Together, we can end hunger in Oregon
Vision
Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon envisions an Oregon where everyone is healthy and thriving, with access to affordable, nourishing, and culturally appropriate food.
To bring that vision into reality, we raise awareness about hunger, connect people to nutrition programs, and advocate for systemic changes.
Values
Lived experiences: We listen closely to and raise up the voices and stories of people who directly experience hunger and poverty.
Building Power: Communities are resilient and know what they need to thrive. We are committed to collectively organizing, advocating, and working in solidarity inside our communities to make the changes we need.
Challenging Power: We build collective grassroots power to challenge and disrupt the existing power structures of white supremacy and oppression.
Accountability: We recognize and are responsible for our power and position. We will listen to feedback and criticism.
Social, racial, and economic justice: We are focused on achieving justice for all by dismantling historic and current systems of inequity and oppression that lead to hunger and poverty.
Land Acknowledgment
Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon gratefully acknowledges that our office and staff’s homes reside on the stolen land of the Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Cowlitz bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla and the many other tribes who have stewarded this land. Throughout the state of Oregon, where we do our work, there are nine federally recognized tribes and at least ten tribes without federal recognition.
We are on this land today because of the colonization and genocide forced upon Indigenous people. Capitalism, white supremacy, and colonization continue to affect their descendants today. As an organization working to end hunger and poverty in Oregon, we must work toward our collective liberation from these systems of oppression.
We celebrate the vibrant cultures, contributions and diversity of the tribes in Oregon, and commit ourselves to fighting for Indigenous food sovereignty by paying an annual land tax, building and strengthening our relationships with Indigenous communities, and dedicating resources to Indigenous-led projects and campaigns.
Statement on Black Labor
Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon acknowledges that the United States was established on the labor of enslaved Black people; and that much of this nation’s culture and economic growth is built out of the systemized terror inflicted on Black people. This is not only the horrific acts of transatlantic trafficking and chattel slavery, which supported most industries in this nation’s first century, but a legacy that endures with new racist policies like segregation, Jim Crow, redlining and this nation’s unjust carceral system.
Racism has been entrenched in Oregon for nearly two centuries. When Oregon became a part of the U.S. in 1859, the state explicitly forbade Black people from living here, the only state to do so. In more recent times, many cities have taken on “urban renewal” projects, such as the construction of Legacy Emanuel Hospital in North Portland, that destroyed a center of Black community. The legacy of these policies have far reaching impacts, for example, hunger rates for Black Oregonians are disproportionately high, with 11.2% of Black residents experiencing hunger, as compared to 4.0% of white residents. We celebrate Black community, art, food, literature, culture and joy as resistance to these systemic threats and violence. Recognition of Black joy is not a negation of harm done, nor a way to romanticize struggle. Black joy is a survival mechanism created by and for Black people, and it lends all of us the political imagination required to create a better world.
Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon recognizes the contribution and importance of Black Oregonians and commits to advocating for policies and providing resources to issue campaigns that further Black liberation and justice, like reparations and food sovereignty; and building relationships with and supporting Black-led organizations that are doing liberation work.
History
The Oregon State Legislature created the Oregon Hunger Task Force in 1989 in response to a statewide crisis. At that time, Oregon’s rates of hunger were among the highest nation-wide, and the legislature declared upon founding the Task Force that “all persons have the right to be free from hunger.”
Over the decades this diverse group of advocates, social service providers, state agencies and elected officials consistently pushed for policies, programs, research and investments to address the root causes of hunger. In 2006, the members of the Oregon Hunger Task Force founded a private nonprofit organization, Partners for a Hunger-Free Oregon, whose staff provide the capacity to help advocate for and implement the Task Force’s policy recommendations.
Since then, this unique public task force and private nonprofit have focused on addressing the root causes of hunger, while increasing access to food through policy change.