SWMDDA Meeting: Food Insecurity in SW Michigan

This was a fun event. I drove to the culinary campus right after work to catch Courtney Afton, who was teaching this wonderful seminar to our dietetics association. I’ve seen her teach this before – I met her through a mutual friend two years ago, and she made a huge impact on me. She’s bit younger than I am but very wise, and gave me good counsel when I was early on in schooling. She has a cool job – she serves the disadvantaged population of Kalamazoo under the umbrella of integrated services = patients with mental illness, substance abuse, transportation and living expense problems, and all sorts of chaotic life circumstances. We are lucky to have her! We did a group exercise, where she gives us a box donated from Loaves and Fishes and has us tear it apart and try to figure out how many meals we can make out of it. It was hard for everyone else, and easy for me, unfortunately. I wonder how many people in that room have ever had to do this for themselves.

It was easy because I saw firsthand the other end of it. I know how to do this because I watched my mom do something similar for years.

Also, this was the first meeting of this kind (I’ve been to several others) where I actually felt I belonged in that room. Now that I’m wrapping up my degree, I am much more confident in what I know and the value I can bring to the field as a person and as a professional, regardless of how match turns out next month. It’s still tricky explaining how I got to this place when it comes up in conversation, but it makes for a good story, if a little confusing.