The StoryTelling Project

About

Our Beginnings

This project was born out of the Hunger Coalition and will help create meaningful and equitable engagement with Cortland County residents with lived experience of food insecurity to better understand the root causes, challenges, and solutions to hunger in the County. 

Our Approach

Through 1-on-1 conversations, we invite local individuals to share their story privately with our staff on a desired basis. After these conversations, our team will analyze the interview findings and collected stories to help bring hunger, food insecurity, and food access issues into focus to show what food our neighbors, friends, co-workers, and community members face. These stories will ultimately help identify and create needed changes in Cortland County.

Want to learn more about our project and it’s history in the Cortland area? Click here!

Project Goals

• We aim to speak with at least 150 community members about their lived experiences with hunger.

• We will use our findings to help address food insecurity and reduce stigma, help educate our community and leaders on food insecurity, and to help reduce the overall rate of food insecurity in the Cortland area. 

• We aim to bring 5 new community members to our Hunger Coalition meeting. These community members will help to ensure we have the voices of Cortland County individuals represented as we continue to work to address hunger.  (If you are interested in joining the please connect with us here!)

• We aim to hear from people across various age groups, races, ethnicities, genders, and diverse communities.

• We will help uplift the lived experiences of people who have experienced food insecurity in Cortland through the art of storytelling.

What is Food Insecurity?

Food insecurity often is known as a lack of consistent access to enough food for every person in a household to live an active, healthy life. Food insecurity can be not knowing where your next meal will come from, not having consistent access to enough food, visiting a food pantry or qualifying for SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) / WIC (Women Infants Children), etc. Food insecurity can be a temporary issue or a long-term challenge and people may experience food insecurity for many reasons. Some of the most reported are poverty, domestic violence, loss of a job, or other changes in circumstances.

Struggling in Silence: Stories of Food Insecurity in Cortland County