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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20231130
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SUMMARY:Energy & Engagement Tracking
DESCRIPTION:[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”50px” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”column_reverse” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overflow=”visible” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none” gradient_type=”default” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”padding-2-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color=”#f7f7f7″ background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” el_class=”podcast-sidebar” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/4″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][image_with_animation image_url=”147768″ image_size=”full” animation_type=”entrance” animation=”None” animation_movement_type=”transform_y” hover_animation=”none” alignment=”” border_radius=”none” box_shadow=”none” image_loading=”default” max_width=”100%” max_width_mobile=”default”][nectar_btn size=”large” constrain_group_1=”yes” open_new_tab=”true” button_style=”regular” button_color_2=”Accent-Color” solid_text_color_override=”#ffffff” icon_family=”none” text=”Subscribe Now” url=”https://www.buzzsprout.com/2099983/share” margin_top=”30″ margin_bottom=”30″][vc_column_text]Subscribe to the “Practicing Connection” monthly email to keep up to date on our latest podcasts\, blog posts and workshops. \nJoin the “Practicing Connection Community” on LinkedIn. The community is designed for people who support military families in a variety of settings both on installations and in our communities.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”padding-4-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”3/4″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” 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use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][vc_raw_html]JTNDZGl2JTIwaWQlM0QlMjJidXp6c3Byb3V0LXBsYXllci0xMzk5MTg2OCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRmRpdiUzRSUzQ3NjcmlwdCUyMHNyYyUzRCUyMmh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmJ1enpzcHJvdXQuY29tJTJGMjA5OTk4MyUyRjEzOTkxODY4LWVuZXJneS1hbmQtZW5nYWdlbWVudC10cmFja2luZy5qcyUzRmNvbnRhaW5lcl9pZCUzRGJ1enpzcHJvdXQtcGxheWVyLTEzOTkxODY4JTI2cGxheWVyJTNEc21hbGwlMjIlMjB0eXBlJTNEJTIydGV4dCUyRmphdmFzY3JpcHQlMjIlMjBjaGFyc2V0JTNEJTIydXRmLTglMjIlM0UlM0MlMkZzY3JpcHQlM0U=[/vc_raw_html][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”About This Episode” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][vc_column_text](Season 4\, Episode 14) \nThe more you understand about yourself\, the better you’ll be able to align your life with the things that are really meaningful to you.\nIn this practicast\, Practicing Connection co-host\, Jessica Beckendorf\, shares her experience with energy and engagement tracking\, a practice adapted from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’ book\, “Designing Your Life.” \n“Practicasts” are shorter episodes of the podcast highlighting a specific practice to help empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness. \nLinks\n\nEnergy & Engagement Tracking Activity Log\nDesigning Your Life (Book)\n\n[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all” el_id=”trans”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” el_class=”entry” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][vc_custom_heading text=”Transcript” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][nectar_btn size=”large” button_style=”regular” button_color_2=”Accent-Color” icon_family=”none” nofollow=”true” el_class=”read-it” button_id=”read-it” text=”Read More” url=”#trans”][vc_column_text el_class=”pod-trans”][music]\nBob Bertsch: The more you understand about yourself\, the better you’ll be able to align your life with the things that are really meaningful to you. Hi\, everyone. I’m Bob Bertsch. Welcome to this week’s Practicing Connection practicast\, where we highlight a specific practice you can use in your personal and professional growth. This week’s practice is Energy and Engagement Tracking from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’s book Designing Your Life. Here to share her experience with the practice is my practicing connection co-host Jessica Beckendorf. \nJessica Beckendorf: I love this activity. It has helped me to understand which activities\, projects\, and tasks I am most connected to. I’m excited to share my slightly modified version with all of you. \nBob: Can you tell us a little bit about Energy and Engagement Tracking? \nJessica: Absolutely. Energy and Engagement Tracking is all about reflecting on the activities\, projects\, and tasks that make you feel energized and engaged\, and inflow\, or some combination of all three. The goal here isn’t to ensure that everything you do is always energizing\, engaging\, and puts you in flow. The goal is to understand exactly what energizes and engages you and which tasks put you into flow and then examine how much time you’re spending doing the things that make you feel energized and engaged and the amount of time you’re spending on doing things that drain you. \nWhen you have that\, I guess\, figured out\, from there\, you can figure out how you’re going to do more of what you love and a little bit less of what drains you. I know that this can sound almost impossible if you feel like you have no control over what you do or the tasks that you have in your work or frankly at home sometimes\, but you do have some agency over your career or over some bigger picture pieces. \nAn example that Bill Burnett and Dave Evans share where an engineer realized what he loved to do and what drained him. Prior to doing this activity\, he was considering going back to school for a business degree. After doing this activity\, he realized it would’ve really been a big mistake because what he discovered was that he really loved engineering\, so he ended up doubling down and getting an advanced degree in engineering instead. \nHe concentrated on an area that allowed him to solve complex problems because that’s the thing that he loved the most\, was solving complex problems and minimizing the activities that were bogging him down like administrative details. I don’t know who loves administrative details\, but I know that there are probably people who do. \nBob: Some people do. \nJessica: Yes. Sorry. Obviously\, that is my own self coming out there. [laughs] I don’t love administrative details. What I like about using this activity to follow what lights you up\, activity you mentioned or even a values exploration\, you could also use this to follow up a values exploration\, is that it helps you to see what you love to do in the context of what lights you up and the things that you value and care about. \nBob: I know you’ve done this tracking yourself. How has it helped you? \nJessica: Yes\, I’ve gone through this activity a few times. Usually\, I’ll go through the activity when I’m feeling a little bogged down\, or sometimes when I’m feeling overwhelmed\, or when I’m having trouble feeling motivated. I would say that the activity has helped me a few different ways. One way it has helped me is to see patterns in what I enjoy doing. \nWhen I realized that I’m energized and engaged when I have a microphone in my hand\, which is a little embarrassing to admit. [chuckles] I have to say it’s a little embarrassing. [laughs] When I looked at my energy and engagement tracker\, I realized that my current job provided me with many opportunities to have a figurative microphone in my hand\, even if it’s not usually a literal one. \nFacilitating\, for example. It helped me to see my facilitating work differently and enjoy it even more than I already did. I already love facilitating\, but there were times when I just felt very drained by it depending on the circumstance. When I realized that facilitating was one path toward that thing I really love\, which is I guess in a way entertaining or performing– When I realized that that was something– it was a pathway towards something I loved\, it helped me to see facilitating even in those moments where it would’ve been more draining in the past. \nIt helped me to see those moments as something that I love as well. Another way this activity has helped me was to point out that I was spending a lot more time on things that really drained me. While I couldn’t rid myself of all of those tasks\, there were a few I was able to pinpoint to identify and negotiate for someone else to take those tasks on\, like being the primary point of contact for a small program that I ran. It drained me to think that I might be a bottleneck. \nIf I’m being honest\, it drained me to know that I was a bottleneck. I was able to negotiate with one of our administrative staff to be the primary point of contact for that program\, only involving me when there was a more complex issue that required my attention. For the things that I couldn’t offload\, it was still really helpful to know that those tasks drained me because I could plan to do them when I had the most energy for them or I could plan to co-work with a colleague to make it a little more fun. \nBob: When we do this practice\, how are we able to tell what gives us energy or gets us engaged\, or at least\, how did you tell that for yourself? \nJessica: This is a really good question. I think it’s probably a lot easier for some of us to know what drains us versus what gives us energy and puts us into a flow. I bet anyone listening\, and I bet you can as well\, think of some things off the top of your head that you hate doing. A lot of times these are the things that you procrastinate on. They’re the things that you can’t muster the energy to do because it drains your energy so much that you don’t even want to get started on it. Those are the things that you know will drain you. I want you to track those just as much as the things that give you energy and engagement. \nHow I knew is when I thought about the activities that made me feel energized and engaged. It was more of a gut reaction for me. I’ll give you a couple of clues. Reflecting back on how I felt doing that activity or working on that project\, so really trying to immerse myself in that moment\, even though the moment has passed\, and really reflect back\, “How did I feel doing that? How did I feel about the people I was working with\, and how did it feel to work with them?” \nFor me\, when I thought about an activity that made me feel energized or engaged\, I just felt a little lighter. I maybe even smiled a little when I thought about it. Then\, I would think about\, “Okay\, was it energizing or engaging or a little bit of both?” Then after I figured out what level I felt like I was energized or engaged\, I would think about\, “Okay\, was that a flow activity?” I would remember the energy I was feeling in the moment and how it felt to engage in that activity. \nI remembered how focused I was on the activity task or project. Those are the two main things to think about. How did you feel like? Were you energized by the task\, or the project\, or the activity? How did it feel to engage in that activity? Were you highly engaged? Were you sitting back and just listening? Then\, how focused were you on the activity\, task\, or project? \nIf you weren’t very focused on it at all\, then it was not a flow moment. I can tell you that. [chuckles] The questions to ask yourself when you think about flow is\, were you so focused that the next time you looked at your clock\, it was hours later and you only looked up because you were hungry? That’s a good sign that you found an activity that puts you in flow. \nI would say most of the activities that I track\, anytime I do this activity\, most of them are not flow activities\, but tracking when you’re in flow is still a really good way to tell which activities put you in flow. \nThere are a few activities though that were also contextual for me. Writing is one of those activities that seems to show up as an activity that gives me energy and really engages me. It can even put me in flow\, but not always. It depends on what I’m writing\, what mood I’m in\, whether I’m feeling rushed by other projects\, or whether I’m feeling overwhelmed in general. Sometimes\, an activity could be contextual. I always have been a person who felt like writing was part of my identity. When I saw that I was drained by writing\, it was disappointing. I just got curious about that\, and I investigated that a little more\, and I realized it was contextual. \nBob: I think it’s time to give this a try\, Jessica. Would you mind walking us through the steps? \nJessica: Yes\, of course. It’s really a pretty easy activity. I’ll walk you through it the way I like to practice it\, which is a slight modification of how Bill Burnett and Dave Evans teach it. First\, you’ll want to start a page in your journal or start a note in your favorite app or you can download the worksheet at the link that we provided in the show notes. Next\, you’re going to reflect on your activities over the past three to four weeks. \nNow\, this is the way I do it. Sometimes\, getting out your calendar and looking at the same time can help. If looking back three to four weeks is too long of a time period for you\, you can instead just reflect on the past week\, and then you can repeat the activity for the next 2-3 weeks so that you have a little more data to work with. On the far left of your page\, you’re going to list the activities\, tasks\, and projects that you recall doing. I’m not talking about taking out the trash\, although if you want to list it\, you’re very welcome to do that. I’m talking about the activities\, tasks\, and projects that were more significant. \nThen for each item on your list\, you’re going to rate your energy level on a 1-5 scale\, or of course\, if you’re using the downloadable\, there’s a little scale that you can use. Rate your energy level on a 1-5 scale with 1 being low. You’ll then rate your engagement level on a scale of 1-5\, again with 1 being low. Write the word flow next to any activity for what you feel you might have been in flow. Again\, flow is the state of being so energized and focused that you might even lose track of time. Next\, once you have 3-4 weeks of data\, take a look at it and see if you find any patterns\, trends\, or new insights. Think about what specifically contributed to your energy and engagement ratings. \nFor example\, was it the meeting itself that was energizing\, or was it something that happened at the meeting or something that you contributed to the meeting that was energizing for you? Was it because you were able to dig into something with no interruptions\, or was it because there was a group of people involved and everyone was building on an idea together? Be as specific as it’s helpful for you to fully understand why an activity was draining or energizing and engaging. \nFinally\, brainstorm some ideas on how you can make some adjustments that will allow you to do a little more of what you love and a little less of what you don’t. You can take it a little further by imagining some bigger goals if you like. For now\, just even small tweaks to our current situation could go a long way when we’re coming from a place of self-knowledge and intention. \nBob: Thanks for guiding us through that\, Jessica. \nJessica: You’re welcome. I really enjoy this activity because it has been so eye-opening for me in the past. \nBob: That’s it for this episode. Thanks for joining us. We hope you’ll give this practice a try and share your experience in the practicing connection community on LinkedIn\, where people supporting military families practice the skills that empower us to work together so that we can positively impact our communities and help families thrive. You’ll find the link to the community on our website at oneop.org/practicingconnection. We’ll be back next week with an in-depth podcast episode sharing reflections from some of our guests from the past years on the topic of finding balance. Until then\, keep practicing. \nKalin Goble: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture\, US Department of Agriculture\, and the Office of Military\, Family Readiness Policy\, US Department of Defense\, under award numbers 2019-48770-30366 and 2023-48770-41333. \n[music]\n[00:13:35] [END OF AUDIO][/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
URL:https://oneop.org/learn/energy-engagement-tracking-s-4-ep-14/
CATEGORIES:Community Engagement
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DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20231123
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20231124
DTSTAMP:20260503T065114
CREATED:20231123T121545Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240508T131739Z
UID:10001404-1700697600-1700783999@oneop.org
SUMMARY:Grounding Chair Meditation
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The community is designed for people who support military families in a variety of settings both on installations and in our communities.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”padding-4-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”3/4″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”Listen” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][vc_raw_html]JTNDZGl2JTIwaWQlM0QlMjJidXp6c3Byb3V0LXBsYXllci0xMzk5MDI2NCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRmRpdiUzRSUzQ3NjcmlwdCUyMHNyYyUzRCUyMmh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmJ1enpzcHJvdXQuY29tJTJGMjA5OTk4MyUyRjEzOTkwMjY0LWdyb3VuZGluZy1jaGFpci1tZWRpdGF0aW9uLmpzJTNGY29udGFpbmVyX2lkJTNEYnV6enNwcm91dC1wbGF5ZXItMTM5OTAyNjQlMjZwbGF5ZXIlM0RzbWFsbCUyMiUyMHR5cGUlM0QlMjJ0ZXh0JTJGamF2YXNjcmlwdCUyMiUyMGNoYXJzZXQlM0QlMjJ1dGYtOCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRnNjcmlwdCUzRQ==[/vc_raw_html][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”About This Episode” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][vc_column_text](Season 4\, Episode 13) \nWhen it comes to reducing the effects of stress on our bodies\, a growing amount of research supports meditation as a practice that pays off in a big way.\nIn this practicast\, Practicing Connection co-host\, Bob Bertsch\, guides us through a grounding chair meditation\, a practice that can help reduce stress levels in the moment\, while helping to restore calm. \n“Practicasts” are shorter episodes of the podcast highlighting a specific practice to help empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness. \nLinks\n\nMeditation: A simple\, fast way to reduce stress (Mayo Clinic)\n\n[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all” el_id=”trans”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” el_class=”entry” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][vc_custom_heading text=”Transcript” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][nectar_btn size=”large” button_style=”regular” button_color_2=”Accent-Color” icon_family=”none” nofollow=”true” el_class=”read-it” button_id=”read-it” text=”Read More” url=”#trans”][vc_column_text el_class=”pod-trans”][music] \nJessica Beckendorf: When it comes to reducing the effects of stress on our bodies\, a growing amount of research supports meditation as a practice that pays off in a big way. Hi\, everyone. This is Jessica\, and welcome to this week’s Practicing Connection practicast\, where we highlight a specific practice to help empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness. We’ll continue to share our monthly in-depth episode with you\, but now\, you can also listen in for a few minutes each week to get inspired by a new practice on the practicast. We hope you’ll give these practices a try and find them useful. \nThis week’s practice is a grounding chair meditation. This practice can help reduce stress levels in the moment while helping to restore calm. It’s easy to do and can take as little as two minutes or less. My Practicing Connection co-host\, Bob Bertsch\, will be guiding us through the practice in a few minutes\, but first\, let’s learn a little bit more about it. Hi\, Bob. \nBob Bertsch: Hey\, Jessica. I’m excited for this conversation. The grounding chair meditation is something I do often to help me when I’m feeling worried\, or stressed out\, or overwhelmed\, and I am looking forward to sharing it on the practicast. \nJessica: I am too. It’s actually a practice that I have struggled with\, but I do it anyway sometimes because even though I struggle with it\, it still helps me in the moment. What has your experience been with this activity? \nBob: I’ve been practicing meditation for a little more than three years. It started during the pandemic\, actually. Jessica got me started. Thank you for sending me the link to that app\, and that really got me going. Grounding meditations like the one we’ll be sharing today are a regular part of my practice. They can be really important as a mindfulness practice because they’re designed to help you focus your attention. \nI also am able to notice the benefits of grounding meditations a little bit more than other kinds of meditation. I can feel my stress level decrease a little bit\, and I’ve noticed that I stay attentive to a task a little bit longer. In general\, I practice meditation because I just want to be happier and be a better person\, but the progress I’m making towards those goals isn’t always the most noticeable. It’s much easier to see the benefits I’m getting from grounding meditation\, and that keeps me going on my meditation practice as well. \nI also use grounding meditation in the moment when I’m feeling particularly stressed or overwhelmed. For example\, if I’m in a meeting and something’s happening that’s making me feel anxious or angry\, I just take a few seconds to pay attention to my body and its connection with the physical world. That can be feeling my hands touching the arms of my chair\, or I might put my hands on the surface of my desk or the table in front of me\, and just focus on the contact that I can feel there. \nIf I feel like I want to be maybe a little less obvious in my movements\, if we’re in a face-to-face meeting\, I might press my feet a little harder down on the floor\, so I can feel that contact between the bottom of my feet and the floor\, something physical. For me\, paying attention to those points of contact reminds me that I exist\, we all exist in a physical world\, and that physical world is different than the world that we create in our minds. \nJessica: I’m curious to learn more about some of the research behind meditation. You clearly have had some benefits from it\, but can you share a little bit about some of the research behind this? \nBob: Yes\, so I’ll just highlight a few studies. There’s many studies out there about mindfulness practices\, specifically. Meditation and mindfulness practices have been shown to decrease your perception of how much stress you’re feeling and increase your resilience. There was a study conducted with US Marine Corps reservists that showed participation in mindfulness programming was associated with fewer attention lapses when performing demanding tasks\, so that’s the focus part. Especially with grounding meditation where we’re talking about how do we improve our concentration or our focus. A group of oncology nurses in the University of California San Diego Health System showed decreases in compassion fatigue\, burnout\, and secondary trauma after practicing a structured meditation five days a week for four weeks. That’s just a few. \nJessica: I just have one last question before we get to the instructions. I’d like to talk a little bit about perfectionism in meditation. I know that when I began to use guided meditation\, I struggled a little because sometimes\, I was very comfortably lying down\, for example\, but the instructions were to sit up with a straight spine. I wondered if I was already starting the meditation out wrong and if I wouldn’t get the full benefits. I would say that my start to meditation was a little rocky and hit-and-miss because I didn’t– I would skip it for a while because I didn’t feel like sitting up in a dining room chair to do it. [chuckles] \nBob: Yes\, I could completely get that. I think that it’s difficult any time that you have something that’s guided when you’re getting instructions\, you feel like you want to follow the instructions and that you might be doing things wrong. There really isn’t any wrong way\, no matter what the instructions are. I’m going to give some specific instructions about grounding meditation. All you really need to take away from it is I’m spending some time focusing on my contact with the physical world. You could be sitting up\, or laying down\, or standing\, or walking\, as long as you are focusing on that point of contact between your body and the physical world\, you’re going to get some kind of benefit out of it. \nDefinitely don’t get caught up in\, “Am I doing this right?” Focus maybe on the main point\, which in this case\, in grounding meditation\, is just focusing on that contact with the physical world and let the other stuff fall away. \nJessica: Let’s get started. Bob\, would you please walk us through this practice? \nBob: Sure. The first thing is that if you would like to or able to\, sit down in a chair\, on a bench. If you are sitting\, having your feet touching the ground can be helpful\, the ground or the floor. Now\, if you’re comfortable with this\, close your eyes. If you’re not comfortable closing your eyes\, you’re not in a space where you’re comfortable closing your eyes\, you can just soften your gaze\, lower your gaze. I find it helpful to take a couple of deep breaths to relax and center myself on the practice. Breathe in deeply\, and as you breathe out\, try and let go of whatever was happening before you started this practice. If you feel any tension in your body\, try to let that tension go as you breathe out\, and soften the area around your eyes\, soften the tension in your jaw\, in your shoulders. \nNow\, if you can bring your attention to your body\, think about how does your body feel sitting. We sit all the time without really being aware of how it feels to be sitting. The meditation teacher\, Joseph Goldstein\, uses the phrase\, “Sit and know your sitting.” Try to feel the places where your body is contacting the chair or bench or whatever you are sitting or laying on. Feel your weight against the seat. How does that feel? Is the seat hard or soft? Are there sensations of warm or cold? What other sensations are there? Maybe some pressure or vibration. \nNow\, if your chair has a back\, you can get that sense of sitting by feeling your back touching the back of the chair. If you’re on a bench or a stool\, just try to feel your spine holding your body upright. Some teachers will recommend if you’re having trouble with that\, to think about a string attached to the top of your head\, pulling you up a little bit\, so you can feel that uprightness. \nNow\, see if you can feel the texture of the material on the chair\, whatever your chair or bench is made of. If your chair has arms\, you can feel the surface of the arms. If not\, reach down and touch the seat of the chair. How does that feel? Is it rough or smooth? Again\, is it warm or cold? Can you feel any other sensations there? Maybe it’s vibrating. \nNow that you’ve centered your body and gotten used to that contact to the physical world\, press your feet lightly into the floor or ground. Just put a little bit of pressure onto your feet so you can feel the bottoms of your feet on the floor. Shift your awareness there and think about what you can feel there. Can you feel the increase in pressure? Is there any vibration? Maybe you feel something in your feet\, whether it’s pleasant\, unpleasant\, or neutral. Sometimes some tightness\, pressure\, pain even. Focus on that feeling of your feet contacting the ground or the floor. \nNow\, imagine the weight draining from your mind and body. Whatever heaviness that you feel in your mind or feel in your body\, feel that draining down your legs\, and into your feet\, and finally\, into the ground. Take a moment to think about how does your mind feel after doing that. Do you feel lighter? Does your body feel lighter? Can you feel the sense of your weight flowing down through your body to the ground? \nAs we close the meditation\, just take a few easy\, slow breaths. When you’re ready\, open your eyes if you had them closed\, or look up\, and return your awareness to your surroundings. A meditation practice like this can be helpful when you’re feeling stressed or a sense of being overwhelmed. It helps because you become aware of your body instead of getting lost in your mind. Thanks for practicing that with me. \nJessica: Wow. That was great\, Bob. I have never experienced the weight flowing\, that part of the exercise. I really appreciated that part of it. Thank you so much for guiding us through that. \nBob: Hey\, you’re welcome. I really enjoy talking about meditation and mindfulness practices\, so it was definitely my pleasure. \nJessica: That’s it for this episode. Thanks for joining us. We hope you’ll give this practice a try and share your experience in the Practicing Connection LinkedIn group\, where people supporting military families practice the skills that empower us to work together\, so that we can positively impact our communities and help families thrive. You’ll find the link to the group on our website at oneop.org/practicingconnection. We’ll be back next week with a practice to get to know yourself better called Energy Engagement Mapping. Until then\, keep practicing. \nKalin Goble: The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture\, US Department of Agriculture\, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy\, US Department of Defense under award numbers 2019-48770-30366 and 2023-48770-41333. \n[music] \n[00:12:16] [END OF AUDIO][/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
URL:https://oneop.org/learn/grounding-chair-meditation-s-4-ep-13/
CATEGORIES:Community Engagement
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20231116
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20231117
DTSTAMP:20260503T065114
CREATED:20231116T121537Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240508T131817Z
UID:10001402-1700092800-1700179199@oneop.org
SUMMARY:What Lights You Up?
