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BY MEGHAN V. MALLOY
Staff Writer 10/28/2008

enlarge Staff photo by Andy Molloy

FIGHTING HUNGER: Nicole Witherbee addresses those attending the Maine Symposium on Poverty Monday at the Augusta Civic Center. Witherbee is the federal budget analyst for the Maine Center for Economic Policy.

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Vear wasn't nervous, however, or scared. She was mad.

"Poverty has no place in the wealthiest country in human history," Vear said firmly, as people in the crowd cheered her on. "The only reason poverty exists is because we have decided to tolerate it."

Vear, a member of Portland Organizing to Win Economic Rights, was one of many people who spoke out against poverty and hunger in Maine and the United States on Monday at the Second Annual Maine Symposium on Poverty, Economic and Food Security.

The focus of this year's symposium was what one keynote speaker emphasized as being a major "symptom" of poverty: hunger.

"One in eight Americans are at risk for going hungry," said Maura Daly, vice president of government relations and advocacy for Feeding America.

Feeding America, formally known as Second Harvest, is a nonprofit group that supplies provisions to food banks nationwide with surplus from farmers, ranchers and wholesalers. The organization distributes 2 billion pounds of food a year, Daly said.

"Of course, we are focusing today on overall poverty," Daly said. "But in the business of feeding people, poverty is a disease and hunger is a chronic symptom."

Daly said food banks' demands, on average, "are up 15 percent -- and 80 percent of them are not able to adequately serve their communities." But Daly said government programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a food stamp program, are growing stronger. Daly also sounded a note of optimism in the current farm bill passed this year, which invested $8 billion into the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to cover more individuals and families.

While legal poverty in Maine as a whole has remained below the national percentage, Maine's "near poor," or those with income levels just above that of the poverty line, are above the national average, according to research from the Maine Community Action Association.

For more information, visit www.endingpovertyinmaine.org, www.feedingamerica.org, www.povertyontrial.org.

Meghan V. Malloy -- 623-3811 Ext. 431

mmalloy@centralmaine.com

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