BY LAURA MULROONEY NNB Reporter
[Edited By Ivelliam Ceballo]
Twenty-five percent of Pinellas County’s underage population has no idea where their next meal will come from, the definition of chronic hunger.
Approximately 86 percent of people in this country take for granted food choices available to them, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
While food is freely distributed throughout the city at numerous food banks and outreach programs, what prevents residents from being food and nutrition secure?
SNAP and WIC nutrition programs are used interchangeably with the word welfare, which causes confusion and misunderstanding for those who might qualify for the programs but never apply because of a perceived stigma.
Participation in the SNAP program has dropped by more than a million people since October 2014. October 2015 marked the fifth straight monthly decline. Even as more people are applying for benefits, about 20 percent of eligible applicants will not receive them, according to the Food Research and Action Center.
Why the decline?
Beth Houghton, the executive director of St. Petersburg Free Clinic, believes awareness is the biggest problem.
“Many families don’t know they qualify for food assistance like SNAP, commonly referred to as food stamps,” said Houghton. “Many families are unaware of the qualifications they need to benefit from this federal program. Education about available programs and resources is key.”
Some groups are working to raise awareness.
The St. Petersburg Free Clinic Food Bank started advertising with other area food banks to share food resource information using social media.
Tampa Bay Network to End Hunger provides education initiatives and resources through the University of Florida Extension program which includes help with finances, nutrition and home gardening.
The Food Research and Action Center provides dedicated web space for research including resources on nutrition and healthy living. Short pre-screenings to determine eligibility can be done online for SNAP and WIC.
Still, the suffering from chronic hunger persists and it’s not always visually apparent.
There is a fear of being stereotyped, the stigma behind being a welfare recipient is harsh in a world where the rich are idolized and the poor are ignored.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width="1/3"][vc_column_text]
27% of people in Midtown are at or below poverty level, which is much higher than the state’s average of 17%. city-data.com
[/vc_column_text][vc_separator color="grey" align="align_center" style="" border_width="" el_width=""][vc_column_text]Links to Program Prescreening
Supplemental Nutrition Assitance Program (SNAP)Women, Infants and Children (WIC) [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
NNB reporters Esteban Rodriguez and Marla Korenich contributed to this report.
ST. PETERSBURG — As part of the nationwide Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, a substantial crowd gathered as a mural by local artist Ya La’ford was unveiled on the north side of the historic Manhattan Casino in Midtown Monday.
Titled “King’s Dream Unite,” La’ford and 25 students from MYcroSchool Pinellas, a tuition-free, dropout recovery, public charter high school, painted the expansive 30’x30’ mural in one week with what was described as a “tremendous amount of paint.”
“King’s Dream Unite” is a community mural where La’ford admits the community helped her realize Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream.
“The mural is about unity, this is about how we’re connected, this is about how we can pull and collaborate the community together where I am not only exposing you to the visual but also to the dance and to the music, I am kind of forging these forces together to have something so impactful to the community,” she said.
The event Monday began with the roar of the Mt. Zion Progressive Community Marching Band. The 13-percussion piece ensemble’s force and presence brought the crowd alive with the beat of their drums and crash of their cymbals.
“The pounding of the drums represents our heartbeats coming together,” said La’ford at the end of the event.
Jacqueline Williams Hubbard, Esq./Pres., St. Pete Chapter, The Association for the Study of African American Life and History spoke of the importance of the mural’s location on the side of the historic Manhattan Casino. For 40 years the Manhattan Casino played an instrumental role in south St. Petersburg arts, entertainment, and cultural development in the 1920s when Jim Crow segregation laws were still prevalent.
The Moving Mural, a collaborative dance and song presentation performed by dancer and rehearsal director Helen Hansen French, singer Becca McCoy, MYcroSchool students and Mt. Zion Impact Dance Ministry confirmed that arts and entertainment still thrive in Midtown.
La’ford along with Deputy Mayor Dr. Kanika Tomalin, Councilwomen Lisa Wheeler-Brown and Darden Rice and Chris Steinocher, president and CEO St. Petersburg Area Chamber of Commerce cut the ribbon as the tarp simultaneously raised, revealing the unified efforts of a diverse community.
The mural consists of a black background with silver intersecting geometrical lines starting from the base of the building like tree roots that grow upwards to form the trunk and then a circular crown. The crown embraces two illuminated circles, one inside the other. A description by La’ford is essential to understand the magnitude of the piece.
“Black represents the color of our people, the lines forge together in silver, silver being one of the oldest and most precious metals, as precious as our people. The three circles represent all of us rotating around each other for infinity. The geometric patterns represent how all of our lives intersect, everyone’s life journey may have traversed to the left or to the right but they will all intersect at some point. The center two circles are illuminated to acknowledge the presence of a higher being connecting us all together.”