DESCRIPTION:[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”50px” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”column_reverse” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overflow=”visible” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none” gradient_type=”default” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”padding-2-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color=”#f7f7f7″ background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” el_class=”podcast-sidebar” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/4″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][image_with_animation image_url=”147768″ image_size=”full” animation_type=”entrance” animation=”None” animation_movement_type=”transform_y” hover_animation=”none” alignment=”” border_radius=”none” box_shadow=”none” image_loading=”default” max_width=”100%” max_width_mobile=”default”][nectar_btn size=”large” constrain_group_1=”yes” open_new_tab=”true” button_style=”regular” button_color_2=”Accent-Color” solid_text_color_override=”#ffffff” icon_family=”none” text=”Subscribe Now” url=”https://www.buzzsprout.com/2099983/share” margin_top=”30″ margin_bottom=”30″][vc_column_text]Subscribe to the “Practicing Connection” monthly email to keep up to date on our latest podcasts\, blog posts and workshops. \nJoin the “Practicing Connection Community” on LinkedIn. The community is designed for people who support military families in a variety of settings both on installations and in our communities.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”padding-4-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”3/4″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”Listen” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][vc_raw_html]JTNDZGl2JTIwaWQlM0QlMjJidXp6c3Byb3V0LXBsYXllci0xMzk3OTE3NCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRmRpdiUzRSUzQ3NjcmlwdCUyMHNyYyUzRCUyMmh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmJ1enpzcHJvdXQuY29tJTJGMjA5OTk4MyUyRjEzOTc5MTc0LXdoYXQtbGlnaHRzLXlvdS11cC5qcyUzRmNvbnRhaW5lcl9pZCUzRGJ1enpzcHJvdXQtcGxheWVyLTEzOTc5MTc0JTI2cGxheWVyJTNEc21hbGwlMjIlMjB0eXBlJTNEJTIydGV4dCUyRmphdmFzY3JpcHQlMjIlMjBjaGFyc2V0JTNEJTIydXRmLTglMjIlM0UlM0MlMkZzY3JpcHQlM0U=[/vc_raw_html][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”About This Episode” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][vc_column_text](Season 4\, Episode 12) \nIn this practicast\, Practicing Connection co-host\, Bob Bertsch\, guides us through how to use the question\, “What Lights You Up?” to begin to find a sense of purpose. Research shows that having a sense of purpose boosts our resilience. And knowing your purpose can lead to better relationships and collaborations. \n“Practicasts” are shorter episodes of the podcast highlighting a specific practice to help empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness. \nLinks\n\nWorking Out Loud\nLewis\, N. and Hill\, P. 2021. Sense of Purpose Promotes Resilience to Cognitive Deficits Attributable to Depressive Symptoms\n\n[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all” el_id=”trans”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” el_class=”entry” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][vc_custom_heading text=”Transcript” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][nectar_btn size=”large” button_style=”regular” button_color_2=”Accent-Color” icon_family=”none” nofollow=”true” el_class=”read-it” button_id=”read-it” text=”Read More” url=”#trans”][vc_column_text el_class=”pod-trans”][music] \nJessica Beckendorf: Research shows that having a sense of purpose boosts our resilience and knowing your purpose can lead to better relationships and collaborations. I’m Jessica Bettendorf and welcome to this week’s Practicing Connection Practicast\, where we highlight a specific practice to help empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness. We’ll continue to share our monthly in-depth episode with you\, but now you can also listen in for a few minutes each week to get inspired by a new practice on this practicast. We hope you’ll give these practices a try and find them useful. \nThis week’s practice is called What Lights You Up. It can help you discover and engage with your purpose in ways you may not have thought of yet. My practicing connection co-host\, Bob Bertsch\, will be guiding us through the practice in a few minutes\, but first\, let’s learn a little bit more about it. Hi\, Bob. \nBob Bertsch: Hey\, Jessica. This is a practice\, What Lights You Up\, that we’ve shared together in many workshops over the years\, so I’m excited to be able to share it with our listeners on the practicast. \nJessica: Me too. Can you share a high-level overview of why this practice works and what it does to boost resilience for an individual\, maybe the people they’re connected with\, and even the larger community? \nBob: Sure. The first place that I came across this practice and the question\, what lights you up\, which is really the key part of the practice\, was in John Stepper’s book Working Out Loud. In the working-out-loud process\, that question is intended to help you identify a learning goal that really motivates you. You’d go through the work-out-loud process over a limited amount of time\, and you would use what lights you up to discover that goal that was going to motivate you over that limited amount of time. Having that kind of intrinsic motivation can help you stick with the process when things become a little bit difficult or go off course a little bit\, and having that kind of motivation is definitely an element of individual resilience. \nToday\, we’re going to be using what lights you up in more of a broad context. That’s going to help us not just identify a short or medium-term goal\, but start to discover our sense of purpose. Sense of purpose is a protective factor in our resilience as well. It’s a factor that we can lean on throughout our lives. It’s not just short-term or medium-term. It can serve not just as an internal factor for our resilience\, so sort of our own grit or stick to itiveness\, but as an external one as well. Because for most of us anyway\, our sense of purpose is going to involve things that are outside of ourselves. In order to act on that purpose\, we need other people. \nWhen we connect with others around a shared sense of purpose\, that can support the resilience of each individual in the group\, and also the resilience of the group itself. When we have groups of people connected around a positive pro-social purpose\, that can boost community resilience as well\, especially when those groups become connected with each other in a network of community support groups. \nJessica: One thing that comes up for me when I hear you talk about sense of purpose is values assessments or thinking about engaging in activities that bring you joy. How is this different from doing a values assessment and then focusing on your values or from engaging with an activity that brings you joy? How is this different? \nBob: Well\, I think there’s definitely overlap between what lights you up and those practices. I think what lights you up is more focused on the journey toward your sense of purpose. When you think of values\, I think of that as maybe the border around the area where our sense of purpose is going to reside. Our values are really intended to guide our actions\, oftentimes like our day-to-day actions. Like I value honesty\, so that means I’m going to try and tell the truth whenever possible. So we’re using those to guide our actions. We’re definitely probably not going to have a sense of purpose that falls outside of our values. In that sense\, those values provide that border of where we’re looking when we’re trying to find that sense of purpose. \nWhen we think about making a list of things that bring us joy\, for instance\, we definitely see that come up. When we’re using this practice in a workshop\, participants will often come up with things that bring them joy as they’re trying to list those things that light them up. But again\, those things may or may not lead you to a sense of purpose. Hot coffee on a cool fall morning\, or walking on the beach\, these are things you could definitely see on someone’s list of things that bring them joy\, but they don’t necessarily lead you to a sense of purpose. \nJessica: Would you mind walking us through the practice? \nBob: Sure\, I’d be glad to. First\, let’s find a quiet place where we can spend at least 10 minutes or so without being interrupted. Get a piece of paper\, something to write with. Then the core to bring us to the task\, let’s take a deep breath\, center ourselves a little bit on what we’re about to do\, and set the intention of thinking about what lights us up. If your mind is distracted\, like you have some things coming up\, or some things that just happened before you started doing this\, I find it helpful to jot some of those things down maybe on a post-it note. Just writing those thoughts down can help you let go of them and help you focus on the task at hand. \nWith our piece of paper on one side\, write down your societal and familial roles. Those are things like spouse\, parent\, child\, sibling\, employee\, supervisor\, any role that is put upon you by society\, or through your family relationships. We do that because when we’re thinking about what lights us up\, some of the things that often come up are things related to those societal and familial roles. There’s nothing wrong with that. \nSometimes those things end up being related to our answer of what lights us up\, but in my experience\, it’s really helpful to find an answer that is not related to your roles. The reason is because those roles can change. We want our answers to the question what lights us up\, to be a touchstone for us even if we stop being a spouse or when our children become adults\, or we change jobs. Having those roles written down on the paper will help you think about whether your answers are tied to those roles or tied to something more centered in your own identity. \nAll right. Now that we have the roles written down\, let’s start to think about what lights us up. If that question isn’t sparking anything for you\, you can try the question I learned from Jessica\, what’s my jam or\, when do I feel in flow? Another way to start finding what lights you up is to make a list of things that make you happy. We talked about a list of things that bring you joy\, but a list of things that made you happy when you were a kid\, or a list of things that bring you joy now can be really helpful if you’re feeling stuck. Often there are things on those lists that point you toward your answer of today\, now\, what lights me up? \nAs potential answers come to mind\, just write them down. Don’t worry if they’re not fully formed or they don’t feel exactly right\, the point is just to get them down on paper. Once you have at least one\, two\, maybe a few more potential answers written down\, take some time to read through them\, circle or underline words or phrases that really resonate with you\, and cross out anything that doesn’t feel right for you. See if you can use what’s on your paper to finish the phrase\, “I light up when I–” Again\, don’t worry if this doesn’t sound exactly right right now\, you can continue to work on it or even change it completely later. \nWell here’s my answer to what lights you up\, as an example. I light up when I can help people come together as equals to work toward positive social change. Just as a note\, that’s a phrase that came to me over time doing the what lights me up practice\, thinking about what really is at the core\, the sense of purpose in the things that were coming up for me when I answered the question\, what lights me up\, and it evolved over time. That answer may come fully formed to you as you go through this practice today or it might lead you in a direction that you can follow and eventually lead you to that answer of what lights you up. \nWhen you feel ready\, you’ve got some answers\, you’ve looked them over\, take a moment to pat yourself on the back for the work you’ve done today\, of taking time to think about this and start a journey towards your sense of purpose. You’ve gotten to know yourself a little bit better and hopefully\, get on a path to a sense of purpose that will help you sustain and build your resilience over time. \nJessica: Awesome. Thank you so much. That’s it for this episode. Thanks again for joining us. We hope you’ll give this practice a try and share your experience in the Practicing Connection LinkedIn group\, where people supporting military families practice the skills that empower us to work together so we can positively impact our communities and help families thrive. You’ll find the link to the group on our website at oneop.org/practicingconnection. We’ll be back next week with a practice to ease stress and get to know yourself better called Grounding Chair Meditation. Until then\, keep practicing. \nKalin Goble: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture\, US Department of Agriculture and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy\, US Department of Defense under award numbers 2019-48770-30366 and 2023-48770-41333. \n[music] \n[00:11:13] [END OF AUDIO][/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
URL:https://oneop.org/learn/what-lights-you-up-s-4-ep-12/
CATEGORIES:Community Engagement
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20231107T060200
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20231107T060200
DTSTAMP:20260503T065114
CREATED:20231109T121543Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240508T131854Z
UID:10001401-1699336920-1699336920@oneop.org
SUMMARY:Using the Feeling Wheel to Know Your Emotions
DESCRIPTION:[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”50px” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”column_reverse” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overflow=”visible” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none” gradient_type=”default” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”padding-2-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color=”#f7f7f7″ background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” el_class=”podcast-sidebar” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/4″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][image_with_animation image_url=”147768″ image_size=”full” animation_type=”entrance” animation=”None” animation_movement_type=”transform_y” hover_animation=”none” alignment=”” border_radius=”none” box_shadow=”none” image_loading=”default” max_width=”100%” max_width_mobile=”default”][nectar_btn size=”large” constrain_group_1=”yes” open_new_tab=”true” button_style=”regular” button_color_2=”Accent-Color” solid_text_color_override=”#ffffff” icon_family=”none” text=”Subscribe Now” url=”https://www.buzzsprout.com/2099983/share” margin_top=”30″ margin_bottom=”30″][vc_column_text]Subscribe to the “Practicing Connection” monthly email to keep up to date on our latest podcasts\, blog posts and workshops. \nJoin the “Practicing Connection Community” on LinkedIn. The community is designed for people who support military families in a variety of settings both on installations and in our communities.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”padding-4-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”3/4″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”Listen” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][vc_raw_html]JTNDZGl2JTIwaWQlM0QlMjJidXp6c3Byb3V0LXBsYXllci0xMzkyNTAyOCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRmRpdiUzRSUzQ3NjcmlwdCUyMHNyYyUzRCUyMmh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmJ1enpzcHJvdXQuY29tJTJGMjA5OTk4MyUyRjEzOTI1MDI4LXVzaW5nLXRoZS1mZWVsaW5nLXdoZWVsLXRvLWtub3cteW91ci1lbW90aW9ucy5qcyUzRmNvbnRhaW5lcl9pZCUzRGJ1enpzcHJvdXQtcGxheWVyLTEzOTI1MDI4JTI2cGxheWVyJTNEc21hbGwlMjIlMjB0eXBlJTNEJTIydGV4dCUyRmphdmFzY3JpcHQlMjIlMjBjaGFyc2V0JTNEJTIydXRmLTglMjIlM0UlM0MlMkZzY3JpcHQlM0U=[/vc_raw_html][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”About This Episode” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][vc_column_text](Season 4\, Episode 11) \nIn this practicast\, Practicing Connection co-host\, Jessica Beckendorf\, guides us through how to use the Feeling Wheel\, a free\, printable resource\, to help us identify what we are feeling. Knowing and naming your feelings can be really helpful for allowing yourself to feel it\, reflecting to pinpoint the cause\, knowing what actions you can take to help regulate the feeling a bit\, and deepening relationships by accurately communicating your feelings when you need to. \n“Practicasts” are shorter episodes of the podcast highlighting a specific practice to help empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness. \nLinks\n\nThe Feeling Wheel (PDF download) from All the Feelz\n\n[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all” el_id=”trans”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” el_class=”entry” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][vc_custom_heading text=”Transcript” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][nectar_btn size=”large” button_style=”regular” button_color_2=”Accent-Color” icon_family=”none” nofollow=”true” el_class=”read-it” button_id=”read-it” text=”Read More” url=”#trans”][vc_column_text el_class=”pod-trans”][music]\nBob Bertsch: Hi\, and welcome to Practicing Connection. I’m Bob Bertsch. This is our first-ever practicast\, a shorter episode of the podcast highlighting a specific practice to help empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness. Each month\, we’ll continue to share our longer episodes with you\, but now you can listen each week in between those longer episodes to get inspired by a new practice on the practicast. We hope you’ll give these practices a try and find them useful. In this episode\, my practicing connection co-host\, Jessica Beckendorf\, will be guiding us through how to use the Feeling Wheel\, a free printable resource to help us identify what we are feeling. Hi\, Jessica\, how are you doing? \nJessica Beckendorf: Hi\, Bob. I’m doing pretty great because I’m so excited to be sharing this practice with our listeners. It’s a really great practice for getting to know yourself better\, and that’s one of the ways that I’ve used it myself. \nBob: Well\, I’m really excited to hear more about it. Can you tell us how using the Feeling Wheel can help us feel better? \nJessica: Yes. Not knowing your emotions can make it really difficult for you to know how to feel through an emotion. I think we’re always hearing like\, “Feel your feelings\,” but when you don’t know exactly what that feeling is\, it actually can make it really difficult for you to do that. It can make it difficult to understand what actions to take in order to help regulate your emotions a bit. \nSometimes our emotions might cause us to do or say something unhelpful or even damaging. Knowing and naming the exact emotions you’re feeling that are causing the physiological symptoms you might be having can be really helpful for actually allowing yourself to feel it. Then reflecting to pinpoint the cause\, like why you’re feeling what you’re feeling and then knowing what actions you can take to help regulate the feeling a bit. This can help deepen relationships also by accurately communicating your feelings when you need to. \nBob: Yes\, I definitely can think of times when I said something at work or at home without being aware of the emotion I was feeling\, and it maybe was not particularly helpful. How did you learn about the Feeling Wheel? \nJessica: I first learned about it from actually a multicultural awareness workshop\, but then it kept showing up in other ways. I took an emotional intelligence workshop where I learned even more how to use it. If you’re not familiar with emotional intelligence workshops\, there’s an assessment that you can take\, and my results showed pretty accurately that I’m not great at identifying my emotions. \nI’m really good at social awareness and telling what everyone else in the room is feeling modifying myself and going and helping everyone else\, but I’m not great at identifying my own emotions. This was a little surprising to me because I’m generally pretty self-aware\, but I never realized that I just labeled my emotions as good or bad without fully understanding them until I was at this workshop\, in my upper 30s. This was pretty late that I was really realizing this. \nFor example\, not long before I attended this workshop\, a colleague had been in a terrible accident which rendered them unable to work any longer. Someone who had been in the office I’d been seeing five days a week was no longer there. It was devastating to everyone at our office\, even those of us who were newer\, and I was one of the newer people. I thought I had been feeling sad about what happened\, but through an activity at this workshop that utilized the feeling wheel\, I realized that while I was definitely sad for my colleague and for their family\, what I was actually feeling that was affecting me personally was fear. \nEssentially my ground was shaky because I realized that an accident like that could happen to me or someone in my house. This was a really key distinction\, this key distinction between feeling sad or feeling fear because I wasn’t getting the support that I needed as someone who was scared. Because I thought I was sad\, I didn’t even know how to talk about what I needed. \nWhat I ended up doing was really isolating myself a little to cry and to be sad in my feelings. I didn’t even know how to talk about it\, much less actually how I was feeling. It certainly didn’t help those who were trying to support me to know how they could best support me in that moment. The feeling wheel after that became such an important tool for me and has become an important tool to the participants in the emotional intelligence workshops that I now teach. \nBob: Can you give us an example of when you might use this practice? Are we pulling the feeling wheel out all the time? Is there just certain situations where it’s helpful? \nJessica: Yes\, that’s a really good question. I would recommend starting out by using it just to identify emotions. Even if you’re confident that you know what you’re feeling\, take a look anyway and pinpoint the word. If you’re not sure what you’re feeling but maybe you recognize that you’re feeling something\, like maybe your face and neck are flushed. For me\, my neck and my chest get red and hot. Maybe your forehead is furrowed or tense and you can’t seem to loosen that tension. Maybe you’re feeling some tension in your neck\, shoulders\, or back\, or whatever physiological symptoms show up for you. \nIf you’re like I was when I started\, you might use this when you recognize that you’re feeling something\, “Bad\,” but you’re having a hard time pinpointing what kind of bad. Or maybe you’re just feeling a little lost or stuck\, that’s another good time to pull out the feelings wheel. You don’t have to pull it out\, to answer your question\, you don’t have to pull it out for every single thing. I would just start when you’re feeling these physiological symptoms and you’re not sure what to do with it. \nBob: Yes\, that sounds helpful and really right. Those times I can think of where you’re wondering like\, “What’s going on with me right now?” I’m just not sure where\, like you said\, the physiological things are coming from or just how maybe you’re feeling inside and you’re just not sure how to put a name to it. I think it’d be really great if you could walk us through the practice of using the feeling wheel. Would you mind doing that for us? \nJessica: Yes\, of course. Like we’ve been saying\, using the feeling wheel can help us practice recognizing our emotions as they arise\, and recognizing our emotions can lead to a deeper understanding of ourselves and better communication and deeper connections with those we work and live with. There are different versions of this feeling wheel. If you wouldn’t did a search online\, you would find many different versions. \nThe wheel that I’m using today was adopted from the work of Dr. Gloria Wilcox in 1982. Probably a lot of the ones that you see out there have been adapted from this work. This tool is arranged in concentric circles with pie slices\, breaking the circles up into different sections like wedge sections. What are considered the core emotions are located at the center. These are things like mad\, sad\, scared\, powerful\, joyful\, and peaceful. \nWith different intensities of these emotions that are located on the outer layers of the circle. We’ll provide a copy of the feeling wheel that I use in the show notes for this episode at oneop.org/podcast. All right. Now\, the first step is to have a printed or digital copy of a feeling wheel at your fingertips. There are even some apps you can download to help. Some participants in my workshops have told me that they like to keep a copy next to their desk. Others have told me that they keep a copy on their phone. Or again\, an app would work for that as well. Whatever works best for you will be perfect. \nStep two then is using the wheel. When you’re feeling something that you can’t pinpoint\, use it to identify exactly what’s coming up for you. We brought up earlier these physiological symptoms that you might have furrowed brows\, tension in your neck\, shoulders\, back\, or your face or your chest\, heating up and becoming red. Whatever it is for you. Clammy Hands is another good one. Step two is using it when you’re feeling these things. \nThird\, reflect on what happened that brought the feeling up. You find the feeling on the wheel and then you think\, “Okay\, well what exactly brought this up? What happened? Who was involved? Why is this feeling emerging in this situation?” Then finally\, when you’re ready\, and this is optional\, the feeling wheel we’re using today is organized. Once you pinpoint the emotion you’re feeling\, you can look to the wedge that’s on the opposite side of the wheel and use those emotions to find some action that you can take to help you bridge from a feeling that maybe is not very helpful to you in that moment\, to one that can be a little more helpful to you. \nOr at least to bring you to a more of a state of calm. More of a state of like\, “Okay\, I can get through this. I’m going to get through the rest of my workday. I’m going to process this more. In the meantime\, I’m going to do something that will help me allow myself to breathe through this or stay with this feeling.” A quick recap. First\, have a copy ready. Second\, use the wheel when you’re feeling those physiological symptoms. Third\, reflect on what happened\, why was that feeling emerging in that situation. \nThen\, if it’s relevant to you in the moment\, try to look to the opposite side of the wedges and find something\, an activity that you can do that might bring you a little bit more sense of calm in the moment. \nBob: That’s awesome\, Jess. Thanks so much for guiding us through that. The Feeling wheel just seems like a really helpful tool. \nJessica: It has been for me. It’s helped me to know myself so much better to get the help I need when I need it\, and it’s helped me to improve my personal and working relationships by helping me communicate more clearly. I hope this practice is as useful for all the listeners here as it has been for me. \nBob: That’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you’ll give this practice a try and share your experience in the Practicing Connection Community LinkedIn Group where people supporting military families practice the skills that empower us to work together so that we can positively impact our communities and help families thrive. You’ll find the link to the group on our website at one op.org/practicingconnection. We’re gonna be back next week with another practicast with another practice for knowing yourself better called What Lights You Up. Until then\, keep practicing. \nKalin Goble: The Practicing Connection Podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture\, US Department of Agriculture\, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy\, US Department of Defense under award numbers 209-48770-30366 and 2023-48770-41333. \n[00:11:38] [END OF AUDIO][/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]
