Episode 8: Hidden Hunger of the Elderly
About the Podcast
Enid Borden, Founder and CEO of the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger, explores the causes and consequences of senior hunger and the need to provide dignity, respect, and the comforts of food to those who have built this country.
About Enid Borden
Recognized in the book “Everyday Heroes: 50 Americans Changing the World One Nonprofit at a Time,” and recently honored by ADvancing States with the 2019 Arthur Fleming Award, Enid Borden is an astonishing woman, an inspiring leader, and the preeminent authority on senior hunger in America.
For over three decades, Borden has relentlessly led the effort to raise public awareness about and then find solutions to the growing problem of senior hunger in America and abroad. She coined the term the “hidden hungry,” bringing the issue of senior hunger into the national dialogue. Under Borden’s leadership NFESH commissioned the first comprehensive, national study on food insecurity among seniors and continues to release groundbreaking research on the causes, consequences and future of senior hunger in America. Highlighting the problem of senior hunger has set the stage for Borden to achieve her life’s mission – formulating creative and innovative solutions and then forging partnerships to ensure those solutions become reality. Borden has been invited to give lectures and consult in both Canada and Europe on the issue and solutions to ending senior hunger.
Prior to founding NFESH, Borden held a variety of executive positions in the nonprofit, government and private sectors. As President and CEO of the Meals On Wheels Association of America, Borden elevated talk of local “food insecurity” into a national movement to recognize and end senior hunger.
Borden earned her Bachelor’s degree from Alfred University in Upstate New York, her Master’s degree from Adelphi University in New York City and pursued graduate study through the John F. Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University.
Discussion Takeaways
- Enid provided Meals on Wheels food delivery in every state other than Alaska.
- It’s really a beautiful thing when you knock on a senior’s door to give them food. Their appreciation doesn’t go unnoticed. Then, you realize that some of the senior’s neighbors don’t even know they live behind that door. One of the things that we need to think hard and deeply about is the whole notion of social isolation and the impact it might have on someone. And, when you look at the folks behind closed doors, you realize that isolation is a fact of life. It’s a fact of life that we have to do something about now!
- Seniors are so often hidden and forgotten. Nevertheless, they’re still suffering from hunger, food insecurity, and malnutrition.
- You can have money and be food insecure. However, you might not have access; you might not have the physical ability to attain nourishing food; you might not have anyone to eat your food with.
- Compassion and respect need to be paid to seniors. These were the people who built this country. They were our teachers, doctors, lawyers, our mothers, our fathers, and our grandparents. They deserve dignity. Therefore, they deserve the comfort of food, and they should not be shunned for it.
- Seniors don’t want a hand out but might need a helping hand.
- When you see true poverty, you see those who’ve grown up in it, pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to survive, and existed in struggle for much of their lives. When you see it for yourself, these people become your responsibility.
- We need to search out our neighbors who need help, and help them.
- We must think about ways to include seniors and people who have been hidden.
- Volunteering is the highest form of patriotism.
- Hunger is a war we can win. Hunger is a disease, and it is curable. The cure looks at you in the mirror.
#1 tip to improve access to healthy food
Providing food supports for our seniors is about nourishing those who nourished us.
Each week on the Food Dignity® Podcast, the Food Dignity® Movement’s Clancy Harrison hosts a wide variety of hunger experts and other people making changes on the frontlines. Join us as we dive deep into conversations that will change the way you think about food insecurity.
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