La’ford consistently involves children in her art to show that art is in everything that they do and see. This project provided MYcroSchool Pinellas students with the opportunity to participate in something they would not have normally done.
The mural unveiling also included a free book giveaway for students and children courtesy of Keep St. Pete Lit and Bluebird Books. Students received bookmarks where they could write their response finishing MLK Jr.’s famous sentence “I have a dream.”
Laura Mulrooney is a reporter in the Neighborhood News Bureau at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
BY BRIGITTE TOULON and CHOYA RANDOLPH NNB Reporters
MIDTOWN– Nearly 21,000 people have walked through the doors of the Pregnancy and Family Resource Center in Midtown, and received help with more than they anticipated.
Originally built in 1992, the center received grants and donations from the community and Suncoast Baptist Church to help them help the community.
The Resource Center is a place where individuals can receive information on preventing pregnancies, contraception, alternatives to abortion and general counseling for individuals in these kinds of situations.
“The center is orientated around the value of life, parents understanding their roles and love for babies, before and after the womb,” said Carole Alexander, director of the center.
Before becoming a resource center, it was a condemned house that was donated to the Suncoast Baptist Association. The church allowed the fire department to use the home for fire drills. After being burned down, the land was cleared and built into the center in 1992 and began serving the community in 1994.
Prior to the building being completed, the center began serving people through Pleasant Grove Baptist Church off 9th Ave S, for about a year. The center went from serving roughly 600 people in its first year to now almost 1,000 people a year.
The center now offers programs such as the Gaining Opportunity and Achieving Life Success (GOALS). This program teaches families about hard work by having members earn points through activities including group activities, one on one’s, watching DVDs and participating in other programs. The points earned could be used at the Mother’s and Baby’s Boutique for parents to buy diapers and other necessities.
Another program offered is the Baby Love Support group which is a six-week program for parents to bond with the child and each other and learn about prenatal care. For parents that have received abortions and may have lingering feelings about the experience, the center provides the Post Abortion Recovery Ministry.
In 2010, the center began to struggle fiscally and was about to shut down because of the economic recession. Due to a letter the center sent out to the community which stated their financial needs, they were able to keep their doors open due to the flood of support and donations they received.
“We give to the church, and the church gives to us,” said Alexander.
The church provides help by way of financial donations and by encouraging their members to volunteer at the center. In turn, the workers of the center give back by volunteering for the church at different functions, in particular by giving vital information to the members of the church.
Alexander, has a personal connection to the centers’ work, partly because she was faced with an unplanned pregnancy in her youth. Due to the lack of resources prior to her pregnancy, she is now committed to helping others understand the importance of life.
“Here’s our vision, when we’ve accomplished and done all that we’ve been called to do, we want to see vibrant families in communities, whole and complete lacking nothing through Christ,” said Alexander.
John Joyce, 83, walks 2.5 miles to mow the lawn at the Norton’s house. They started a GoFundMe to get Joyce a truck. Photo GoFundMe.
John Joyce is getting a truck.
Joyce, 83, has mowed the lawn at Robert Norton’s house for eight years and after recently getting sick and spending three months in the hospital, his truck broke, according to USA Today.
When his daughter is not able to give him a ride, Joyce walks the 2.5 miles to mow the Norton’s lawn.
“That broke my heart, especially when I found out how he was getting here to do what he was doing,” Nikki Norton said to WTSP.
So the Nortons set up a GoFundMe to buy a truck for Joyce. The account has raised more than $6,200, more than the $4,000 goal, since it started two weeks ago.
“I think anybody who is 83 years old who works as hard as he does, as loyal and faithful as he is, his work ethic and character, should have a vehicle to drive and do his work in,” Robert Norton said to WTSP.
Lauren Hensley | NNB Glass artist Jake Pfeifer spent a month as an artist-in-residence at the Duncan McClellan Gallery in Midtown.
BY LAUREN HENSLEY NNB Student Reporter
ST. PETERSBURG – When he was 5, Jake Pfeifer got a grim diagnosis. He had a malignant, inoperable tumor behind his left eye.
Doctors told his parents he had a 5 percent chance of surviving the next three years.
“The cancer was a very rare childhood malignancy and the prognosis for that particular cancer was very, very poor,” said his mother, Sonya Pfeifer. “We made funeral arrangements for Jake three times.”
Her son underwent aggressive radiation and chemotherapy treatments and spent much of his childhood in the hospital. But he beat the odds. He was pronounced cancer free when he was 15, although he still has side effects from the treatment.