URL:https://oneop.org/learn/using-the-feeling-wheel-to-know-your-emotions-s-4-ep-11/
CATEGORIES:Community Engagement
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE:20230901
DTEND;VALUE=DATE:20230902
DTSTAMP:20260503T065114
CREATED:20230901T111516Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250225T023055Z
UID:10001390-1693526400-1693612799@oneop.org
SUMMARY:Starting a Food Pantry for Military Families with Monica Bassett
DESCRIPTION:[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”50px” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”column_reverse” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overflow=”visible” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none” gradient_type=”default” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”padding-2-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color=”#f7f7f7″ background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” el_class=”podcast-sidebar” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/4″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][image_with_animation image_url=”147768″ image_size=”full” animation_type=”entrance” animation=”None” animation_movement_type=”transform_y” hover_animation=”none” alignment=”” border_radius=”none” box_shadow=”none” image_loading=”default” max_width=”100%” max_width_mobile=”default”][nectar_btn size=”large” constrain_group_1=”yes” open_new_tab=”true” button_style=”regular” button_color_2=”Accent-Color” solid_text_color_override=”#ffffff” icon_family=”none” text=”Subscribe Now” url=”https://www.buzzsprout.com/2099983/share” margin_top=”30″ margin_bottom=”30″][vc_column_text]Join us in the “Practicing Connection” community. When you sign up you’ll receive a monthly email focused on practicing connection. The email will help us establish a shared rhythm and some shared experiences in our community.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”padding-4-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”3/4″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”Listen” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][vc_raw_html]JTNDZGl2JTIwaWQlM0QlMjJidXp6c3Byb3V0LXBsYXllci0xMzM5MDA1MiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRmRpdiUzRSUzQ3NjcmlwdCUyMHNyYyUzRCUyMmh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmJ1enpzcHJvdXQuY29tJTJGMjA5OTk4MyUyRjEzMzkwMDUyLXN0YXJ0aW5nLWEtZm9vZC1wYW50cnktZm9yLW1pbGl0YXJ5LWZhbWlsaWVzLXdpdGgtbW9uaWNhLWJhc3NldHQuanMlM0Zjb250YWluZXJfaWQlM0RidXp6c3Byb3V0LXBsYXllci0xMzM5MDA1MiUyNnBsYXllciUzRHNtYWxsJTIyJTIwdHlwZSUzRCUyMnRleHQlMkZqYXZhc2NyaXB0JTIyJTIwY2hhcnNldCUzRCUyMnV0Zi04JTIyJTNFJTNDJTJGc2NyaXB0JTNF[/vc_raw_html][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”About This Episode” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][vc_column_text](Season 4\, Episode 8) \nIn this episode\, co-hosts Jessica Beckendorf and Bob Bertsch talk with Monica Bassett\, founder and CEO of Stronghold Food Pantry\, a resource for military families on Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. Monica talks about how she started a food pantry on Fort Riley\, KS and how she launched Stronghold\, highlighting the role military spouses\, like Monica\, can play in supporting military families. \nLinks\n\nStronghold Food Pantry\n\nStronghold on Facebook\nStronghold on Instagram\n\n\n\n[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all” el_id=”trans”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” el_class=”entry” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][vc_custom_heading text=”Transcript” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][nectar_btn size=”large” button_style=”regular” button_color_2=”Accent-Color” icon_family=”none” nofollow=”true” el_class=”read-it” button_id=”read-it” text=”Read More” url=”#trans”][vc_column_text el_class=”pod-trans”][music]\nKalin Goble: Welcome to Practicing Connection\, a podcast exploring the personal stories and collective practices that empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness in a rapidly changing world. Here to start the conversation are Jessica Beckendorf and Bob Bertsch. \nBob Bertsch: Hi\, and welcome to the Practicing Connection podcast. I’m Bob Bertsch. \nJessica Beckendorf: I’m Jessica Beckendorf. This year our team at OneOp has been focusing on food security for military families. We came across a news article about Stronghold Food Pantry Founder and CEO\, Monica Bassett. \nBob: Monica’s a military spouse and advocate for the underprivileged in the military community. Through her personal experience with food insecurity as a child and by connecting with military families facing the same struggles\, she’s made it her mission to ease the burden of food insecurity and shine a light on undernourishment of families. She founded Stronghold Food Pantry on Fort Leavenworth\, Kansas to respectfully supply resources to families. \nProvide actionable solutions and educate others on the crisis of food insecurity in the military. Monica was named the Armed Forces Insurance Army Spouse of the Year in 2022 because of her commitment to alleviating food insecurity\, and we are so very excited to have her join us for the podcast and for today’s conversation. Welcome to Practicing Connection\, Monica. Thanks so much for joining us. \nMonica Bassett: Thank you. I appreciate y’all having me on. \nJessica: Monica\, I’m really curious what led you to your work on food security. \nMonica: It really just started over COVID. Military families were stuck in a predicament where children were being sent home\, school was out\, spouses had to either quit their job\, try to find remote work. Things got really tight. I was in an installation Fort Riley\, Kansas at the time\, and we were also very highly deployable that soldiers were always gone. I started seeing the increased need and call to action of families needing help. They weren’t asking for money. They weren’t asking for rides. They weren’t asking for big-ticket items. They were asking for help stocking their refrigerator\, their pantries. I just started it from my garage. \nI started with our funds buying food. What I actually did was bringing it back to something that you guys mentioned in your last podcast\, community resilience. I really identified the gap– I just sort did it backwards. I identified the gap. I started with my own resources\, my family. Then the community came and they found ways that they could contribute. I had neighbors whaling down in wagons foods to stock up so that I could feed more military families\, and it became a coast-wide initiative. After that it grew to civilians wanting to contribute\, and the community wanted to take part in this initiative to help its military families. That’s really how it started. \nJessica: Wow. You started to touch on this\, but how did you know where to start? Tell me more about how you knew where to start. \nMonica: I didn’t. [laughter]\nJessica: That is what pretty much every caring community volunteer has probably ever said\, “I really didn’t know where to start. I just started doing stuff.” Tell me more about that\, Monica. \nMonica: It was a gut punch. It wasn’t something all-inspiring. It was a gut punch to have military spouses like myself asking for assistance. Asking for help in the most humble of ways. It really was something that either was going to bring you into action or face you to put the rose-colored goggles on and look the other way. Me and my family opted to just dive into it\, and it really just started with knowing what I could do personally to help. \nAfter that\, being that person that was in the forefront led others to say\, “I want to join you\,” and then the initiative grew. When I left Fort Riley\, I knew I needed to lead this program with someone who I couldn’t trust because my mission was never to start something and let it die. It has to continue and has to continue helping families. I left it with the Spouses Club there at Fort Riley and that program is still continuing now. \nJessica: Wow. One of the cool things I’m noticing in your story is that sometimes even when we start alone in something like this\, we’re not alone\, people will start to notice. We all have what’s in our circle of control the things that we actually can do ourselves. We all have a circle of influence\, but sometimes we might not know who’s in that circle of influence. \nAs people start to see what we’re doing\, that circle of influence might start to come to you\, which sounds like what happened to you\, Monica. In that same vein\, I’m really interested to know what your collaborations were like both on installation and in the community. Did you collaborate with people who were out in the community as well as on installation? If so\, tell me a little bit more about how that came about and what that was like. \nMonica: Yes\, absolutely. I think it’s very important to build bridges with our civilian community. I think that that is how military installations and military communities thrive. Because we contribute to our outside civilian installation by shopping there\, living there\, paying taxes\, buying vehicles. They want to also tie back into us. When you can build that bridge and let them be helpful to military families in the installation\, things can be very successful. What I started there\, first initially I researched all the food pantries that were civilian food pantries around the installation\, around several counties. \nI started talking to their executive directors\, I started volunteering. I started bringing groups of military spouses to come volunteer with me so that we could see the climate\, the dynamic\, how they operate\, how they service. After that\, I started bringing in our local command team. We had command spouses come out and want to see for themselves what was happening in these outside communities. How they were servicing civilians\, and possibly military personnel that also attended there. I think it’s very important to tie and to build those bridges with our outside community. \nEven now fast forward two years and Stronghold as a nonprofit\, we are bringing in organizations from civilian communities\, Kansas City\, Wichita\, Missouri\, that want to help military families\, but don’t have a tie into the military community. They’re like\, “We don’t even service your county\, we don’t even service that\, will you be an agency we can partner with?” Absolutely. If that means that I can alleviate a burden to a military family somehow\, absolutely. Let’s try to figure out how to make this work. \nJessica: Do you have a sense for how they didn’t have a tie-in to the military community? \nMonica: In the military\, we are personified by the notion of we take care of our own. That is a lot of what civilian organizations\, hospital\, agencies that help a civilian community with diapers\, and formula\, and food. Those are the notions that they have. We didn’t know this was happening in the military community. A big part of what I do as the Founder and CEO of Stronghold is get myself out into the civilian community and educate those individuals. \nBecause they had no idea that military families were living with 24% of food insecurity\, or that they do not qualify for SNAP benefits because after 6 hours and 27 minutes of me personally waiting on hold to apply we don’t qualify. Because from the get-go we’re disqualified because of the way our earnings statement is read. Which is shocking because this same federally funded program of WIC runs a completely different way with regulations and guidelines and military families do qualify for that. \nWhat I am seeing within Stronghold and with different food pantries that run and help military installations\, it’s that our highest demographic of military families needing assistance are not E1Z\, 2Z3s. They are E6s\, E7s who already have grown children in the household\, which makes sense they’re eating more. They’re more hungry. They’re living in a more active lifestyle. What they’re being able to get for their money in a grocery store is not sustaining that active lifestyle\, which in turn equals food insecurity. \nJessica: When my dad was E67\, I was a teenager and I needed money for the movies. [laughs]\nMonica: It’s sad. What you just noted right there is hard because if families do don’t have the funds for groceries\, sadly they also don’t have the funds for any actual fun that the family might have\, and activities that you would really love your children to enjoy. All those extra perks. Currently\, Stronghold is doing Pack the Backpack event next week for families because PCS season is one of the largest factors in what tilts military families into food insecurity. When you compound those expenses with a $200 back-to-school supply bill\, that it’s sometimes doubled and tripled\, that’s a huge burden. I always try to think of that. If military families don’t have the financial means to really supply that adequate food\, there are many other things that are going by the wayside as well. \nBob: Monica\, can you tell us a little bit more about how Stronghold got founded after you left Fort Riley? \nMonica: Yes. It still moves me now because who would’ve thought that something that just started in a garage an agency\, a large organization? Armed Forces Insurance approached me when I moved to our next installation\, Fort Leavenworth. They had read about some of the things that I had done at Fort Riley. They wanted to help military families\, and they wanted to tie into what we were doing. \nThey became a founding sponsor by giving me space. I have zero overhead. Stronghold has space completely donated by Armed Forces Insurance and that includes utilities and anything in their facility that I might need. That is tremendously generous and that really to me shows their dedication to want to help the military community. \nBob: Is that space on installation? \nMonica: It is. We are on Fort Leavenworth in their building\, just right around the corner from the local hospital. \nBob: How have you seen military families adapt to that or come to Stronghold? Do you have a sense of where folks who needed help at Fort Leavenworth were going previously? \nMonica: Yes. Military families here– first and foremost\, Fort Leavenworth is typically known as a very officer-heavy installation because we have the academy here. You have a lot of officers come in\, transitioning from captain to major. However\, we also hold the barracks prison on the other side of the installation\, and we hold over 800 junior enlisted soldiers and families here. That is very predominant in this installation. \nThey used to service. They used to attend services at outside organization\, Salvation Army\, Catholic charities\, things of that nature. There is always those fear of repercussions of who’s going to report me because a lot of outside food pantries they require to take in earning statements income in order to get state and federal grants. Anytime they have to identify who they are\, put down their information. \nThe first question that the director at Catholic charity shared with me was– or that they say\, “Are you going to share this with our commanders? Are you going to share this with the installation?” She’s like\, “I always have to reassure them that we will not.” Where Stronghold stands in the gap is the fact that to reassure them to make sure that we do service and help all military families. Because as I noted earlier\, our families do not qualify for SNAP. \nEven if we did require them to apply\, they would not qualify for our services if we required that. By standing in the gap Stronghold requires no earning statements. If you say that you need assistance\, if you can get past the stigma\, if you can get past the fear of repercussions and the embarrassment and you say you need assistance. Then we’re going to service you\, no questions asked. That’s truly where we stand in the gap because we are not a DOD facility. \nWe do not run the numbers up. We do not take units\, information\, rank\, any of that information\, and pass it along in the chain. We do not make them qualify by an earning statement. We are truly very unique in the space where we do fall into that gap. We have seen that in the course of five months our patrons\, and it’s bittersweet because you never want someone to need this assistance. It’s also at the same time exciting that the word is getting out that they can trust you. \nThe more names that come on and the more relationships that we build with our patrons they’re like\, “My friend told me you guys were safe. They were never reported\, so we really need some help.” Then you have families coming in saying\, “We have an emergency request because my spouse needed to leave or deploy TDY and now we have all these expenses.” The fact that they can trust you and that word of mouth is getting out there is very special to Stronghold because it means that we’re doing something right. \nBob: You talked a little bit about the stigma and I just– in the introduction\, I mentioned that Stronghold tries to respectfully provide these things. What does that mean to you and to Stronghold Food Pantry to respectfully provide this service to our military families? \nMonica: That is probably one of my biggest notions or something I keep in the forefront for me in my mission\, and it’s in the mission statement as well. Because it just means so much protecting a service member and their families anonymity and our culture is huge. This is why they don’t report that they are having issues. It is noted from the Department of Defense that one of the largest issues that military service members\, why they do not report having food insecurity\, financial difficulty\, mental health issues\, any of that is always fear of repercussions and stigma. \nThe way that Stronghold tries to protect their anonymity is they always reserve appointment times that they can have one-on-one time. They have a sanctioned time where they can come in\, they can shop\, have personal attention\, and have someone that they can talk to. Because a lot of the times they open up about various different items that are affecting their life or what brought them to this situation. \nFor instance\, an E-2 that came in\, he and his spouse were leaving a bad situation at home after high school and they join the service. He then brought on his little brother\, who is also a teenager\, became his legal guardian\, and as an E-2 you don’t have the pay to sustain another body\, much less a teenage body. These individuals were trying to be better global citizens. \nThey were trying to do better for themselves\, enroll in higher education paid by the military\, and they were willing to bring on someone else so they wouldn’t become a statistic. These are the stories at that personalized time\, that anonymity that we protect. They bring out these stories in these people. They bring out the trust and you start building these relationships. We do privatize time slots for military families to come in. \nThey can shop and they leave without bumping into a neighbor\, bumping into their NCO\, bumping into an officer or anyone else. I also do not allow any people in uniform personnel in our area\, and that includes my spouse who tries to deliver food sometimes to me. I yell at him\, “No\, no one’s allowed in here. You’re not going to spook any of my patriots because this is what’s important to them. This is how we build trust.” \nBob: What have been some of the biggest challenges in either experience on Fort Riley or Fort Leavenworth with running a food pantry on installation? \nMonica: Especially at Leavenworth because we were getting a whole operational warehouse and it’s the obstacles of weight. You’re not actually sanctioned by the Department of Defense. You’re not ACS\, MWR\, a chaplain\, you are not these entities. We are a complete outside nonprofit organization run volunteered by military spouses. That was probably the biggest thing after people started noticing that we were assisting and we were doing good. \nWe were providing services that are not provided. People are coming around. That was probably the biggest obstacle at this installation at Fort Leavenworth because we do have a warehouse. Fort Riley was a complete different beast. We did have some really phenomenal leadership there who just jumped in and said\, “What is the issue? How can we help? Let’s see this for ourselves.” “Hey\, Monica\, Come work with me and develop a task force to try to help our military families.” “Hey\, Monica\, come sit with my aide and run through this list and let’s give out some resource sheets to all our soldiers.” It really depends. Just like any organization\, whether you’re for-profit or non-profit\, whether you’re civilian or military. It always depends on the climate of your environment\, and it depends on who is working that environment. \nIt’s very different. It’s not what happened for Stronghold at Fort Leavenworth or what happened for me at Fort Riley before Stronghold was actually a nonprofit. Could be very different than what could happen for someone at Whiteman Air Force Base or in Misawa. It would be very different. It just really depends on your climate\, your environment\, and honestly your volunteers and your leadership. \nBob: You have advice for folks. Having said that context matters\, the climate matters\, what advice would you have for somebody who was interested in whether it’s working on food insecurity or another issue for military families as a military spouse? \nMonica: Yes. Recently\, within the last few months\, my email has been getting inundated with emails from various spouses. I mentioned a few of those from Misawa\, Spangdahlem Air Force Base\, Whiteman Air Force Base\, Coast Guard West Coast\, on how can you help me get through this? What are your best practices? One of the most in-depth that I helped was Spangdahlem Air Force Base. We had several Zoom conversations on here are my best practices and here’s where I would start. \nIt always starts with\, first\, get a feel for your climate because we all want to help. Military spouses we are in this community to do whatever we can for our neighbors\, but the biggest thing is– the way I mentioned at Fort Riley\, I started involving myself with outside community organizations. I started asking questions of executive directors\, what’s your percentage\, how many military families? Let me get a feel for how you run. That is always my first step for when people ask me\, how do you start this\, is you have to learn your climate. \nYou can’t just say\, “Well\, I saw five posts of families needing help\, or I need help.” I’m going do this whole pantry or this whole initiative. No\, first research the climate\, find out what resources are there\, how they operate\, maybe where the gaps are. Like maybe this resource is out there. However\, this pantry at this chaplain’s office is really only a coat closet or a cabinet\, and is only open between the hours of 8:00 and 10:00 and you have to answer the chaplain’s 30-minute questions. That already is going deter a family tenfold times. \nThey’re not going to want to answer the chaplain’s questions and sit there and be embarrassed and worry in the back of their head on who this is going to be reported to. Even though they know that that should be a private conversation\, it’s always something that’s going to run in the back of your head. First and foremost\, I always say\, “Go figure out your climate. Go find out those resources. Find out where those gaps fall\,” which leads back to your last podcast that I had listened to on your community resilience. \nThis is how you truly shape a very successful organization that can truly target and benefit your military families. After you figure out climate\, after