Artistories on KXCI – November 11, 2019
Norma Cable — Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona
In this episode of Artistories, we hear from Norma Cable, Public Relations and Marketing Specialist at the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, which serves five separate counties in Southern Arizona. We talk about an art exhibit back in May called Need2Nourish; an exhibit that explored the concept of nourishment and promoted dialogue on the topic of hunger in our community. With Thanksgiving coming up, sharing food is on everybody’s minds. Norma talks about the season of feasting from the Food Bank perspective; food as a basic human right, and how many people are in need of food right here, right now. Norma also describes the amazing process that won our food bank the Feeding America 2018 Community Food Bank of the Year Award: when there is a surplus of produce in Sonora, Mexico, it gets trucked to Tucson, on short notice, and is redistributed locally and nationally–a logistical miracle. We also discuss the many aspects of what the Food Bank does; ranging from growing food (Las Milpitas Community Farm), distributing food (at banks, with 385 partner agencies, farmer’s markets), preparing food (Caridad Community Kitchen) and helping people access more food and other kinds of resources, too (at the Gabrielle Giffords Resource Center). Norma also talks about the essential role of volunteers and the thousands of hours people have put in over decades, resulting not only in tremendous service, but the cultivation of friendship and community.