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Nutrition Programs
Program History and Need
For over 33 years as the Arcata Endeavor NCRC has served the poor in the City of Arcata. Since 1999 NCRC has provided supportive and essential services from its present location at the Arcata Service Center (ASC). Prior to occupation of the ASC Food Pantry monthly boxes were distributed from the basement of a local church.
In the 2000 census it was recorded that 32.3% of the city population subsists below the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). It is to this population the services offered by NCRC are focused, particularly the Nutrition Program.
With little money with which to purchase food, it has been well documented in many sources that low-income families and individuals will tend to turn to less expensive foods with higher fat content and calories and lesser nutritional value, to assuage their hunger.
A study by the California Center for Rural Policy (Investigating Very Low Food Security in the Redwood Coast Region, Patterson and Arsdale 2008) begins “The prevalence of very low food security in the Redwood Coast Region is more than 2 times the prevalence in California”. The study asserts; “Very low food security is a measure of severe food insecurity resulting in reduced food intake, disrupted eating patterns or hunger. Food insecurity is associated with numerous poor health outcomes including: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and poor cognitive, academic and psychosocial outcomes”.
With increasing local layoffs, local employment opportunities are substantially reduced. Exhausting Unemployment Insurance Benefits, and all other possible forms of income, the numbers of individuals accessing our services that report any income decreased to only 22% during the first six months of 2008 over the same period in 2007 (46%). The numbers of individuals that have no other real source of food is growing steadily as the economic picture darkens in this region.