you figure out where the gaps are or where you can contribute to them. Then you can figure out\, do you actually need a whole new service\, or can you tap into these outside resources. After that\, if then that leads you down the path of talking to garrison command and your chain command on post\, then let it be that\, but you are going armed with information. That is always my biggest thing. You need to be armed with the statistics\, the data. That’s what drives change. \nJessica: By that time you might also be armed with a whole network of other supports that are willing to step in and help if they can. \nMonica: Yes. You nailed it. Absolutely. \nJessica: That was super clear. It’s very clear that you have lots and lots of experience with this. [laughs] It is\, it is\, it’s very clear. Is there a specific practice that’s been really helpful in your work or to you individually that you’d be willing to share with us? Something that you practice maybe regularly? \nMonica: Yes\, a couple of things. As far as food pantry goes\, we practice always in that space of protecting anonymity and being able to serve our military families with dignity and respect. That leads me to the practice of whether you’re a volunteer or whether you’re a staff member or part of our board. My practice of interviewing every single person who comes through that door. Even a partner\, a donor\, I have turned away new stations\, articles being printed about Stronghold\, because anonymity and protecting our service members is always first for me. \nThat is a practice that I will never let go of despite what happens. Like I said\, I’ve turned away news stations who wanted to run stories. I’ve turned away articles because they want names\, and can we be there to film when you’re giving food out? Absolutely not. That also goes to who I bring on board. Even a general volunteer\, even someone that works within the pantry and the warehouse. If you are not in line with our mission and our passion\, because to do this work you have to have a passion for it. Not everyone who is sitting in an office for the Department of Defense\, in organizations\, at the chaplain’s office who are assigned to be a chaplain’s aid. \nNot everyone has a passion to serve military families\, and not everyone has a passion to be embedded in these stories and help them through their dark period and to be that hand up. I am very particular in who I bring in. There has to be the practice of meeting me\, of operating under me for a while before I can say\, “You can fully volunteer here\,” and it’s volunteer\, it’s for free. I’m not going to bring in anyone who can slightly break or cause amend in that relationship with our patriots. \nJessica: I’m a huge proponent of those one-on-one conversations. I really believe that through that you can not only find where there are bridges to be built\, but you can also just continue to deepen the network and deepen the supports for good work. \nBob: Hey\, Monica\, I have one more question for you\, and that is you have accomplished so much and put so much of yourself into this and your family. What do you do for yourself in terms of practice to keep going and stay healthy and do the great work that you’re doing? \nMonica: To be honest\, not much. [laughs] That is what we get into a lot\, but no. I will say something\, my volunteer time at the pantry with like-minded individuals truly helps me get through some obstacles. When we were PCSing we were stuck in a seven-week PCS for a two-hour move. It was supposed to be door to door\, but mishaps with privatized housing\, all the stuff and we were homeless\, PCS homeless for seven weeks. During that time I found a civilian food pantry and food drive to go to. I cannot explain how happy my heart was after that and how centered I felt. There is truly something that happens with giving work back to your community that is fulfilling. \nThere is data out there on what community service does to your mental sanity to help improve your wellness. From the voices of our volunteers\, one in specifically has said\, “I am so happy you exist. I’m so happy you allowed me to volunteer because this got me through the darkest time.” Because we’re building not only community with our patriots\, but we’re building community within our volunteers. We now have friends that they didn’t have before. They now have someone they can depend on. While we’re working and stocking the shelves\, a lot of the times we’re also airing our grievances and our stresses and having a therapy session within ourselves. \nI honestly have to say that a lot of that– and once the kids go back to school it’ll be a lot better too. Because right now my children go to the pantry with me and that’s not very calming. Going to the pantry really does help\, and aside from that we all like to talk to our community\, our friends that have been with us for years and have seen me go from A to Z and all the aspects. I think communication is key to help alleviate a lot of the mental anxiety and mental stress and then like a massage. \nJessica: Yes\, you got to that part at the very\, very end\, yes. No\, wonderful. That’s awesome. \nBob: Monica\, I want to thank you so much for joining us and for the work that you’re doing to support our military families in a time of need. Thank you so much for joining us and for the work that you do. It was great to talk with you. \nMonica: Thank you both for having me. I really appreciate it. Thank you for shining a light on what is happening with our military families and for Stronghold. \nJessica: That’s it for this episode. Thank you so much for joining us. You can keep up with Practicing Connection by subscribing to the podcast in your favorite podcast app. By signing up to be a part of the Practicing Connection community at oneop.org/practicing-connection. By following us on X. Our X handle is @practicingcxn\, Practicing Connection that’s @practicingcxn. \nBob: Jessica is probably mad at me for pulling back the curtain\, but an awesome job adjusting to not saying the T-word for the app that is now called X. \nJessica: Thank you. \nBob: Good job. Thank you for joining us for this conversation. We’ve really enjoyed having you here. Thanks again to our guest\, Monica Bassett. We’d also like to thank our co-producer Coral Owen\, our announcer Kalin Goble\, Hannah Hyde\, Maggie Lucas\, and Terry Meisenbach for their help with marketing\, and Nathan Grimm\, who composed and performed all the music you hear on the podcast. We hope you’ll join us again soon. In the meantime\, keep practicing. \n[music]\nKalin: The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture\, US Department of Agriculture\, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy\, US Department of Defense under award number 2019-48770-30366. \n[END OF AUDIO][/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overflow=”visible” disable_element=”yes” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none” gradient_type=”default” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text] \nSUBSCRIBE NOW \nJoin us in the “Practicing Connection” community. When you sign up you’ll receive a monthly email focused on practicing connection. The email will help us establish a shared rhythm and some shared experiences in our community. \nListen\n\n \nAbout this episode\nThe Food Security Hawaii Working Group is an amazing cross-sector collaboration to address food security issues military families are facing\, In this episode (Season 4\, Episode 6)\, Bob Bertsch talks with Arletta Eldridge Thompson\, Health Promotion Coordinator for the 15th Medical Group for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam;  Lorna Souza with the Hawaii Air National Guard Airman and Family Readiness Program; and Kina Mahi\, Director of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships for the Hawaii Foodbank about the challenges families in Hawaii are dealing with and how people are collaborating to address them. \nTranscript\nKalin Goble: Welcome to Practicing Connection\, a podcast exploring the personal stories and collective practices that empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness in a rapidly changing world. Here to start the conversation are Jessica Beckendorf and Bob Bertsch. \nBob Bertsch: Hi\, and welcome to the Practicing Connection podcast. I’m Bob Bertsch. I am really excited for this episode. We’re going to be talking about an incredible collaboration to address food insecurity among military families in Hawaii. Unfortunately\, Jessica won’t be here for this conversation\, but I do want to acknowledge all the work that she did to make this conversation happen. Thanks so much\, Jess. Wish you were here. \nThis year\, our team at OneOp has been focusing on food security for military families. Molly Herndon\, learned about the work our guests today are doing in Hawaii. When Molly passed this information on to Jessica and me\, we knew we had to find a way to get these folks on the podcast. After many emails\, a couple of video calls\, at least one approval process\, maybe more\, one that I know about\, I’m really happy to welcome our guests\, Kina Mahi\, Lorna Souza\, and Arletta Eldridge Thompson\, to the Practicing Connection podcast. \nWelcome\, everyone. I think we’ll start with some introductions. Arletta\, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself? \nArletta Eldridge Thompson: Hi. Thanks for inviting us. We’re really excited to be here. I’m Arletta Eldridge Thompson. I’m the Health Promotion Coordinator for the 15th Medical Group for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam is a joint base with Navy/Air Force. We represent the Air Force side. I’ve been working for the Air Force for about 27 years\, and this is my sixth installation to work for. I’m really excited that this is taking off like it has. \nBob: Thanks\, Arletta. Lorna\, could you share a little bit about yourself with our listeners? \nLorna Souza: Sure. Aloha\, and mahalo for having us. My name is Lorna Souza. I am actually with the Hawaii Air National Guard Airman and Family Readiness Program. We are also located on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Hawaii\, at least the main part of our Hawaii Air National Guard\, so that’s why we’re part of this community. Then we also have GSUs\, or Geographically Separated Units\, on three of the other islands\, so the island of Kauai. Also\, the Hawaii Island\, which is our Big Island\, we have a unit there. Then Maui\, so we also have a unit on Maui. \nYes\, here to support any way we can and take care of our airmen. Mahalo. \nBob: Thank you\, Lorna. Kina\, could you introduce yourself? \nKina Mahi: Aloha. My name is Kina Mahi. Thank you so much for having us today. I’m the Director of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships for the Hawaii Foodbank. The Hawaii Foodbank has been fighting hunger and food insecurity in Hawaii for 40 years. We’ve been lucky enough in the last year to join up with this food insecurity working group with Arletta and Lorna and several others because we believe nobody should go to bed hungry\, but we also are really dedicated in ensuring our military personnel who are serving don’t have to struggle with basic fundamental rights like food\, and we mean healthy food too. Mahalo. \nBob: I’m going to ask you to share with us again\, because before we jump into the working group and the incredible collaboration that’s going on\, I think it’s really important\, when we talked earlier a couple of months ago\, that we set the context a little bit for food systems and food security in Hawaii. Because it is such a special place and might have some unique benefits\, challenges\, just characteristics that we wouldn’t see here in the continental United States. \nKina\, can you maybe start that conversation for us? What makes the food system in Hawaii so unique? \nKina: Sure. Well\, at any given time\, the island of Oahu has less than a week of food supply on it. 80% to 90%\, depending on who you ask\, of the food that we all consume is imported. At one time\, our island sustained a population of a million people just within the sustainable cultivation of our āina\, which is our land here. Now we have a really different food system\, and as I’m sure you’ve all seen at the grocery store\, wherever you are\, prices have continued to go up and up and up. \nWe have this unique challenge of being the most isolated land mass on the planet and relying on boats that bring us our food. We have so much potential to rely more on our land to provide our food\, but that’s a longer conversation. We also know how when people are moving here to serve\, or when they’re assigned here\, it’s a big shift to see the prices that are here compared to prices elsewhere. It’s not just on a macro level we have some food system challenges\, but also on the individual family level when you’re making that adjustment\, it can be really hard. \nArletta: I can say on the active duty side that it is a shock when they come here because they expect everything to be the same as it was on the mainland\, and then when they transfer over here\, they’re totally unprepared. One of the things that we did with our working group is figure out ways to prepare them ahead of time in trying to get them to understand that they need a financial appointment before they leave and that they can figure out what their finances are before they leave\, then also start paying off as many bills as they can and start stockpiling a savings account. Because once they get here\, trying to do a savings account is really difficult because it’s so expensive\, and they’re going to have to rely on that because there’s a honeymoon period of about six to nine months. \nBecause the first thing is once they get the assignment\, it’s like\, oh my gosh\, it’s the best assignment in the Air Force\, or whatever military branch\, and they don’t realize that once they get here\, it’s not what they thought. I try to tell people early on\, I’m like\, okay\, here’s what you need to think about. There are two Hawaiis. There’s tourism Hawaii that they’ve been marketed to and the beauty and all that sort of stuff\, but then there’s the reality of living in Hawaii\, which is the other Hawaii. \nThat’s what I’m trying to prepare them because they don’t have a choice. Once they get here\, they can’t leave. I mean\, a spouse can leave. They can send their spouse back to the mainland or their children back to the mainland\, but that active duty or even that Guard member\, they can’t leave. They’re here. We have to prepare them the best we can for the environment that they’re living in. Hopefully\, some of the best practices that we come up with can be utilized on the mainland\, or also prepping a member to go overseas. \nBob: Lorna\, what kinds of challenges are your airmen facing and their families facing in the Hawaii Air National Guard regarding food security? \nLorna: Yes\, so it’s the same thing for our members. It is very expensive to live here. Cost of living is high. People are leaving constantly\, getting priced out of paradise and actually going to the mainland. Our local youth are starting to go to college there. Of course\, they end up staying there and not coming home\, and then before you know it\, the parents are following them. A lot of our local people can’t afford to live here\, so they’re moving to the mainland\, which you called continental United States. [chuckles]\nYes\, cost of living is very high here in Hawaii. We have multiple families living in one house\, so we have grandparents\, parents\, and children. Of course\, grandparents are watching the grandchildren\, and then the parents are going to work. I also noticed in the last few years\, we had a paradigm shift where actually now our parents are caring for our grandparents\, our elderly. Not only the stress and struggles of living in Hawaii or in the paradise that we have here\, but they can’t afford certain things\, and food is one of them. \nAnything that we can do for our families\, if we can help them with the food\, and then they can pay for the medical bills\, they can pay for the medication that they need for their grandparents\, or we call them kūpuna\, it’s going to help. \nArletta: I want to hop in and piggyback off of what Lorna said. Not only are they living two- well\, three\, maybe four generations in a house\, most everybody in the house has at least two jobs. When you’re looking at the Hawaii Air National Guard\, they have their normal regular job and then a part-time job\, and then the National Guard on top of that. \nBob: Yes. It sounds like very challenging context for our families to be dealing with\, but the working group that you guys put together to start to address that kind of stuff\, how did that all begin\, Arletta? Where did this idea even spring out of and how did you get it started? \nArletta: Gosh\, this was way back before the pandemic\, October of 2019. Airman and Family Readiness on the Hickam active duty side noticed that– It was started with Drew [unintelligible 00:11:00]. He noticed that when people were coming in for the Air Force Aid Society\, those are emergency loans and grants that people can apply for if they need money for certain things. Usually it’s a car repair or something to that effect. One of the things that he noticed when people were coming in to ask for those loans and grants was they were needing sustenance\, they were needing food. Instead of asking for the grant or the loan\, which I think they can only get maybe one time or it’s a limited time\, he opened up a cabinet with two doors and it was a food pantry. That’s how we started. \nThen once we had that food pantry\, I hopped on board to help him advertise it because as a health promotion coordinator\, I know that if you can get people to donate healthier items\, that’ll change their diet. Then not long after that\, the chaplains over at the Hawaii Air National Guard opened up the Pono Pantry. Pono in Hawaii means balance. They started theirs. It was a little shed out in their parking lot\, [chuckles] and they left it open 24/7 so people could go in and get what they needed. That’s how our food pantry system opened up. \nThen when we were moving forward\, but Jayme Alexander\, she took over the Flight Chief position at the Airman and Family Readiness Center\, and she noticed the same thing Drew did\, only she expanded it by like 1\,600%. Instead of one cabinet; ended up being four. She noticed that there was an extreme need. This was during the pandemic\, so that’s when she expanded it. Well\, the working group happened because our wing commander’s wife at the time– We had expanded to the Airman’s Attic\, and the Airman’s Attic is like a thrift store\, it’s like a free thrift store. They noticed that people were coming in for clothing and things like that\, so they set up a little cabinet at the Airman’s Attic. \nThe wing commander’s wife\, who’s the head person over on the Air Force side\, she noticed that people were taking a lot of food items from the Airman’s Attic\, so she approached me and wanted healthier items. One of the things I had mentioned to her was\, once you reach to the point of you’re getting food at a food pantry\, healthier items are not on your list of to do. I mean\, you’re just wanting to survive. That would fall to us to provide those healthier options so that they could have those. That’s how the working group started was I said\, what we need is to get together as a group and be able to create that type of environment. That’s how the working group started. \nIt’s changed its name three times now. It was the Team Hickam Food Insecurity Working Group. Then I believe it was Laura Kay from the Hawaii Foodbank had said that we are in a unique situation on Oahu as that we have all four services plus the Coast Guard on this island. It was then that I was like\, you know what? We can’t just say this is just an Air Force thing. We opened it up to all services\, and we have representatives from all services that attend this working group. Recently\, we just changed the name again to the Food Insecurity Working Group Hawaii because now we cover the whole state of Hawaii because as Lorna said\, we have assets on outer islands and we are actually servicing those assets\, so it made sense to change the name again. \nHow we ended up being kind of multi-service. In August of last year\, I had a phone call from USARPAC\, which is US Army Pacific. They asked me if I was doing anything on the food insecurity side. I’m like\, well\, yes. The more we got the talk\, they have a– General Flynn is very\, very interested in food insecurity\, and so they piggyback off of us. They ended up attending the working group\, back when we were Team Hickam\, and now they’re like very staunch at showing up every meeting\, they give a lot of input. Not only is our working group dealing with things that happen in Hawaii\, but also across the Pacific we’re having impact. That’s exciting as well. \nBob: Kina\, how did Hawaii Foodbank get involved? \nKina: Hawaii Foodbank has been partnering with the Armed Services YMCA for several years now. Hawaii Foodbank– The way food banks work is like a funnel. The food comes into us from retail donations from the Safeways and the Costcos in our community who have excess\, and also from USDA commodities\, and then also from our community member donations. We do purchase food as well\, especially we like to prioritize from our local farmers and producers. The food funnels in\, and then we funnel it out through a network of community partners like ASYMCA. We have three sites. \nArletta mentioned it\, and I mentioned it\, we really like to focus on healthy food. The number one thing people are asking for is fresh produce. That is the thing that is not affordable\, that is the thing that goes away when a family is struggling. That’s the stories we hear. We partner with ASYMCA in three different locations at three different bases to do monthly distributions where we really focus on produce. We bring\, and we will bring the– We have the refrigeration at the food bank\, so we come out and can do a bigger distribution at a time. \nWe would like to do more. There’s always more to be done. I think this is where we like to partner with very creative folks like Arletta\, who’s thinking about community gardens. A community garden or a family garden may never meet all of your produce and vegetable needs\, but if we can start to- in addition to what we bring on a monthly or a biweekly basis from the food bank\, if we can start to change mindsets and build skills and understand how we can also go back to some of the values that sustains a population here at one time\, if we can go back to some of those values and practices\, we do think it also makes a difference for people. \nBob: Yes\, it’s really great to hear some of the systems approach to preventing food insecurity\, and awesome that you guys are working on that. Lorna\, what kinds of other things is the working group working on? [chuckles] The working group working on. What’s typical of a meeting of what kind of conversations come up? \nLorna: Well\, I think the nice thing about this working group\, it’s various organizations that are coming together\, not only military. We work with the community so much\, and everybody brings their little piece of what they’re doing\, what’s coming up in the future\, the programs that are available for our members or for our service members. That really brings us together and helps us. Then if we have an issue\, we work together on how to resolve it\, or how to take care of just little items that might be challenges we might be facing. \nIt’s a great way to come together and see what’s out there to bring these resources to our members. It’s a really giving group of people too. Arletta said about pono. Pono means righteousness and balance and doing what’s right. That’s exactly what this team does\, is we’re just trying to make sure that everybody gets the information and gets the resources that they need so that they can have a better experience here in Hawaii. \nAlso too\, what we do is we have some volunteer experiences for our members. Not everybody’s having struggles with food\, but they want to help out\, so we do have volunteer opportunities with the food bank. We do that monthly. Then also\, we go up to a farm\, Waihe’e farm. We actually go there and clean up the farm\, make sure that we help them with their taro or kalo\, which actually turns into poi. If you’ve been to Hawaii\, you might have had some poi. That’s the root that you make poi from. It’s a big industry here and very expensive\, so any way we can help to cultivate the taro or the kalo. \nWe go out there\, and we help them with their farm and better their progress of growing this product. Then also\, other products they have. They have watercress there. They have ‘ulu\, which is breadfruit\, and different other local fruits that we can distribute to our community. \nArletta: Actually\, the reason that’s important is because if you look at the bigger picture\, and this is one of the things that you have to give Hawaii credit for\, is they’re trying to go back to the sustainability that they had before modern times. That’s how they sustain themselves. It also gives a hands-on view to everybody on where their food comes from. They could very easily be repeated at farm– You see these sorts of things on farms on the mainland\, people going and volunteering and helping. I had a friend of mine in Missouri that just volunteered to help pick a farm that creates her CSA\, her community support box that she gets. That food\, because it was extra\, went back to the food bank. \nThese are things that we can promote having people understand where their food comes from\, and you’re able to have a hands-on. Hawaii just happens to be unique in the fact that it’s part of their underlying culture. We care about the āina\, or the land\, and so that’s something that’s really important. \nLorna: Yes. Actually\, we started going to the Waihe’e farm because after COVID\, they