Newsmakers, February 19, 2015

Featured in this Show

• Winona Tackles Hunger Issues

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  People in Winona are hoping to find some solutions to dealing with the problem of hunger in their community. They will meet February 25 to see the film A Place at the Table, hear from one of the people featured in the film on hunger, then brainstorm ways to get at the problem of food insecurity in Winona.

  Jeff Franko is a retired pastor at Central Lutheran Church in Winona who’s been working on the event. He says many people in Winona recognize the need exists, but more could be done.

  “Congregations have stepped up and provided community meals three days a week,” he said. “We’ve got a terrific food shelf for the community. But there’s a stigma. You’ve got one segment of the community that uses us, and the rest of the community doesn’t even acknowledge it. What we’re trying to do is to widen the conversation so we can act together to make a bigger difference.”

  For Pastor Corrine Dennis of Winona’s Lutheran Campus Center, silence is one of the root causes of hunger, because stereotyping people facing challenges with hunger makes it their problem and not ‘everybody’s’ problem.

  “We can keep providing food for our communities, but we also need to affect change at the systemic level. Why is there a need for a community meal in the first place?” she asked.

  Denis says they need to get at issues such as food affordability, distribution and accessibility.

  Barbie Izquierdo is considered a national expert on issues of hunger and poverty and her story was featured in A Place at the Table. The Philadelphia native will speak about the issue during the Winona event to help inspire action.

  She says it’s easy to find stories about abuse of the welfare system, but it’s much more of a challenge to find someone who came from a welfare background, but has gone on to do great things, but there are stories like that too.

  “It’s sort of like saying, ‘if one person is a criminal, then everyone else in that community is a criminal as well,’” Izquierdo said. “There are people who need it (food assistance programs) who are working fulltime and just can’t make ends meet.”

  The event begins at 6:30 pm on February 25 at Central Lutheran Church in Winona.

• [Art]ifact

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  La Crosse history will get an artistic new twist in the next couple of years thanks to a unique art and history project.

  [Art]ifact is a joint venture of the UW-La Crosse History Department, the Pumphouse Regional Center for the Arts and the La Crosse County Historical Society.

  Students in a UW-La Crosse history class are in the process of selecting 15 artifacts that have ties to La Crosse’s history. The Pumphouse will select 15 people who will give a new artistic interpretation of the artifact. The new art and the historic artifacts will go on display at the Pumphouse in the spring of 2016.