. We’d like to establish a long-term collaborative relationship between the two organizations.”

According to Bill Clark, Executive Director of Philabundance, the goal of the project is to “provide an effective hunger relief response consistent to the distribution of poverty and hunger in the Delaware Valley.”

“Philabundance operates by having a fleet of trucks deliver food to agencies that, in turn, distribute it to people and families in need. The agencies include food kitchens, food cupboards, emergency shelters — all grass roots organizations,” Clark said. “It became obvious to us that the geographic distribution of hunger and poverty in our area did not directly correlate with the distribution of those agencies. Some areas in need had very little support, while in some there were numerous relief agencies.”

Through the project with the Center, Clark said, Philabundance plans to map the distribution of people in need and compare it with the current hunger response network, identify gaps in service and “prioritize addressing those gaps.”

“For a project like this, we needed a center with GIS (Geographic Information Systems) capabilities,” he said. “Temple’s Center for Sustainable Communities provides the technical and academic background we needed combined with expertise in the social sciences that Temple has as a whole.”

In order to improve the delivery of food, predominantly produce, to the hunger relief agencies, comprehensive GIS mapping developed by Temple University Ambler GIS coordinators A.S.M. Abdul Bari and Md Mahbubur R. Meenar will be utilized to optimize the efficiency of delivery — getting the delivery trucks from Point A to Point B in the most effective way possible.

“Potentially there will be a second phase to this project where we go directly to the agencies to determine who is receiving the food and how,” Dr. Featherstone said. “We would look at the system for any overlap with the goal of increasing the overall service coverage and efficiency of distribution.”

Established in 1984, Philabundance is a leader in getting perishable food to people in need. The organization collects donated food from restaurants, grocers, caterers, and other businesses and distributes it free of charge to local organizations serving people in their neighborhoods.

Philabundance has distributed over 10 million pounds of food since January 1, 2002, to hunger relief agencies throughout the Delaware Valley, which includes, Philadelphia, Montgomery, Bucks, Chester, and Delaware counties in Pennsylvania and Mercer, Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester counties in New Jersey.

“GIS mapping seems to be just now coming to the forefront in tackling social issues,” Clark said. “First it was used for transportation systems, then regional planning. Now we are talking about distributions of specific human populations and the issues these people face.”

Clark said through this project Philabundance would like to become home to a “database platform” that other social service organizations would find useful in helping track and service various types of issues “from hunger to domestic abuse to literacy to health screenings, etc.”

“Whether it’s food cupboards or disease screenings, most of these services are offered at a grassroots level. Until now, detailed mapping of service areas really wasn’t available,” he said. “I know a lot of my colleagues will find this analysis worthwhile.”

For more information on the Center for Sustainable Communities and Philabundance project, call 215-283-1540. For more information on Philabundance, call 215-339-0900 or 856-665-0707 or visit the Philabundance website at www.philabundance.org.

Temple University Ambler College is dedicated to promoting sustainable communities, effective land use, and environmental awareness. Students can choose from a B.S. and M.S. in Community and Regional Planning; B.S., A.S., or credit certificate programs in Horticulture; or a B.S. in Landscape Architecture. Students may begin over 100 Temple undergraduate programs and complete a variety of degree programs in areas such as liberal arts, business, education, communications, and nursing at Ambler. For more information on Temple University Ambler’s undergraduate programs, call 215-283-1500.