lost so many sales that they were thinking of shutting down. We got a group of volunteers together and simple things like taking the weeds out of the taro patch or the kalo patch\, and just making sure that the water is flowing from the– The water is wai\, so the wai is flowing from the streams\, taking the weeds out of that in the streams and making sure that everything is flowing correctly. We’re able to clean up their taro patches and production has been better. \nJust little things of getting people together to help out these farmers so that they can produce. It’s going to\, of course\, drizzle down to us and we’re going to end up getting the benefits of it. Poi\, which is made from kalo\, is very expensive and it’s because the lack of the product\, the kalo. This way\, we can actually help them and in turn\, we’re helping ourselves because of reduction of price for poi\, which is one of our staples. \nBob: That’s awesome. I think it’s really great to build that connection back to where your food comes from. It sounds like there’s a lot of great stuff happening and great communication happening. I’m just wondering if\, when the working group was either being formed\, or where you were trying to get your feet\, were there challenges or barriers that you guys encountered in trying to get this set up and to get everybody at the table? \nArletta: I know for me\, the big challenges was trying to get– It’s one thing to have a working group and to be able to move forward\, but when you look at the big picture on the military side of the house\, you have to have leadership involved. You have to have leadership understand that this is an issue. When you look at the big picture\, both on the active duty side\, and the Guard\, and Reserve side\, and the Secretary of Defense said it\, food insecurity is a readiness issue. \nWhen we look at the overall picture\, if you have a military member that can’t afford or doesn’t have the resources to sustain themselves\, then that puts them at risk for\, A\, not doing their job; B\, worrying about their family; C\, becoming a security risk because they become a possible target for our adversaries to offer them money for food. That’s not something that we want. We can’t tolerate that. That’s a no go. The thing for me was trying to get leadership to understand. I am partly there. Not everybody– \nThe first thing\, and I heard this a lot\, is\, “Well\, you make good money. I don’t understand how you are having trouble.” What we found early on was you can be food insecure at any rank. All it takes is one major life event to knock you off the fence. You can have a Lieutenant Colonel seeking food at a food pantry. This isn’t something that is just low-ranking airmen with a lot of kids\, although it is a lot of that. It’s across the board\, and getting leadership to understand that this stuff has been lurking in your ranks for decades. \nThis is not a new problem. This is something\, yes\, the pandemic probably aggravated a little bit\, but when I first started doing research on it– The reason I started doing research was because Major Kevin Watanabe\, the IMA to the PACAF\, Pacific Air Force’s nutrition consultant\, couldn’t go to his base in Alaska during the pandemic\, so he dropped in my lap. I had him for a month\, and I ask him to give me ideas for nutrition\, because nutrition falls to me\, I am not a dietitian\, he is\, and to give me nutrition ideas. \nThe garden was the first idea\, and we’ve been sustaining that garden since October of 2020. The second or the last idea that he gave me right before he left was\, “Check into SNAP and WIC. You may be looking at only low-ranking airmen with a lot of kids\,” so I did. What I found out was this is like the military’s dirty little secret. It’s been happening for years. Nobody’s really been talking about it. That’s how we evolved into where we’re at is once I figured out the issue\, then it’s my responsibility\, because it’s readiness issue\, is to bring it to leadership’s attention. Once leadership gets an idea that this is an issue\, then we can move forward\, and we can actually do a little bit more than what we can just by ourselves. \nMy medical group commander\, who is in charge of our clinic\, she was the first one I got on board. Then she said\, I want this brief to all the group commanders\, and so we were able to take that forward. We still have a lot of work to do because we only targeted a small group of our commanders. The goal is to get them all to understand. Once everybody’s on board and everybody’s aware of it\, they can see those pockets where they can actually make a difference and things they can do. \nThat’s the big thing with leadership is you have to give them action items\, things they can do that is realistic\, in their wheelhouse. You can’t give them the overarching thing and say\, “This is our problem\,” and give them nothing to do. They operate by\, “Give me the reason\, tell me what’s going on\, and then give me something to do.” Right now that’s probably the biggest challenge is being able to get leadership to understand. We’re getting there. It’s not perfect\, but we’re a lot further than we were two years ago. \nI think that with the Secretary of Defense highlighting this\, that it’s made it easier for more commanders to understand. We’re seeing that on the USARPAC side\, the US Army Pacific side\, is they have a senior leader that’s highly engaged. I think that they can make a lot of difference just at that big level. \nBob: Lorna\, did you see similar things in terms of having to get buy-in from leadership on your side of things? \nLorna: The Pono Pantry was actually started by the chaplain program during the COVID situation here in Hawaii\, the pandemic. The chaplains put everything into motion. They got approval and everything. I was not part of that\, but I’m telling you\, with our leadership at the Hawaii Air National Guard\, we have no resistance there. They all would continuously ask if we need any products in the Pono Pantry. Obviously\, we have different needs on the Hawaii Air National Guard side. Rice\, SPAM [unintelligible 00:30:03] diapers\, stuff like that that we need\, and it just flies out of our pantry\, but the leadership continuously supports the program. \nOne thing that we do find is a challenge is having the members come out. That’s why we have it where it’s anonymous. You can come at any time. We do have hours to the open facility\, but we can coordinate with them. They can come in the evening or early morning\, and we’ll have the products available for them. Then we also work very closely with our first sergeants\, and we have them out and about\, finding out where the needs are and then trying to fulfill those needs by providing them the food source. \nIn the future\, this– We just started hurricane season and preparedness is a big part of hurricane season. We’re making sure that we have enough supplies in there\, and we’re going to\, hopefully\, put together some bags of starter sets with maybe a few food items\, some toiletries. We just got a big donation of toiletries\, so toiletries in there\, and just get them started. \nArletta: Yes\, Lorna brings up a really good point. I think the big piece of this that everybody misses is the disaster piece. There are two emergencies. One is the individual person’s emergency and getting a crisis\, and then your goal is to get them stabilized and then help move them forward. The piece that I don’t think we’re talking about enough is the mass disaster piece. For us\, it could be a hurricane. We just went through the Red Hill water crisis where we had some fuel tanks leak into the water system\, and that threw us off. We learned a lot during that water crisis as to what’s going to happen during an emergency. \nSee\, for our members\, and even Lorna’s airmen during an emergency\, those members have to keep on working. It’s not like they can stop and take care of their family. The mission goes on\, so you have to prep them ahead of time so that they can weather that disaster. We learned a lot of lessons during the Red Hill water crisis in the fact that we’re not as ready as we could be. That’s one of the big things that our working group has actually been looking at on a big scale is\, how can we prepare members for an emergency? \nOne of the things that you’re told when you get here is to have two weeks’ worth of food stockpiled so that in case of emergency\, you can fall back on that because 90% of the food is imported here. Unfortunately\, I can’t think of a single person that’s probably as prepared as they should be. That’s one of the things that we’ve been talking about. Maybe somehow educating members to prepare their kit before they leave the mainland. That way\, the government will move it here\, it will be in place\, and they don’t have to worry about the expense once they get here. \nThat’s in the infancy stage\, but that disaster preparedness is a huge thing. Because in a disaster\, the goal is- we’re not there yet\, but the goal is for the active duty or even the military in general\, Guard\, Reserve\, to take the pressure off of the Hawaii Foodbank because in a disaster\, their people are the people of Hawaii. If we can somehow self-contain and prepare those members to be able to be self-contained and to move on with their mission and not have to worry about going out and getting food\, we take that pressure off of the Hawaii Foodbank and they can concentrate on the other people in Hawaii. We’re not there yet\, but that’s one of our ultimate goals. \nBob: Kina\, can you talk about that a little bit? I think there’s a couple things that are really striking me. Just this idea of being here on the mainland\, we have the same risks\, potentially\, of- not the same\, but similar risks of disaster and being prepared for that\, but it’s such a different ask for me to be prepared and have that food in the pantry for two weeks or longer\, or whatever\, than it is for the people of Hawaii. \nThe other thing I’m interested in your comment on is just what Arletta just brought up\, about this relationship between Hawaii Foodbank serving the people of Hawaii\, but knowing that our military families are in need and how that gets discussed and balanced out for you guys. \nKina: Yes\, those are two really big\, really good questions. Let me start with the disaster piece first. If we look at what’s in our warehouse\, and if we think about having to have enough food for everybody on Oahu in the event of a massive disaster\, it’s a day\, maybe. It’s not enough. We are talking with our Department of Emergency Management at the county level\, and with our Hawaii Emergency Management at the state level. There’s a lot that we can do\, both systematically and individually\, to be prepared. \nWe have an internal plan that we’re working on at the food bank. A big part of our plan is also working with the agencies\, with the ASYMCAs and with the other 200 agency partners who run food pantries and soup kitchens to make sure that they have some stockpiles\, that they’re strategically placed around the island\, what we’re calling precovery pods\, with MREs in them\, so in the event that Waianae is cut off from– Farrington Highway that goes out to Waianae often gets cut off for a car accident\, let alone a disaster. That there are places that are going to be hard to reach that have at least some level of preparedness. \nI think one of the things we talk about a lot is how much– If you look at the narrative\, like have your emergency preparedness kit done\, you might get a flyer in the mail. So much of the messaging falls on the individual person or the individual family to get prepared\, but we also have to be prepared as a community and as a state. These are the conversations\, I think\, we’re having in the working group\, how we do that. How we both encourage at the individual level\, but also when a disaster strikes we’re all in it together\, so how we make sure that it’s the communications and the infrastructure that’s in place to do that. \nWe don’t have the answers\, it’s a work in progress\, but it is one of the key pillars\, key priorities that we’re working at\, at Hawaii Foodbank. Because it’s a when. It’s not an if\, and we all know that. COVID was its own disaster of sorts that we learned a lot from. I think we’re trying to apply some of those lessons- not lose those lessons and apply them to thinking about natural and weather-related disasters that we’ll hit. \nOn the second question\, it’s a bigger and harder question around the relationship with the military in Hawaii. I’m not speaking out of turn to say it’s a complex– We are in occupied territory that was controlled by our Indigenous population\, and that’s a complex relationship. On the other hand\, it’s not either or. I have Hawaiian family who served in the military. Hawaiians have a history of military service back to Kalākaua’s days. It’s Hawaiian people who are serving in the Air National Guard\, right\, Lorna? \nI think we\, Hawaii Foodbank\, try to get past the either/or\, us/them narrative\, and nobody should go to bed hungry. You can say\, especially kids\, especially kūpuna\, elders\, especially people serving our country\, but it’s actually\, especially no one. I think that it’s finding these intersections of partnerships where when we come together and link\, we can all do better together. \nI guess maybe if I could say one more thing leading from that\, Arletta and Lorna talked a little bit about the challenges\, but also there’s some really special things about being on an island. All the challenges we have are not unique to other places\, but we’re just closer together. Lorna’s comment about the leadership being so supportive\, I think we have that really in spades here in Hawaii. We are an inspiration for other places. \nAt the Hawaii Foodbank\, we’re part of a cohort of other food banks who serve military families. Colorado\, Savannah\, Georgia\, there’s a handful of food banks across the nation. We asked Arletta to come talk to the group about this working group because what she and her partners have done in creating this all-branch\, all-collaborative\, islands’\, statewide organization of people is pretty tremendous\, and everybody else was blown away. It gave a lot of ideas- not just concrete ideas\, but inspiration and hope for what is possible. \nBob: What I’d like to do is ask each of you about advice you would give to someone who maybe is feeling the need for this on their installation\, in their community\, that you know there’s other people out there working on this issue\, you know it’s an issue for the people that you serve. \nI’ll start with Arletta and then Lorna. What advice would you give to someone who is on installation or working with Guard or Reserve and wants to engage with civilian organizations on the issue of food security for military families? \nArletta: It’s actually a partnership amongst several. I started my relationship with the Hawaii Department of Health\, the public health department. That was a link that was made through Major Watanabe\, but that’s how I fully understood how to deal with the food issue on the healthy side of the house. Reaching out to your public health departments\, reaching out to those local food banks. I think there’s been a roadblock for a long time. It’s like we can’t talk to you because of security issues. I think that we’re all in the same business and all in the same game\, and I think that we can talk to each other and share data and things like that\, and I think that we can help each other. \nI know on the health promotion side of the house\, look at those areas that you’re reaching out to your cooperative extension. Great\, great information on gardening\, recipes\, how to cook. Those are all skills that\, on a military installation\, I think that we need to teach. We need to teach about foodways\, we need to teach about farmers’ markets\, CSAs\, all that stuff is an education piece because it all feeds into that food ecosystem. Because the goal– I know one of the goals that we have here is to try to stretch that food dollar as far as we can. \nBy stretching the food dollar\, it’s buying local\, preventing food waste\, cooking with your scraps. A lot of the stuff that goes into the trash\, that’s edible food\, and there’s a lot of organizations across the country that are actually working on those sorts of things. I was recently\, last week\, at the American College of Sports Medicine meeting. I was able to wander around a Denver park that was near Union Station\, and I stumbled upon the Denver Urban Garden. Which I have a garden. I got a lot of ideas from there. There are agencies in the community that can help you meet those goals. \nAnother thing that you might think about is encouraging breastfeeding in the workplace. That’s an education piece that a lot of people haven’t addressed\, and that feeds right back into our food system as well. Reaching out to those outside partners that can help you. Every places has a little different agency\, but like I said\, the extension\, the public health department\, the local food pantries\, your sister services. I’ve learned so much from the Army side\, and the Army has learned so much from me. Just because you happen to reside in the same place\, you’re not two different services. We’re all one Department of Defense. \nThat would be my advice. \nBob: Lorna\, do you have advice from the National Guard perspective? \nLorna: Sure. I think you have to just set some goals. What do you want? How do you want to get there? Then talk about your ideas. You have to start having the conversation with your leadership\, community organizations. You can talk to other bases. Call us. It doesn’t have to be big. You can actually start small if you wanted to. \nEducation is really the piece too. Of course\, you want to educate the community and our leadership on some of the things that we need in our community or for our members. Schools\, educate the children. [unintelligible 00:44:10]. They are the ones that are going to take it home\, so tell them how you can be more sustainable\, or teach them how you can save on groceries using coupons\, or whatever it takes. Yes\, set the goals\, talk about your ideas. Then also\, it does not have to be huge. Start small. It’ll always grow. \nPeople want to help each other. In the Hawaii community\, like was said earlier too\, we support each other. Even we don’t only care for our kūpuna\, or our elderly within our family\, we actually help our neighbors. We take care of each other. We help our neighbors to make sure they’re okay. During a hurricane\, we walk over to our neighbor’s house\, especially if they’re elderly\, and say\, “Hey\, are you okay? Do you need food? You need us to clean out your house?” Or whatever is needed. We make sure that they’re taken care of. \nOnce you start that conversation\, I think everybody [unintelligible 00:45:09] and will be part of your team will gather. \nBob: Thanks\, Lorna. Kina\, we’ll end with you. Do you have advice for that person who might be in a community food bank or food pantry who knows there might be a need for military families and some opportunities to engage with National Guard or a military installation\, do you have advice for how to get started? \nKina: I think reaching out to your local food bank is a really good start. Then I think for everybody\, whether you’re at a food bank\, or whether you’re in the military\, or you’re a civilian\, helping to reduce that culture of shame and stigma. Everybody needs help sometimes. We’ve all needed a hand up in our life\, and so if we can create the kind of programs that are centered around helping each other\, reciprocity\, giving back. \nI heard a great quote from someone in our community like\, no matter how hard you have it\, you can always help give blessings to other people. If we take that spirit\, that connection in our community as part of the work we’re doing around food insecurity and health\, then I think that goes a long way. \nBob: I want to thank you guys so much for the incredible work that you are all doing\, and for sharing it with us today on the Practicing Connection podcast. Kina Mahi\, Lorna Souza\, Arletta Eldridge Thompson\, thank you so much for joining us. \nLorna: Thank you. Mahalo. \nBob: I want to thank our listeners for joining us for this conversation as well. Thanks again to Jessica. She made this whole conversation possible with her hard work. We’d also like to thank our co-producer\, Coral Owen; our announcer\, Kalin Goble; Hannah Hyde\, Maggie Lucas\, and Terry Meisenbach for their help with marketing; and Nathan Grimm\, who composed and performed all the music you hear on the podcast. We hope you’ll join us again soon. In the meantime\, keep practicing. \n[music]\nKalin: The Practicing Connection is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture\, US Department of Agriculture\, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy\, US Department of Defense under award number 2019-48770-30366.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
URL:https://oneop.org/learn/starting-a-food-pantry-for-military-families-with-monica-bassett-s-4-ep-8/
CATEGORIES:Community Engagement
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://oneop.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/AdobeStock_246027822-scaled.jpeg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20230701T070000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20230701T133000
DTSTAMP:20260503T065114
CREATED:20230701T110002Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250228T015923Z
UID:10001358-1688194800-1688218200@oneop.org
SUMMARY:Hawaii's Food Security Collaboration for Military Families
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The email will help us establish a shared rhythm and some shared experiences in our community.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column column_padding=”padding-4-percent” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”3/4″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”Listen” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][vc_raw_html]JTNDZGl2JTIwaWQlM0QlMjJidXp6c3Byb3V0LXBsYXllci0xMzA3NjM4MiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRmRpdiUzRSUwQSUzQ3NjcmlwdCUyMHNyYyUzRCUyMmh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmJ1enpzcHJvdXQuY29tJTJGMjA5OTk4MyUyRjEzMDc2MzgyLWhhd2FpaS1zLWZvb2Qtc2VjdXJpdHktY29sbGFib3JhdGlvbi1mb3ItbWlsaXRhcnktZmFtaWxpZXMuanMlM0Zjb250YWluZXJfaWQlM0RidXp6c3Byb3V0LXBsYXllci0xMzA3NjM4MiUyNnBsYXllciUzRHNtYWxsJTIyJTIwdHlwZSUzRCUyMnRleHQlMkZqYXZhc2NyaXB0JTIyJTIwY2hhcnNldCUzRCUyMnV0Zi04JTIyJTNFJTNDJTJGc2NyaXB0JTNF[/vc_raw_html][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”About This Episode” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][vc_column_text](Season 4\, Episode 6) \nThe Food Security Hawaii Working Group is an amazing cross-sector collaboration to address food security issues military families are facing\, In this episode\, Bob Bertsch talks with Arletta Eldridge Thompson\, Health Promotion Coordinator for the 15th Medical Group for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam;  Lorna Souza with the Hawaii Air National Guard Airman and Family Readiness Program; and Kina Mahi\, Director of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships for the Hawaii Foodbank about the challenges families in Hawaii are dealing with and how people are collaborating to address them.