Now 27, Pfeifer is a glass artist with a keen appreciation of life and a remarkable portfolio. He has studied under several renowned glass masters and his work has appeared in galleries across the country.
He spent May as an artist-in-residence at the Duncan McClellan Gallery at 2342 Emerson Ave. S in St. Petersburg’s Warehouse Arts District. His exhibit will be on display there through July 6 and then become part of the gallery’s general collection.
His childhood illness shaped his outlook on life, Pfeifer said. On his website, he compares himself to the Phoenix, the bird of mythology that arises from the ashes to new life.
“I feel I have emerged from the fire, and I am living the life I love; and as chance would have it, I now find myself working with fire,” he said. “From the fire emerge beautiful things – first, my life and, second, the art that I am able to create.”
Glass blowing is hot, delicate work. The artist shapes a mass of glass, which has been softened by intense heat in a furnace, by blowing air into it through a tube, adding color and then cooling it slowly.
Pfeifer graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2010 with a bachelor’s in fine arts and completed a two-year residency at a glass studio in Louisville, Ky. He has been an intern or apprentice at hot shops and galleries around the country, and he has a business – Hot Glass Alley LLC – at a shop in Reading, Pa.
Pfeifer said cancer taught him the value of commitment and determination, and he compares his work with glass to his cancer treatment.
When he is working on a piece of hot, molten glass, he said, he has to stick with it to the end, “even if the outcome is not what I desired.” The piece “undergoes many changes … (and) can almost be lost” but usually turns into something beautiful.
Pfeifer’s diagnosis was a malignant, stage 3 rhabdomyosarcoma – an inoperable tumor behind his left eye that was penetrating his brain.
He was so ill that his doctors sent him on a “Make-a-Wish” trip with his brothers and sister. By the time he was 10, he had attended the funerals of many children whom he had befriended during his long stays in the hospital.
His mother is a nurse and his father, Michael, is an endocrinologist. Their experience in the medical field affected the way they approached their son’s diagnosis and treatment.
“We decided early on, just from watching other patients and families with this disease, that this could either destroy our family or bring us closer together,” said Sonya Pfeifer. “We circled our wagons and made sure that we grew together as a family.”
Pfeifer’s parents were determined that he would not only survive, but thrive. Despite the intense cancer treatments, their son kept up with his education.
“We never allowed Jake to use his illness as an excuse for anything,” Sonya said. “He was never held back in school even though he was in the hospital.”
The radiation made reading a little more difficult, but Pfeifer excelled in other areas.
Lauren Hensley | NNB Cancer taught him the value of commitment and determination, Pfeifer says.
“He was a math genius and he was very good with his hands,” his mother said. “He just naturally gravitated towards things that were comfortable to do. Glass has a component of science in math in it. He has to be able to understand the chemistry and the measurements; that was easy for him to grasp.”
Pfeifer says his interest in glass was sparked at the age of 14 when he saw glass artists at work in Bermuda. His mother recalls his creative inclinations beginning much earlier than that.
“He always liked Legos and coloring and building blocks. Most of the things that he liked to do were three dimensional, like glass is,” Sonya said. “He has always been very good with working with his hands. He has a lot of fine motor skills and is very agile.”
Michael Rogers, one of Pfeifer’s professors at RIT, said the faculty is proud of his accomplishments in art.
“I was aware of some health issues, but Jake didn’t talk about it,” Rogers said. “He’s a guy who didn’t want to be defined by an illness” and refused special treatment.
“It’s great to see Jake being successful and doing what he loves,” Rogers said.
During his month at the Duncan McClellan Gallery in St. Petersburg, Pfeifer devoted attention to his latest project, a series inspired by his heritage.
“My grandfather was 25 percent Cherokee. I know I’m only Native American by a small percentage, but it really shaped the way that I grew up,” Pfeifer said. “Mom always had Native American art in the house, and it was something we talked about regularly.”
The vases and bowls in this series feature bright colors and patterns.
“Traditionally, Native American art wouldn’t have all of the bright colors that my pieces do, but that’s my interpretation of my heritage,” said Pfeifer. “I like to think of it as a combination of who I am and where I came from.”
Now that his stint in St. Petersburg is over, Pfeifer said, Florida may well figure in his future. He is considering moving to Florida and opening a studio in Sarasota.
“I love the South,” he said. “I grew up in Kentucky and I’m really looking forward to building my business in an area that I love,” Pfeifer said.
Want to know more?
Jake Pfeifer’s work will be featured through July 6 at the Duncan McClelland Gallery, 2342 Emerson Ave. S in St. Petersburg and then go into the gallery’s general collection. His website is at hotglassalley.com.