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” text_align=”left” row_position=”default” row_position_tablet=”inherit” row_position_phone=”inherit” overflow=”visible” pointer_events=”all” el_id=”trans”][vc_column_inner column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” overflow=”visible” el_class=”entry” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid” column_padding_type=”default” gradient_type=”default”][vc_custom_heading text=”Transcript” use_theme_fonts=”yes” el_class=”trans-title”][nectar_btn size=”large” button_style=”regular” button_color_2=”Accent-Color” icon_family=”none” nofollow=”true” el_class=”read-it” button_id=”read-it” text=”Read More” url=”#trans”][vc_column_text el_class=”pod-trans”]Kalin Goble: Welcome to Practicing Connection\, a podcast exploring the personal stories and collective practices that empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness in a rapidly changing world. Here to start the conversation are Jessica Beckendorf and Bob Bertsch. \nBob Bertsch: Hi\, and welcome to the Practicing Connection podcast. I’m Bob Bertsch. I am really excited for this episode. We’re going to be talking about an incredible collaboration to address food insecurity among military families in Hawaii. Unfortunately\, Jessica won’t be here for this conversation\, but I do want to acknowledge all the work that she did to make this conversation happen. Thanks so much\, Jess. Wish you were here. \nThis year\, our team at OneOp has been focusing on food security for military families. One of our colleagues\, Molly Herndon\, learned about the work our guests today are doing in Hawaii. When Molly passed this information on to Jessica and me\, we knew we had to find a way to get these folks on the podcast. After many emails\, a couple of video calls\, at least one approval process\, maybe more\, one that I know about\, I’m really happy to welcome our guests\, Kina Mahi\, Lorna Souza\, and Arletta Eldridge Thompson\, to the Practicing Connection podcast. \nWelcome\, everyone. I think we’ll start with some introductions. Arletta\, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself? \nArletta Eldridge Thompson: Hi. Thanks for inviting us. We’re really excited to be here. I’m Arletta Eldridge Thompson. I’m the Health Promotion Coordinator for the 15th Medical Group for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam is a joint base with Navy/Air Force. We represent the Air Force side. I’ve been working for the Air Force for about 27 years\, and this is my sixth installation to work for. I’m really excited that this is taking off like it has. \nBob: Thanks\, Arletta. Lorna\, could you share a little bit about yourself with our listeners? \nLorna Souza: Sure. Aloha\, and mahalo for having us. My name is Lorna Souza. I am actually with the Hawaii Air National Guard Airman and Family Readiness Program. We are also located on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Hawaii\, at least the main part of our Hawaii Air National Guard\, so that’s why we’re part of this community. Then we also have GSUs\, or Geographically Separated Units\, on three of the other islands\, so the island of Kauai. Also\, the Hawaii Island\, which is our Big Island\, we have a unit there. Then Maui\, so we also have a unit on Maui. \nYes\, here to support any way we can and take care of our airmen. Mahalo. \nBob: Thank you\, Lorna. Kina\, could you introduce yourself? \nKina Mahi: Aloha. My name is Kina Mahi. Thank you so much for having us today. I’m the Director of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships for the Hawaii Foodbank. The Hawaii Foodbank has been fighting hunger and food insecurity in Hawaii for 40 years. We’ve been lucky enough in the last year to join up with this food insecurity working group with Arletta and Lorna and several others because we believe nobody should go to bed hungry\, but we also are really dedicated in ensuring our military personnel who are serving don’t have to struggle with basic fundamental rights like food\, and we mean healthy food too. Mahalo. \nBob: I’m going to ask you to share with us again\, because before we jump into the working group and the incredible collaboration that’s going on\, I think it’s really important\, when we talked earlier a couple of months ago\, that we set the context a little bit for food systems and food security in Hawaii. Because it is such a special place and might have some unique benefits\, challenges\, just characteristics that we wouldn’t see here in the continental United States. \nKina\, can you maybe start that conversation for us? What makes the food system in Hawaii so unique? \nKina: Sure. Well\, at any given time\, the island of Oahu has less than a week of food supply on it. 80% to 90%\, depending on who you ask\, of the food that we all consume is imported. At one time\, our island sustained a population of a million people just within the sustainable cultivation of our āina\, which is our land here. Now we have a really different food system\, and as I’m sure you’ve all seen at the grocery store\, wherever you are\, prices have continued to go up and up and up. \nWe have this unique challenge of being the most isolated land mass on the planet and relying on boats that bring us our food. We have so much potential to rely more on our land to provide our food\, but that’s a longer conversation. We also know how when people are moving here to serve\, or when they’re assigned here\, it’s a big shift to see the prices that are here compared to prices elsewhere. It’s not just on a macro level we have some food system challenges\, but also on the individual family level when you’re making that adjustment\, it can be really hard. \nArletta: I can say on the active duty side that it is a shock when they come here because they expect everything to be the same as it was on the mainland\, and then when they transfer over here\, they’re totally unprepared. One of the things that we did with our working group is figure out ways to prepare them ahead of time in trying to get them to understand that they need a financial appointment before they leave and that they can figure out what their finances are before they leave\, then also start paying off as many bills as they can and start stockpiling a savings account. Because once they get here\, trying to do a savings account is really difficult because it’s so expensive\, and they’re going to have to rely on that because there’s a honeymoon period of about six to nine months. \nBecause the first thing is once they get the assignment\, it’s like\, oh my gosh\, it’s the best assignment in the Air Force\, or whatever military branch\, and they don’t realize that once they get here\, it’s not what they thought. I try to tell people early on\, I’m like\, okay\, here’s what you need to think about. There are two Hawaiis. There’s tourism Hawaii that they’ve been marketed to and the beauty and all that sort of stuff\, but then there’s the reality of living in Hawaii\, which is the other Hawaii. \nThat’s what I’m trying to prepare them because they don’t have a choice. Once they get here\, they can’t leave. I mean\, a spouse can leave. They can send their spouse back to the mainland or their children back to the mainland\, but that active duty or even that Guard member\, they can’t leave. They’re here. We have to prepare them the best we can for the environment that they’re living in. Hopefully\, some of the best practices that we come up with can be utilized on the mainland\, or also prepping a member to go overseas. \nBob: Lorna\, what kinds of challenges are your airmen facing and their families facing in the Hawaii Air National Guard regarding food security? \nLorna: Yes\, so it’s the same thing for our members. It is very expensive to live here. Cost of living is high. People are leaving constantly\, getting priced out of paradise and actually going to the mainland. Our local youth are starting to go to college there. Of course\, they end up staying there and not coming home\, and then before you know it\, the parents are following them. A lot of our local people can’t afford to live here\, so they’re moving to the mainland\, which you called continental United States. [chuckles]\nYes\, cost of living is very high here in Hawaii. We have multiple families living in one house\, so we have grandparents\, parents\, and children. Of course\, grandparents are watching the grandchildren\, and then the parents are going to work. I also noticed in the last few years\, we had a paradigm shift where actually now our parents are caring for our grandparents\, our elderly. Not only the stress and struggles of living in Hawaii or in the paradise that we have here\, but they can’t afford certain things\, and food is one of them. \nAnything that we can do for our families\, if we can help them with the food\, and then they can pay for the medical bills\, they can pay for the medication that they need for their grandparents\, or we call them kūpuna\, it’s going to help. \nArletta: I want to hop in and piggyback off of what Lorna said. Not only are they living two- well\, three\, maybe four generations in a house\, most everybody in the house has at least two jobs. When you’re looking at the Hawaii Air National Guard\, they have their normal regular job and then a part-time job\, and then the National Guard on top of that. \nBob: Yes. It sounds like very challenging context for our families to be dealing with\, but the working group that you guys put together to start to address that kind of stuff\, how did that all begin\, Arletta? Where did this idea even spring out of and how did you get it started? \nArletta: Gosh\, this was way back before the pandemic\, October of 2019. Airman and Family Readiness on the Hickam active duty side noticed that– It was started with Drew [unintelligible 00:11:00]. He noticed that when people were coming in for the Air Force Aid Society\, those are emergency loans and grants that people can apply for if they need money for certain things. Usually it’s a car repair or something to that effect. One of the things that he noticed when people were coming in to ask for those loans and grants was they were needing sustenance\, they were needing food. Instead of asking for the grant or the loan\, which I think they can only get maybe one time or it’s a limited time\, he opened up a cabinet with two doors and it was a food pantry. That’s how we started. \nThen once we had that food pantry\, I hopped on board to help him advertise it because as a health promotion coordinator\, I know that if you can get people to donate healthier items\, that’ll change their diet. Then not long after that\, the chaplains over at the Hawaii Air National Guard opened up the Pono Pantry. Pono in Hawaii means balance. They started theirs. It was a little shed out in their parking lot\, [chuckles] and they left it open 24/7 so people could go in and get what they needed. That’s how our food pantry system opened up. \nThen when we were moving forward\, but Jayme Alexander\, she took over the Flight Chief position at the Airman and Family Readiness Center\, and she noticed the same thing Drew did\, only she expanded it by like 1\,600%. Instead of one cabinet; ended up being four. She noticed that there was an extreme need. This was during the pandemic\, so that’s when she expanded it. Well\, the working group happened because our wing commander’s wife at the time– We had expanded to the Airman’s Attic\, and the Airman’s Attic is like a thrift store\, it’s like a free thrift store. They noticed that people were coming in for clothing and things like that\, so they set up a little cabinet at the Airman’s Attic. \nThe wing commander’s wife\, who’s the head person over on the Air Force side\, she noticed that people were taking a lot of food items from the Airman’s Attic\, so she approached me and wanted healthier items. One of the things I had mentioned to her was\, once you reach to the point of you’re getting food at a food pantry\, healthier items are not on your list of to do. I mean\, you’re just wanting to survive. That would fall to us to provide those healthier options so that they could have those. That’s how the working group started was I said\, what we need is to get together as a group and be able to create that type of environment. That’s how the working group started. \nIt’s changed its name three times now. It was the Team Hickam Food Insecurity Working Group. Then I believe it was Laura Kay from the Hawaii Foodbank had said that we are in a unique situation on Oahu as that we have all four services plus the Coast Guard on this island. It was then that I was like\, you know what? We can’t just say this is just an Air Force thing. We opened it up to all services\, and we have representatives from all services that attend this working group. Recently\, we just changed the name again to the Food Insecurity Working Group Hawaii because now we cover the whole state of Hawaii because as Lorna said\, we have assets on outer islands and we are actually servicing those assets\, so it made sense to change the name again. \nHow we ended up being kind of multi-service. In August of last year\, I had a phone call from USARPAC\, which is US Army Pacific. They asked me if I was doing anything on the food insecurity side. I’m like\, well\, yes. The more we got the talk\, they have a– General Flynn is very\, very interested in food insecurity\, and so they piggyback off of us. They ended up attending the working group\, back when we were Team Hickam\, and now they’re like very staunch at showing up every meeting\, they give a lot of input. Not only is our working group dealing with things that happen in Hawaii\, but also across the Pacific we’re having impact. That’s exciting as well. \nBob: Kina\, how did Hawaii Foodbank get involved? \nKina: Hawaii Foodbank has been partnering with the Armed Services YMCA for several years now. Hawaii Foodbank– The way food banks work is like a funnel. The food comes into us from retail donations from the Safeways and the Costcos in our community who have excess\, and also from USDA commodities\, and then also from our community member donations. We do purchase food as well\, especially we like to prioritize from our local farmers and producers. The food funnels in\, and then we funnel it out through a network of community partners like ASYMCA. We have three sites. \nArletta mentioned it\, and I mentioned it\, we really like to focus on healthy food. The number one thing people are asking for is fresh produce. That is the thing that is not affordable\, that is the thing that goes away when a family is struggling. That’s the stories we hear. We partner with ASYMCA in three different locations at three different bases to do monthly distributions where we really focus on produce. We bring\, and we will bring the– We have the refrigeration at the food bank\, so we come out and can do a bigger distribution at a time. \nWe would like to do more. There’s always more to be done. I think this is where we like to partner with very creative folks like Arletta\, who’s thinking about community gardens. A community garden or a family garden may never meet all of your produce and vegetable needs\, but if we can start to- in addition to what we bring on a monthly or a biweekly basis from the food bank\, if we can start to change mindsets and build skills and understand how we can also go back to some of the values that sustains a population here at one time\, if we can go back to some of those values and practices\, we do think it also makes a difference for people. \nBob: Yes\, it’s really great to hear some of the systems approach to preventing food insecurity\, and awesome that you guys are working on that. Lorna\, what kinds of other things is the working group working on? [chuckles] The working group working on. What’s typical of a meeting of what kind of conversations come up? \nLorna: Well\, I think the nice thing about this working group\, it’s various organizations that are coming together\, not only military. We work with the community so much\, and everybody brings their little piece of what they’re doing\, what’s coming up in the future\, the programs that are available for our members or for our service members. That really brings us together and helps us. Then if we have an issue\, we work together on how to resolve it\, or how to take care of just little items that might be challenges we might be facing. \nIt’s a great way to come together and see what’s out there to bring these resources to our members. It’s a really giving group of people too. Arletta said about pono. Pono means righteousness and balance and doing what’s right. That’s exactly what this team does\, is we’re just trying to make sure that everybody gets the information and gets the resources that they need so that they can have a better experience here in Hawaii. \nAlso too\, what we do is we have some volunteer experiences for our members. Not everybody’s having struggles with food\, but they want to help out\, so we do have volunteer opportunities with the food bank. We do that monthly. Then also\, we go up to a farm\, Waihe’e farm. We actually go there and clean up the farm\, make sure that we help them with their taro or kalo\, which actually turns into poi. If you’ve been to Hawaii\, you might have had some poi. That’s the root that you make poi from. It’s a big industry here and very expensive\, so any way we can help to cultivate the taro or the kalo. \nWe go out there\, and we help them with their farm and better their progress of growing this product. Then also\, other products they have. They have watercress there. They have ‘ulu\, which is breadfruit\, and different other local fruits that we can distribute to our community. \nArletta: Actually\, the reason that’s important is because if you look at the bigger picture\, and this is one of the things that you have to give Hawaii credit for\, is they’re trying to go back to the sustainability that they had before modern times. That’s how they sustain themselves. It also gives a hands-on view to everybody on where their food comes from. They could very easily be repeated at farm– You see these sorts of things on farms on the mainland\, people going and volunteering and helping. I had a friend of mine in Missouri that just volunteered to help pick a farm that creates her CSA\, her community support box that she gets. That food\, because it was extra\, went back to the food bank. \nThese are things that we can promote having people understand where their food comes from\, and you’re able to have a hands-on. Hawaii just happens to be unique in the fact that it’s part of their underlying culture. We care about the āina\, or the land\, and so that’s something that’s really important. \nLorna: Yes. Actually\, we started going to the Waihe’e farm because after COVID\, they lost so many sales that they were thinking of shutting down. We got a group of volunteers together and simple things like taking the weeds out of the taro patch or the kalo patch\, and just making sure that the water is flowing from the– The water is wai\, so the wai is flowing from the streams\, taking the weeds out of that in the streams and making sure that everything is flowing correctly. We’re able to clean up their taro patches and production has been better. \nJust little things of getting people together to help out these farmers so that they can produce. It’s going to\, of course\, drizzle down to us and we’re going to end up getting the benefits of it. Poi\, which is made from kalo\, is very expensive and it’s because the lack of the product\, the kalo. This way\, we can actually help them and in turn\, we’re helping ourselves because of reduction of price for poi\, which is one of our staples. \nBob: That’s awesome. I think it’s really great to build that connection back to where your food comes from. It sounds like there’s a lot of great stuff happening and great communication happening. I’m just wondering if\, when the working group was either being formed\, or where you were trying to get your feet\, were there challenges or barriers that you guys encountered in trying to get this set up and to get everybody at the table? \nArletta: I know for me\, the big challenges was trying to get– It’s one thing to have a working group and to be able to move forward\, but when you look at the big picture on the military side of the house\, you have to have leadership involved. You have to have leadership understand that this is an issue. When you look at the big picture\, both on the active duty side\, and the Guard\, and Reserve side\, and the Secretary of Defense said it\, food insecurity is a readiness issue. \nWhen we look at the overall picture\, if you have a military member that can’t afford or doesn’t have the resources to sustain themselves\, then that puts them at risk for\, A\, not doing their job; B\, worrying about their family; C\, becoming a security risk because they become a possible target for our adversaries to offer them money for food. That’s not something that we want. We can’t tolerate that. That’s a no go. The thing for me was trying to get leadership to understand. I am partly there. Not everybody– \nThe first thing\, and I heard this a lot\, is\, “Well\, you make good money. I don’t understand how you are having trouble.” What we found early on was you can be food insecure at any rank. All it takes is one major life event to knock you off the fence. You can have a Lieutenant Colonel seeking food at a food pantry. This isn’t something that is just low-ranking airmen with a lot of kids\, although it is a lot of that. It’s across the board\, and getting leadership to understand that this stuff has been lurking in your ranks for decades. \nThis is not a new problem. This is something\, yes\, the pandemic probably aggravated a little bit\, but when I first started doing research on it– The reason I started doing research was because Major Kevin Watanabe\, the IMA to the PACAF\, Pacific Air Force’s nutrition consultant\, couldn’t go to his base in Alaska during the pandemic\, so he dropped in my lap. I had him for a month\, and I ask him to give me ideas for nutrition\, because nutrition falls to me\, I am not a dietitian\, he is\, and to give me nutrition ideas. \nThe garden was the first idea\, and we’ve been sustaining that garden since October of 2020. The second or the last idea that he gave me right before he left was\, “Check into SNAP and WIC. You may be looking at only low-ranking airmen with a lot of kids\,” so I did. What I found out was this is like the military’s dirty little secret. It’s been happening for years. Nobody’s really been talking about it. That’s how we evolved into where we’re at is once I figured out the issue\, then it’s my responsibility\, because it’s readiness issue\, is to bring it to leadership’s attention. Once leadership gets an idea that this is an issue\, then we can move forward\, and we can actually do a little bit more than what we can just by ourselves. \nMy medical group commander\, who is in charge of our clinic\, she was the first one I got on board. Then she said\, I want this brief to all the group commanders\, and so we were able to take that forward. We still have a lot of work to do because we only targeted a small group of our commanders. The goal is to get them all to understand. Once everybody’s on board and everybody’s aware of it\, they can see those pockets where they can actually make a difference and things they can do. \nThat’s the big thing with leadership is you have to give them action items\, things they can do that is realistic\, in their wheelhouse. You can’t give them the overarching thing and say\, “This is our problem\,” and give them nothing to do. They operate by\, “Give me the reason\, tell me what’s going on\, and then give me something to do.” Right now that’s probably the biggest challenge is being able to get leadership to understand. We’re getting there. It’s not perfect\, but we’re a lot further than we were two years ago. \nI think that with the Secretary of Defense highlighting this\, that it’s made it easier for more commanders to understand. We’re seeing that on the USARPAC side\, the US Army Pacific side\, is they have a senior leader that’s highly engaged. I think that they can make a lot of difference just at that big level. \nBob: Lorna\, did you see similar things in terms of having to get buy-in from leadership on your side of things? \nLorna: The Pono Pantry was actually started by the chaplain program during the COVID situation here in Hawaii\, the pandemic. The chaplains put everything into motion. They got approval and everything. I was not part of that\, but I’m telling you\, with our leadership at the Hawaii Air National Guard\, we have no resistance there. They all would continuously ask if we need any products in the Pono Pantry. Obviously\, we have different needs on the Hawaii Air National Guard side. Rice\, SPAM [unintelligible 00:30:03] diapers\, stuff like that that we need\, and it just flies out of our pantry\, but the leadership continuously supports the program. \nOne thing that we do find is a challenge is having the members come out. That’s why we have it where it’s anonymous. You can come at any time. We do have hours to the open facility\, but we can coordinate with them. They can come in the evening or early morning\, and we’ll have the products available for them. Then we also work very closely with our first sergeants\, and we have them out and about\, finding out where the needs are and then trying to fulfill those needs by providing them the food source. \nIn the future\, this– We just started hurricane season and preparedness is a big part of hurricane season. We’re making sure that we have enough supplies in there\, and we’re going to\, hopefully\, put together some bags of starter sets with maybe a few food items\, some toiletries. We just got a big donation of toiletries\, so toiletries in there\, and just get them started. \nArletta: Yes\, Lorna brings up a really good point. I think the big piece of this that everybody misses is the disaster piece. There are two emergencies. One is the individual person’s emergency and getting a crisis\, and then your goal is to get them stabilized and then help move them forward. The piece that I don’t think we’re talking about enough is the mass disaster piece. For us\, it could be a hurricane. We just went through the Red Hill water crisis where we had some fuel tanks leak into the water system\, and that threw us off. We learned a lot during that water crisis as to what’s going to happen during an emergency. \nSee\, for our members\, and even Lorna’s airmen during an emergency\, those members have to keep on working. It’s not like they can stop and take care of their family. The mission goes on\, so you have to prep them ahead of time so that they can weather that disaster. We learned a lot of lessons during the Red Hill water crisis in the fact that we’re not as ready as we could be. That’s one of the big things that our working group has actually been looking at on a big scale is\, how can we prepare members for an emergency? \nOne of the things that you’re told when you get here is to have two weeks’ worth of food stockpiled so that in case of emergency\, you can fall back on that because 90% of the food is imported here. Unfortunately\, I can’t think of a single person that’s probably as prepared as they should be. That’s one of the things that we’ve been talking about. Maybe somehow educating members to prepare their kit before they leave the mainland. That way\, the government will move it here\, it will be in place\, and they don’t have to worry about the expense once they get here. \nThat’s in the infancy stage\, but that disaster preparedness is a huge thing. Because in a disaster\, the goal is- we’re not there yet\, but the goal is for the active duty or even the military in general\, Guard\, Reserve\, to take the pressure off of the Hawaii Foodbank because in a disaster\, their people are the people of Hawaii. If we can somehow self-contain and prepare those members to be able to be self-contained and to move on with their mission and not have to worry about going out and getting food\, we take that pressure off of the Hawaii Foodbank and they can concentrate on the other people in Hawaii. We’re not there yet\, but that’s one of our ultimate goals. \nBob: Kina\, can you talk about that a little bit? I think there’s a couple things that are really striking me. Just this idea of being here on the mainland\, we have the same risks\, potentially\, of- not the same\, but similar risks of disaster and being prepared for that\, but it’s such a different ask for me to be prepared and have that food in the pantry for two weeks or longer\, or whatever\, than it is for the people of Hawaii. \nThe other thing I’m interested in your comment on is just what Arletta just brought up\, about this relationship between Hawaii Foodbank serving the people of Hawaii\, but knowing that our military families are in need and how that gets discussed and balanced out for you guys. \nKina: Yes\, those are two really big\, really good questions. Let me start with the disaster piece first. If we look at what’s in our warehouse\, and if we think about having to have enough food for everybody on Oahu in the event of a massive disaster\, it’s a day\, maybe. It’s not enough. We are talking with our Department of Emergency Management at the county level\, and with our Hawaii Emergency Management at the state level. There’s a lot that we can do\, both systematically and individually\, to be prepared. \nWe have an internal plan that we’re working on at the food bank. A big part of our plan is also working with the agencies\, with the ASYMCAs and with the other 200 agency partners who run food pantries and soup kitchens to make sure that they have some stockpiles\, that they’re strategically placed around the island\, what we’re calling precovery pods\, with MREs in them\, so in the event that Waianae is cut off from– Farrington Highway that goes out to Waianae often gets cut off for a car accident\, let alone a disaster. That there are places that are going to be hard to reach that have at least some level of preparedness. \nI think one of the things we talk about a lot is how much– If you look at the narrative\, like have your emergency preparedness kit done\, you might get a flyer in the mail. So much of the messaging falls on the individual person or the individual family to get prepared\, but we also have to be prepared as a community and as a state. These are the conversations\, I think\, we’re having in the working group\, how we do that. How we both encourage at the individual level\, but also when a disaster strikes we’re all in it together\, so how we make sure that it’s the communications and the infrastructure that’s in place to do that. \nWe don’t have the answers\, it’s a work in progress\, but it is one of the key pillars\, key priorities that we’re working at\, at Hawaii Foodbank. Because it’s a when. It’s not an if\, and we all know that. COVID was its own disaster of sorts that we learned a lot from. I think we’re trying to apply some of those lessons- not lose those lessons and apply them to thinking about natural and weather-related disasters that we’ll hit. \nOn the second question\, it’s a bigger and harder question around the relationship with the military in Hawaii. I’m not speaking out of turn to say it’s a complex– We are in occupied territory that was controlled by our Indigenous population\, and that’s a complex relationship. On the other hand\, it’s not either or. I have Hawaiian family who served in the military. Hawaiians have a history of military service back to Kalākaua’s days. It’s Hawaiian people who are serving in the Air National Guard\, right\, Lorna? \nI think we\, Hawaii Foodbank\, try to get past the either/or\, us/them narrative\, and nobody should go to bed hungry. You can say\, especially kids\, especially kūpuna\, elders\, especially people serving our country\, but it’s actually\, especially no one. I think that it’s finding these intersections of partnerships where when we come together and link\, we can all do better together. \nI guess maybe if I could say one more thing leading from that\, Arletta and Lorna talked a little bit about the challenges\, but also there’s some really special things about being on an island. All the challenges we have are not unique to other places\, but we’re just closer together. Lorna’s comment about the leadership being so supportive\, I think we have that really in spades here in Hawaii. We are an inspiration for other places. \nAt the Hawaii Foodbank\, we’re part of a cohort of other food banks who serve military families. Colorado\, Savannah\, Georgia\, there’s a handful of food banks across the nation. We asked Arletta to come talk to the group about this working group because what she and her partners have done in creating this all-branch\, all-collaborative\, islands’\, statewide organization of people is pretty tremendous\, and everybody else was blown away. It gave a lot of ideas- not just concrete ideas\, but inspiration and hope for what is possible. \nBob: What I’d like to do is ask each of you about advice you would give to someone who maybe is feeling the need for this on their installation\, in their community\, that you know there’s other people out there working on this issue\, you know it’s an issue for the people that you serve. \nI’ll start with Arletta and then Lorna. What advice would you give to someone who is on installation or working with Guard or Reserve and wants to engage with civilian organizations on the issue of food security for military families? \nArletta: It’s actually a partnership amongst several. I started my relationship with the Hawaii Department of Health\, the public health department. That was a link that was made through Major Watanabe\, but that’s how I fully understood how to deal with the food issue on the healthy side of the house. Reaching out to your public health departments\, reaching out to those local food banks. I think there’s been a roadblock for a long time. It’s like we can’t talk to you because of security issues. I think that we’re all in the same business and all in the same game\, and I think that we can talk to each other and share data and things like that\, and I think that we can help each other. \nI know on the health promotion side of the house\, look at those areas that you’re reaching out to your cooperative extension. Great\, great information on gardening\, recipes\, how to cook. Those are all skills that\, on a military installation\, I think that we need to teach. We need to teach about foodways\, we need to teach about farmers’ markets\, CSAs\, all that stuff is an education piece because it all feeds into that food ecosystem. Because the goal– I know one of the goals that we have here is to try to stretch that food dollar as far as we can. \nBy stretching the food dollar\, it’s buying local\, preventing food waste\, cooking with your scraps. A lot of the stuff that goes into the trash\, that’s edible food\, and there’s a lot of organizations across the country that are actually working on those sorts of things. I was recently\, last week\, at the American College of Sports Medicine meeting. I was able to wander around a Denver park that was near Union Station\, and I stumbled upon the Denver Urban Garden. Which I have a garden. I got a lot of ideas from there. There are agencies in the community that can help you meet those goals. \nAnother thing that you might think about is encouraging breastfeeding in the workplace. That’s an education piece that a lot of people haven’t addressed\, and that feeds right back into our food system as well. Reaching out to those outside partners that can help you. Every places has a little different agency\, but like I said\, the extension\, the public health department\, the local food pantries\, your sister services. I’ve learned so much from the Army side\, and the Army has learned so much from me. Just because you happen to reside in the same place\, you’re not two different services. We’re all one Department of Defense. \nThat would be my advice. \nBob: Lorna\, do you have advice from the National Guard perspective? \nLorna: Sure. I think you have to just set some goals. What do you want? How do you want to get there? Then talk about your ideas. You have to start having the conversation with your leadership\, community organizations. You can talk to other bases. Call us. It doesn’t have to be big. You can actually start small if you wanted to. \nEducation is really the piece too. Of course\, you want to educate the community and our leadership on some of the things that we need in our community or for our members. Schools\, educate the children. [unintelligible 00:44:10]. They are the ones that are going to take it home\, so tell them how you can be more sustainable\, or teach them how you can save on groceries using coupons\, or whatever it takes. Yes\, set the goals\, talk about your ideas. Then also\, it does not have to be huge. Start small. It’ll always grow. \nPeople want to help each other. In the Hawaii community\, like was said earlier too\, we support each other. Even we don’t only care for our kūpuna\, or our elderly within our family\, we actually help our neighbors. We take care of each other. We help our neighbors to make sure they’re okay. During a hurricane\, we walk over to our neighbor’s house\, especially if they’re elderly\, and say\, “Hey\, are you okay? Do you need food? You need us to clean out your house?” Or whatever is needed. We make sure that they’re taken care of. \nOnce you start that conversation\, I think everybody [unintelligible 00:45:09] and will be part of your team will gather. \nBob: Thanks\, Lorna. Kina\, we’ll end with you. Do you have advice for that person who might be in a community food bank or food pantry who knows there might be a need for military families and some opportunities to engage with National Guard or a military installation\, do you have advice for how to get started? \nKina: I think reaching out to your local food bank is a really good start. Then I think for everybody\, whether you’re at a food bank\, or whether you’re in the military\, or you’re a civilian\, helping to reduce that culture of shame and stigma. Everybody needs help sometimes. We’ve all needed a hand up in our life\, and so if we can create the kind of programs that are centered around helping each other\, reciprocity\, giving back. \nI heard a great quote from someone in our community like\, no matter how hard you have it\, you can always help give blessings to other people. If we take that spirit\, that connection in our community as part of the work we’re doing around food insecurity and health\, then I think that goes a long way. \nBob: I want to thank you guys so much for the incredible work that you are all doing\, and for sharing it with us today on the Practicing Connection podcast. Kina Mahi\, Lorna Souza\, Arletta Eldridge Thompson\, thank you so much for joining us. \nLorna: Thank you. Mahalo. \nBob: I want to thank our listeners for joining us for this conversation as well. Thanks again to Jessica. She made this whole conversation possible with her hard work. We’d also like to thank our co-producer\, Coral Owen; our announcer\, Kalin Goble; Hannah Hyde\, Maggie Lucas\, and Terry Meisenbach for their help with marketing; and Nathan Grimm\, who composed and performed all the music you hear on the podcast. We hope you’ll join us again soon. In the meantime\, keep practicing. \n[music]\nKalin: The Practicing Connection is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture\, US Department of Agriculture\, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy\, US Department of Defense under award number 2019-48770-30366.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overflow=”visible” disable_element=”yes” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none” gradient_type=”default” shape_type=””][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_direction_desktop=”default” column_element_spacing=”default” desktop_text_alignment=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_backdrop_filter=”none” column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” column_position=”default” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” animation_type=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text] \nSUBSCRIBE NOW \nJoin us in the “Practicing Connection” community. When you sign up you’ll receive a monthly email focused on practicing connection. The email will help us establish a shared rhythm and some shared experiences in our community. \nListen\n\n \nAbout this episode\nThe Food Security Hawaii Working Group is an amazing cross-sector collaboration to address food security issues military families are facing\, In this episode (Season 4\, Episode 6)\, Bob Bertsch talks with Arletta Eldridge Thompson\, Health Promotion Coordinator for the 15th Medical Group for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam;  Lorna Souza with the Hawaii Air National Guard Airman and Family Readiness Program; and Kina Mahi\, Director of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships for the Hawaii Foodbank about the challenges families in Hawaii are dealing with and how people are collaborating to address them. \nTranscript\nKalin Goble: Welcome to Practicing Connection\, a podcast exploring the personal stories and collective practices that empower us to work together to improve our resilience and readiness in a rapidly changing world. Here to start the conversation are Jessica Beckendorf and Bob Bertsch. \nBob Bertsch: Hi\, and welcome to the Practicing Connection podcast. I’m Bob Bertsch. I am really excited for this episode. We’re going to be talking about an incredible collaboration to address food insecurity among military families in Hawaii. Unfortunately\, Jessica won’t be here for this conversation\, but I do want to acknowledge all the work that she did to make this conversation happen. Thanks so much\, Jess. Wish you were here. \nThis year\, our team at OneOp has been focusing on food security for military families. One of our colleagues\, Molly Herndon\, learned about the work our guests today are doing in Hawaii. When Molly passed this information on to Jessica and me\, we knew we had to find a way to get these folks on the podcast. After many emails\, a couple of video calls\, at least one approval process\, maybe more\, one that I know about\, I’m really happy to welcome our guests\, Kina Mahi\, Lorna Souza\, and Arletta Eldridge Thompson\, to the Practicing Connection podcast. \nWelcome\, everyone. I think we’ll start with some introductions. Arletta\, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself? \nArletta Eldridge Thompson: Hi. Thanks for inviting us. We’re really excited to be here. I’m Arletta Eldridge Thompson. I’m the Health Promotion Coordinator for the 15th Medical Group for Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam is a joint base with Navy/Air Force. We represent the Air Force side. I’ve been working for the Air Force for about 27 years\, and this is my sixth installation to work for. I’m really excited that this is taking off like it has. \nBob: Thanks\, Arletta. Lorna\, could you share a little bit about yourself with our listeners? \nLorna Souza: Sure. Aloha\, and mahalo for having us. My name is Lorna Souza. I am actually with the Hawaii Air National Guard Airman and Family Readiness Program. We are also located on Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam Hawaii\, at least the main part of our Hawaii Air National Guard\, so that’s why we’re part of this community. Then we also have GSUs\, or Geographically Separated Units\, on three of the other islands\, so the island of Kauai. Also\, the Hawaii Island\, which is our Big Island\, we have a unit there. Then Maui\, so we also have a unit on Maui. \nYes\, here to support any way we can and take care of our airmen. Mahalo. \nBob: Thank you\, Lorna. Kina\, could you introduce yourself? \nKina Mahi: Aloha. My name is Kina Mahi. Thank you so much for having us today. I’m the Director of Advocacy and Strategic Partnerships for the Hawaii Foodbank. The Hawaii Foodbank has been fighting hunger and food insecurity in Hawaii for 40 years. We’ve been lucky enough in the last year to join up with this food insecurity working group with Arletta and Lorna and several others because we believe nobody should go to bed hungry\, but we also are really dedicated in ensuring our military personnel who are serving don’t have to struggle with basic fundamental rights like food\, and we mean healthy food too. Mahalo. \nBob: I’m going to ask you to share with us again\, because before we jump into the working group and the incredible collaboration that’s going on\, I think it’s really important\, when we talked earlier a couple of months ago\, that we set the context a little bit for food systems and food security in Hawaii. Because it is such a special place and might have some unique benefits\, challenges\, just characteristics that we wouldn’t see here in the continental United States. \nKina\, can you maybe start that conversation for us? What makes the food system in Hawaii so unique? \nKina: Sure. Well\, at any given time\, the island of Oahu has less than a week of food supply on it. 80% to 90%\, depending on who you ask\, of the food that we all consume is imported. At one time\, our island sustained a population of a million people just within the sustainable cultivation of our āina\, which is our land here. Now we have a really different food system\, and as I’m sure you’ve all seen at the grocery store\, wherever you are\, prices have continued to go up and up and up. \nWe have this unique challenge of being the most isolated land mass on the planet and relying on boats that bring us our food. We have so much potential to rely more on our land to provide our food\, but that’s a longer conversation. We also know how when people are moving here to serve\, or when they’re assigned here\, it’s a big shift to see the prices that are here compared to prices elsewhere. It’s not just on a macro level we have some food system challenges\, but also on the individual family level when you’re making that adjustment\, it can be really hard. \nArletta: I can say on the active duty side that it is a shock when they come here because they expect everything to be the same as it was on the mainland\, and then when they transfer over here\, they’re totally unprepared. One of the things that we did with our working group is figure out ways to prepare them ahead of time in trying to get them to understand that they need a financial appointment before they leave and that they can figure out what their finances are before they leave\, then also start paying off as many bills as they can and start stockpiling a savings account. Because once they get here\, trying to do a savings account is really difficult because it’s so expensive\, and they’re going to have to rely on that because there’s a honeymoon period of about six to nine months. \nBecause the first thing is once they get the assignment\, it’s like\, oh my gosh\, it’s the best assignment in the Air Force\, or whatever military branch\, and they don’t realize that once they get here\, it’s not what they thought. I try to tell people early on\, I’m like\, okay\, here’s what you need to think about. There are two Hawaiis. There’s tourism Hawaii that they’ve been marketed to and the beauty and all that sort of stuff\, but then there’s the reality of living in Hawaii\, which is the other Hawaii. \nThat’s what I’m trying to prepare them because they don’t have a choice. Once they get here\, they can’t leave. I mean\, a spouse can leave. They can send their spouse back to the mainland or their children back to the mainland\, but that active duty or even that Guard member\, they can’t leave. They’re here. We have to prepare them the best we can for the environment that they’re living in. Hopefully\, some of the best practices that we come up with can be utilized on the mainland\, or also prepping a member to go overseas. \nBob: Lorna\, what kinds of challenges are your airmen facing and their families facing in the Hawaii Air National Guard regarding food security? \nLorna: Yes\, so it’s the same thing for our members. It is very expensive to live here. Cost of living is high. People are leaving constantly\, getting priced out of paradise and actually going to the mainland. Our local youth are starting to go to college there. Of course\, they end up staying there and not coming home\, and then before you know it\, the parents are following them. A lot of our local people can’t afford to live here\, so they’re moving to the mainland\, which you called continental United States. [chuckles]\nYes\, cost of living is very high here in Hawaii. We have multiple families living in one house\, so we have grandparents\, parents\, and children. Of course\, grandparents are watching the grandchildren\, and then the parents are going to work. I also noticed in the last few years\, we had a paradigm shift where actually now our parents are caring for our grandparents\, our elderly. Not only the stress and struggles of living in Hawaii or in the paradise that we have here\, but they can’t afford certain things\, and food is one of them. \nAnything that we can do for our families\, if we can help them with the food\, and then they can pay for the medical bills\, they can pay for the medication that they need for their grandparents\, or we call them kūpuna\, it’s going to help. \nArletta: I want to hop in and piggyback off of what Lorna said. Not only are they living two- well\, three\, maybe four generations in a house\, most everybody in the house has at least two jobs. When you’re looking at the Hawaii Air National Guard\, they have their normal regular job and then a part-time job\, and then the National Guard on top of that. \nBob: Yes. It sounds like very challenging context for our families to be dealing with\, but the working group that you guys put together to start to address that kind of stuff\, how did that all begin\, Arletta? Where did this idea even spring out of and how did you get it started? \nArletta: Gosh\, this was way back before the pandemic\, October of 2019. Airman and Family Readiness on the Hickam active duty side noticed that– It was started with Drew [unintelligible 00:11:00]. He noticed that when people were coming in for the Air Force Aid Society\, those are emergency loans and grants that people can apply for if they need money for certain things. Usually it’s a car repair or something to that effect. One of the things that he noticed when people were coming in to ask for those loans and grants was they were needing sustenance\, they were needing food. Instead of asking for the grant or the loan\, which I think they can only get maybe one time or it’s a limited time\, he opened up a cabinet with two doors and it was a food pantry. That’s how we started. \nThen once we had that food pantry\, I hopped on board to help him advertise it because as a health promotion coordinator\, I know that if you can get people to donate healthier items\, that’ll change their diet. Then not long after that\, the chaplains over at the Hawaii Air National Guard opened up the Pono Pantry. Pono in Hawaii means balance. They started theirs. It was a little shed out in their parking lot\, [chuckles] and they left it open 24/7 so people could go in and get what they needed. That’s how our food pantry system opened up. \nThen when we were moving forward\, but Jayme Alexander\, she took over the Flight Chief position at the Airman and Family Readiness Center\, and she noticed the same thing Drew did\, only she expanded it by like 1\,600%. Instead of one cabinet; ended up being four. She noticed that there was an extreme need. This was during the pandemic\, so that’s when she expanded it. Well\, the working group happened because our wing commander’s wife at the time– We had expanded to the Airman’s Attic\, and the Airman’s Attic is like a thrift store\, it’s like a free thrift store. They noticed that people were coming in for clothing and things like that\, so they set up a little cabinet at the Airman’s Attic. \nThe wing commander’s wife\, who’s the head person over on the Air Force side\, she noticed that people were taking a lot of food items from the Airman’s Attic\, so she approached me and wanted healthier items. One of the things I had mentioned to her was\, once you reach to the point of you’re getting food at a food pantry\, healthier items are not on your list of to do. I mean\, you’re just wanting to survive. That would fall to us to provide those healthier options so that they could have those. That’s how the working group started was I said\, what we need is to get together as a group and be able to create that type of environment. That’s how the working group started. \nIt’s changed its name three times now. It was the Team Hickam Food Insecurity Working Group. Then I believe it was Laura Kay from the Hawaii Foodbank had said that we are in a unique situation on Oahu as that we have all four services plus the Coast Guard on this island. It was then that I was like\, you know what? We can’t just say this is just an Air Force thing. We opened it up to all services\, and we have representatives from all services that attend this working group. Recently\, we just changed the name again to the Food Insecurity Working Group Hawaii because now we cover the whole state of Hawaii because as Lorna said\, we have assets on outer islands and we are actually servicing those assets\, so it made sense to change the name again. \nHow we ended up being kind of multi-service. In August of last year\, I had a phone call from USARPAC\, which is US Army Pacific. They asked me if I was doing anything on the food insecurity side. I’m like\, well\, yes. The more we got the talk\, they have a– General Flynn is very\, very interested in food insecurity\, and so they piggyback off of us. They ended up attending the working group\, back when we were Team Hickam\, and now they’re like very staunch at showing up every meeting\, they give a lot of input. Not only is our working group dealing with things that happen in Hawaii\, but also across the Pacific we’re having impact. That’s exciting as well. \nBob: Kina\, how did Hawaii Foodbank get involved? \nKina: Hawaii Foodbank has been partnering with the Armed Services YMCA for several years now. Hawaii Foodbank– The way food banks work is like a funnel. The food comes into us from retail donations from the Safeways and the Costcos in our community who have excess\, and also from USDA commodities\, and then also from our community member donations. We do purchase food as well\, especially we like to prioritize from our local farmers and producers. The food funnels in\, and then we funnel it out through a network of community partners like ASYMCA. We have three sites. \nArletta mentioned it\, and I mentioned it\, we really like to focus on healthy food. The number one thing people are asking for is fresh produce. That is the thing that is not affordable\, that is the thing that goes away when a family is struggling. That’s the stories we hear. We partner with ASYMCA in three different locations at three different bases to do monthly distributions where we really focus on produce. We bring\, and we will bring the– We have the refrigeration at the food bank\, so we come out and can do a bigger distribution at a time. \nWe would like to do more. There’s always more to be done. I think this is where we like to partner with very creative folks like Arletta\, who’s thinking about community gardens. A community garden or a family garden may never meet all of your produce and vegetable needs\, but if we can start to- in addition to what we bring on a monthly or a biweekly basis from the food bank\, if we can start to change mindsets and build skills and understand how we can also go back to some of the values that sustains a population here at one time\, if we can go back to some of those values and practices\, we do think it also makes a difference for people. \nBob: Yes\, it’s really great to hear some of the systems approach to preventing food insecurity\, and awesome that you guys are working on that. Lorna\, what kinds of other things is the working group working on? [chuckles] The working group working on. What’s typical of a meeting of what kind of conversations come up? \nLorna: Well\, I think the nice thing about this working group\, it’s various organizations that are coming together\, not only military. We work with the community so much\, and everybody brings their little piece of what they’re doing\, what’s coming up in the future\, the programs that are available for our members or for our service members. That really brings us together and helps us. Then if we have an issue\, we work together on how to resolve it\, or how to take care of just little items that might be challenges we might be facing. \nIt’s a great way to come together and see what’s out there to bring these resources to our members. It’s a really giving group of people too. Arletta said about pono. Pono means righteousness and balance and doing what’s right. That’s exactly what this team does\, is we’re just trying to make sure that everybody gets the information and gets the resources that they need so that they can have a better experience here in Hawaii. \nAlso too\, what we do is we have some volunteer experiences for our members. Not everybody’s having struggles with food\, but they want to help out\, so we do have volunteer opportunities with the food bank. We do that monthly. Then also\, we go up to a farm\, Waihe’e farm. We actually go there and clean up the farm\, make sure that we help them with their taro or kalo\, which actually turns into poi. If you’ve been to Hawaii\, you might have had some poi. That’s the root that you make poi from. It’s a big industry here and very expensive\, so any way we can help to cultivate the taro or the kalo. \nWe go out there\, and we help them with their farm and better their progress of growing this product. Then also\, other products they have. They have watercress there. They have ‘ulu\, which is breadfruit\, and different other local fruits that we can distribute to our community. \nArletta: Actually\, the reason that’s important is because if you look at the bigger picture\, and this is one of the things that you have to give Hawaii credit for\, is they’re trying to go back to the sustainability that they had before modern times. That’s how they sustain themselves. It also gives a hands-on view to everybody on where their food comes from. They could very easily be repeated at farm– You see these sorts of things on farms on the mainland\, people going and volunteering and helping. I had a friend of mine in Missouri that just volunteered to help pick a farm that creates her CSA\, her community support box that she gets. That food\, because it was extra\, went back to the food bank. \nThese are things that we can promote having people understand where their food comes from\, and you’re able to have a hands-on. Hawaii just happens to be unique in the fact that it’s part of their underlying culture. We care about the āina\, or the land\, and so that’s something that’s really important. \nLorna: Yes. Actually\, we started going to the Waihe’e farm because after COVID\, they lost so many sales that they were thinking of shutting down. We got a group of volunteers together and simple things like taking the weeds out of the taro patch or the kalo patch\, and just making sure that the water is flowing from the– The water is wai\, so the wai is flowing from the streams\, taking the weeds out of that in the streams and making sure that everything is flowing correctly. We’re able to clean up their taro patches and production has been better. \nJust little things of getting people together to help out these farmers so that they can produce. It’s going to\, of course\, drizzle down to us and we’re going to end up getting the benefits of it. Poi\, which is made from kalo\, is very expensive and it’s because the lack of the product\, the kalo. This way\, we can actually help them and in turn\, we’re helping ourselves because of reduction of price for poi\, which is one of our staples. \nBob: That’s awesome. I think it’s really great to build that connection back to where your food comes from. It sounds like there’s a lot of great stuff happening and great communication happening. I’m just wondering if\, when the working group was either being formed\, or where you were trying to get your feet\, were there challenges or barriers that you guys encountered in trying to get this set up and to get everybody at the table? \nArletta: I know for me\, the big challenges was trying to get– It’s one thing to have a working group and to be able to move forward\, but when you look at the big picture on the military side of the house\, you have to have leadership involved. You have to have leadership understand that this is an issue. When you look at the big picture\, both on the active duty side\, and the Guard\, and Reserve side\, and the Secretary of Defense said it\, food insecurity is a readiness issue. \nWhen we look at the overall picture\, if you have a military member that can’t afford or doesn’t have the resources to sustain themselves\, then that puts them at risk for\, A\, not doing their job; B\, worrying about their family; C\, becoming a security risk because they become a possible target for our adversaries to offer them money for food. That’s not something that we want. We can’t tolerate that. That’s a no go. The thing for me was trying to get leadership to understand. I am partly there. Not everybody– \nThe first thing\, and I heard this a lot\, is\, “Well\, you make good money. I don’t understand how you are having trouble.” What we found early on was you can be food insecure at any rank. All it takes is one major life event to knock you off the fence. You can have a Lieutenant Colonel seeking food at a food pantry. This isn’t something that is just low-ranking airmen with a lot of kids\, although it is a lot of that. It’s across the board\, and getting leadership to understand that this stuff has been lurking in your ranks for decades. \nThis is not a new problem. This is something\, yes\, the pandemic probably aggravated a little bit\, but when I first started doing research on it– The reason I started doing research was because Major Kevin Watanabe\, the IMA to the PACAF\, Pacific Air Force’s nutrition consultant\, couldn’t go to his base in Alaska during the pandemic\, so he dropped in my lap. I had him for a month\, and I ask him to give me ideas for nutrition\, because nutrition falls to me\, I am not a dietitian\, he is\, and to give me nutrition ideas. \nThe garden was the first idea\, and we’ve been sustaining that garden since October of 2020. The second or the last idea that he gave me right before he left was\, “Check into SNAP and WIC. You may be looking at only low-ranking airmen with a lot of kids\,” so I did. What I found out was this is like the military’s dirty little secret. It’s been happening for years. Nobody’s really been talking about it. That’s how we evolved into where we’re at is once I figured out the issue\, then it’s my responsibility\, because it’s readiness issue\, is to bring it to leadership’s attention. Once leadership gets an idea that this is an issue\, then we can move forward\, and we can actually do a little bit more than what we can just by ourselves. \nMy medical group commander\, who is in charge of our clinic\, she was the first one I got on board. Then she said\, I want this brief to all the group commanders\, and so we were able to take that forward. We still have a lot of work to do because we only targeted a small group of our commanders. The goal is to get them all to understand. Once everybody’s on board and everybody’s aware of it\, they can see those pockets where they can actually make a difference and things they can do. \nThat’s the big thing with leadership is you have to give them action items\, things they can do that is realistic\, in their wheelhouse. You can’t give them the overarching thing and say\, “This is our problem\,” and give them nothing to do. They operate by\, “Give me the reason\, tell me what’s going on\, and then give me something to do.” Right now that’s probably the biggest challenge is being able to get leadership to understand. We’re getting there. It’s not perfect\, but we’re a lot further than we were two years ago. \nI think that with the Secretary of Defense highlighting this\, that it’s made it easier for more commanders to understand. We’re seeing that on the USARPAC side\, the US Army Pacific side\, is they have a senior leader that’s highly engaged. I think that they can make a lot of difference just at that big level. \nBob: Lorna\, did you see similar things in terms of having to get buy-in from leadership on your side of things? \nLorna: The Pono Pantry was actually started by the chaplain program during the COVID situation here in Hawaii\, the pandemic. The chaplains put everything into motion. They got approval and everything. I was not part of that\, but I’m telling you\, with our leadership at the Hawaii Air National Guard\, we have no resistance there. They all would continuously ask if we need any products in the Pono Pantry. Obviously\, we have different needs on the Hawaii Air National Guard side. Rice\, SPAM [unintelligible 00:30:03] diapers\, stuff like that that we need\, and it just flies out of our pantry\, but the leadership continuously supports the program. \nOne thing that we do find is a challenge is having the members come out. That’s why we have it where it’s anonymous. You can come at any time. We do have hours to the open facility\, but we can coordinate with them. They can come in the evening or early morning\, and we’ll have the products available for them. Then we also work very closely with our first sergeants\, and we have them out and about\, finding out where the needs are and then trying to fulfill those needs by providing them the food source. \nIn the future\, this– We just started hurricane season and preparedness is a big part of hurricane season. We’re making sure that we have enough supplies in there\, and we’re going to\, hopefully\, put together some bags of starter sets with maybe a few food items\, some toiletries. We just got a big donation of toiletries\, so toiletries in there\, and just get them started. \nArletta: Yes\, Lorna brings up a really good point. I think the big piece of this that everybody misses is the disaster piece. There are two emergencies. One is the individual person’s emergency and getting a crisis\, and then your goal is to get them stabilized and then help move them forward. The piece that I don’t think we’re talking about enough is the mass disaster piece. For us\, it could be a hurricane. We just went through the Red Hill water crisis where we had some fuel tanks leak into the water system\, and that threw us off. We learned a lot during that water crisis as to what’s going to happen during an emergency. \nSee\, for our members\, and even Lorna’s airmen during an emergency\, those members have to keep on working. It’s not like they can stop and take care of their family. The mission goes on\, so you have to prep them ahead of time so that they can weather that disaster. We learned a lot of lessons during the Red Hill water crisis in the fact that we’re not as ready as we could be. That’s one of the big things that our working group has actually been looking at on a big scale is\, how can we prepare members for an emergency? \nOne of the things that you’re told when you get here is to have two weeks’ worth of food stockpiled so that in case of emergency\, you can fall back on that because 90% of the food is imported here. Unfortunately\, I can’t think of a single person that’s probably as prepared as they should be. That’s one of the things that we’ve been talking about. Maybe somehow educating members to prepare their kit before they leave the mainland. That way\, the government will move it here\, it will be in place\, and they don’t have to worry about the expense once they get here. \nThat’s in the infancy stage\, but that disaster preparedness is a huge thing. Because in a disaster\, the goal is- we’re not there yet\, but the goal is for the active duty or even the military in general\, Guard\, Reserve\, to take the pressure off of the Hawaii Foodbank because in a disaster\, their people are the people of Hawaii. If we can somehow self-contain and prepare those members to be able to be self-contained and to move on with their mission and not have to worry about going out and getting food\, we take that pressure off of the Hawaii Foodbank and they can concentrate on the other people in Hawaii. We’re not there yet\, but that’s one of our ultimate goals. \nBob: Kina\, can you talk about that a little bit? I think there’s a couple things that are really striking me. Just this idea of being here on the mainland\, we have the same risks\, potentially\, of- not the same\, but similar risks of disaster and being prepared for that\, but it’s such a different ask for me to be prepared and have that food in the pantry for two weeks or longer\, or whatever\, than it is for the people of Hawaii. \nThe other thing I’m interested in your comment on is just what Arletta just brought up\, about this relationship between Hawaii Foodbank serving the people of Hawaii\, but knowing that our military families are in need and how that gets discussed and balanced out for you guys. \nKina: Yes\, those are two really big\, really good questions. Let me start with the disaster piece first. If we look at what’s in our warehouse\, and if we think about having to have enough food for everybody on Oahu in the event of a massive disaster\, it’s a day\, maybe. It’s not enough. We are talking with our Department of Emergency Management at the county level\, and with our Hawaii Emergency Management at the state level. There’s a lot that we can do\, both systematically and individually\, to be prepared. \nWe have an internal plan that we’re working on at the food bank. A big part of our plan is also working with the agencies\, with the ASYMCAs and with the other 200 agency partners who run food pantries and soup kitchens to make sure that they have some stockpiles\, that they’re strategically placed around the island\, what we’re calling precovery pods\, with MREs in them\, so in the event that Waianae is cut off from– Farrington Highway that goes out to Waianae often gets cut off for a car accident\, let alone a disaster. That there are places that are going to be hard to reach that have at least some level of preparedness. \nI think one of the things we talk about a lot is how much– If you look at the narrative\, like have your emergency preparedness kit done\, you might get a flyer in the mail. So much of the messaging falls on the individual person or the individual family to get prepared\, but we also have to be prepared as a community and as a state. These are the conversations\, I think\, we’re having in the working group\, how we do that. How we both encourage at the individual level\, but also when a disaster strikes we’re all in it together\, so how we make sure that it’s the communications and the infrastructure that’s in place to do that. \nWe don’t have the answers\, it’s a work in progress\, but it is one of the key pillars\, key priorities that we’re working at\, at Hawaii Foodbank. Because it’s a when. It’s not an if\, and we all know that. COVID was its own disaster of sorts that we learned a lot from. I think we’re trying to apply some of those lessons- not lose those lessons and apply them to thinking about natural and weather-related disasters that we’ll hit. \nOn the second question\, it’s a bigger and harder question around the relationship with the military in Hawaii. I’m not speaking out of turn to say it’s a complex– We are in occupied territory that was controlled by our Indigenous population\, and that’s a complex relationship. On the other hand\, it’s not either or. I have Hawaiian family who served in the military. Hawaiians have a history of military service back to Kalākaua’s days. It’s Hawaiian people who are serving in the Air National Guard\, right\, Lorna? \nI think we\, Hawaii Foodbank\, try to get past the either/or\, us/them narrative\, and nobody should go to bed hungry. You can say\, especially kids\, especially kūpuna\, elders\, especially people serving our country\, but it’s actually\, especially no one. I think that it’s finding these intersections of partnerships where when we come together and link\, we can all do better together. \nI guess maybe if I could say one more thing leading from that\, Arletta and Lorna talked a little bit about the challenges\, but also there’s some really special things about being on an island. All the challenges we have are not unique to other places\, but we’re just closer together. Lorna’s comment about the leadership being so supportive\, I think we have that really in spades here in Hawaii. We are an inspiration for other places. \nAt the Hawaii Foodbank\, we’re part of a cohort of other food banks who serve military families. Colorado\, Savannah\, Georgia\, there’s a handful of food banks across the nation. We asked Arletta to come talk to the group about this working group because what she and her partners have done in creating this all-branch\, all-collaborative\, islands’\, statewide organization of people is pretty tremendous\, and everybody else was blown away. It gave a lot of ideas- not just concrete ideas\, but inspiration and hope for what is possible. \nBob: What I’d like to do is ask each of you about advice you would give to someone who maybe is feeling the need for this on their installation\, in their community\, that you know there’s other people out there working on this issue\, you know it’s an issue for the people that you serve. \nI’ll start with Arletta and then Lorna. What advice would you give to someone who is on installation or working with Guard or Reserve and wants to engage with civilian organizations on the issue of food security for military families? \nArletta: It’s actually a partnership amongst several. I started my relationship with the Hawaii Department of Health\, the public health department. That was a link that was made through Major Watanabe\, but that’s how I fully understood how to deal with the food issue on the healthy side of the house. Reaching out to your public health departments\, reaching out to those local food banks. I think there’s been a roadblock for a long time. It’s like we can’t talk to you because of security issues. I think that we’re all in the same business and all in the same game\, and I think that we can talk to each other and share data and things like that\, and I think that we can help each other. \nI know on the health promotion side of the house\, look at those areas that you’re reaching out to your cooperative extension. Great\, great information on gardening\, recipes\, how to cook. Those are all skills that\, on a military installation\, I think that we need to teach. We need to teach about foodways\, we need to teach about farmers’ markets\, CSAs\, all that stuff is an education piece because it all feeds into that food ecosystem. Because the goal– I know one of the goals that we have here is to try to stretch that food dollar as far as we can. \nBy stretching the food dollar\, it’s buying local\, preventing food waste\, cooking with your scraps. A lot of the stuff that goes into the trash\, that’s edible food\, and there’s a lot of organizations across the country that are actually working on those sorts of things. I was recently\, last week\, at the American College of Sports Medicine meeting. I was able to wander around a Denver park that was near Union Station\, and I stumbled upon the Denver Urban Garden. Which I have a garden. I got a lot of ideas from there. There are agencies in the community that can help you meet those goals. \nAnother thing that you might think about is encouraging breastfeeding in the workplace. That’s an education piece that a lot of people haven’t addressed\, and that feeds right back into our food system as well. Reaching out to those outside partners that can help you. Every places has a little different agency\, but like I said\, the extension\, the public health department\, the local food pantries\, your sister services. I’ve learned so much from the Army side\, and the Army has learned so much from me. Just because you happen to reside in the same place\, you’re not two different services. We’re all one Department of Defense. \nThat would be my advice. \nBob: Lorna\, do you have advice from the National Guard perspective? \nLorna: Sure. I think you have to just set some goals. What do you want? How do you want to get there? Then talk about your ideas. You have to start having the conversation with your leadership\, community organizations. You can talk to other bases. Call us. It doesn’t have to be big. You can actually start small if you wanted to. \nEducation is really the piece too. Of course\, you want to educate the community and our leadership on some of the things that we need in our community or for our members. Schools\, educate the children. [unintelligible 00:44:10]. They are the ones that are going to take it home\, so tell them how you can be more sustainable\, or teach them how you can save on groceries using coupons\, or whatever it takes. Yes\, set the goals\, talk about your ideas. Then also\, it does not have to be huge. Start small. It’ll always grow. \nPeople want to help each other. In the Hawaii community\, like was said earlier too\, we support each other. Even we don’t only care for our kūpuna\, or our elderly within our family\, we actually help our neighbors. We take care of each other. We help our neighbors to make sure they’re okay. During a hurricane\, we walk over to our neighbor’s house\, especially if they’re elderly\, and say\, “Hey\, are you okay? Do you need food? You need us to clean out your house?” Or whatever is needed. We make sure that they’re taken care of. \nOnce you start that conversation\, I think everybody [unintelligible 00:45:09] and will be part of your team will gather. \nBob: Thanks\, Lorna. Kina\, we’ll end with you. Do you have advice for that person who might be in a community food bank or food pantry who knows there might be a need for military families and some opportunities to engage with National Guard or a military installation\, do you have advice for how to get started? \nKina: I think reaching out to your local food bank is a really good start. Then I think for everybody\, whether you’re at a food bank\, or whether you’re in the military\, or you’re a civilian\, helping to reduce that culture of shame and stigma. Everybody needs help sometimes. We’ve all needed a hand up in our life\, and so if we can create the kind of programs that are centered around helping each other\, reciprocity\, giving back. \nI heard a great quote from someone in our community like\, no matter how hard you have it\, you can always help give blessings to other people. If we take that spirit\, that connection in our community as part of the work we’re doing around food insecurity and health\, then I think that goes a long way. \nBob: I want to thank you guys so much for the incredible work that you are all doing\, and for sharing it with us today on the Practicing Connection podcast. Kina Mahi\, Lorna Souza\, Arletta Eldridge Thompson\, thank you so much for joining us. \nLorna: Thank you. Mahalo. \nBob: I want to thank our listeners for joining us for this conversation as well. Thanks again to Jessica. She made this whole conversation possible with her hard work. We’d also like to thank our co-producer\, Coral Owen; our announcer\, Kalin Goble; Hannah Hyde\, Maggie Lucas\, and Terry Meisenbach for their help with marketing; and Nathan Grimm\, who composed and performed all the music you hear on the podcast. We hope you’ll join us again soon. In the meantime\, keep practicing. \n[music]\nKalin: The Practicing Connection is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture\, US Department of Agriculture\, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy\, US Department of Defense under award number 2019-48770-30366.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
URL:https://oneop.org/learn/hawaiis-food-security-collaboration-for-military-families-s-4-ep-6/
CATEGORIES:Community Engagement
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