Food insecurity is an issue in communities across the United States.
When people hear “Silicon Valley,” hunger isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind. Instead, most think “global tech hub” and “wealth.” Named after the silicon used in computer chips, this renowned region is home to nearly 3 million residents and is famous for offering some of the highest salaries in the United States.
Given Silicon Valley’s association with wealth, it’s easy to overlook that not everyone living there is affluent. The high cost of living in the area makes it challenging for those without high-paying jobs to make ends meet. Many residents, including those who work full-time, struggle with basic living expenses.
That’s why Second Harvest of Silicon Valley helps provide food to more than 500,000 people across Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent inflation have prevented many families from getting ahead, making the food bank’s role crucial in providing access to nutritious food.
However, the high cost of living in Silicon Valley is also affecting Second Harvest. Despite the evident need in the community, the food bank had to close its largest warehouse in June 2024 due to rising rent costs.
Volunteers help sort food bank donations.Photo credit: Canva
"Every single week, we receive more than 85 tractor-trailer loads of food. All of that food gets handled at our warehouses and goes back into the community," Second Harvest of Silicon Valley CEO Leslie Bacho told NBC. "Unfortunately, this is our largest facility that we are closing, so we're having to just figure out how we can have that work get done other places."
To help maintain the flow of food, the Albertsons Companies Foundation Nourishing Neighbors Program and O Organics gave Second Harvest of Silicon Valley a $200,000 grant. And they weren’t the only organization to receive funding. Thirty nonprofits received a total of $30,000 in grants during the O Organics $30K in 30 days campaign this past summer to help ease food insecurity. Hunger is an ongoing issue that requires continuous funding, and initiatives like these help ensure that food reaches those in need.
There are so many worthy organizations that need support to fight hunger, and there are numerous ways to help, from making direct donations and organizing food drives to volunteering. Enhancing these efforts, O Organics provides an easy way for everyone to contribute consistently by simply changing how we grocery shop.
Every time you choose an O Organics product, you not only provide nutritious food for your own family but also help someone facing food insecurity. Through the “Fight Hunger. Serve Hope” program, O Organics has contributed nearly $14 million over the past two years to reduce food insecurity, enabling 56M meals and counting to help fight hunger in local communities.
O Organics helps fight food insecurity.images.albertsons-media.com
People often assume that organic food is more expensive, but that’s not always true. Many organic products cost the same or even lower than their non-organic equivalents, especially when comparing private label brands like O Organics to national products.
O Organics has products in every aisle of the store, making it easier than ever to find organic products that suit your family’s needs. Purchasing O Organics products also helps support organic agriculture. Small changes that benefit both the planet and its people can add up, and simply choosing one product instead of another can make a significant difference.
No matter where people face food insecurity, whether in Silicon Valley or communities across the U.S., we can all find ways to help. Learn more about how O Organics is helping fight hunger here and look for the O Organics brand at your local Albertsons Companies grocery store, including Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, ACME, Shaw’s, Jewel-Osco and Tom Thumb.this is your sign to go to an art museum.
We might live in a world where art is easily viewable (simply google “Van Gogh” and you’ll come across a bajillion iterations of Starry Night on posters, purses, coffee mugs, you name it) but anyone who’s ever actually witnessed an original work of art knows on a gut level that it just hits differently.
And now we have some science to prove that it does, in fact, affect us on a neurological level.
Researchers collaborated with the Mauritshuis Museum, which just so happens to be the home of Johannes Vermeer’s heavily reproduced Girl with a Pearl Earring, to study what the difference is between looking at a real painting vs. looking at a reproduction.
Using eye-tracking technology and MRI scans, the researchers recorded the brain activity of 20 volunteers, aged between 21 and 65, who were tasked with looking at the actual artworks and reproductions via posters in the museum's shop or images flashed onto special goggles.
The results were, and the study puts it, “astonishing.”
Findings showed that real paintings elicit an emotional response in the brain that is 10 times stronger than that of their reproduction. Which is “an enormous difference,” Martine Gosselink, director of the Mauritshuis, told The Guardian. “You become [mentally] richer when you see things, whether you are conscious of it or not, because you make connections in your brain.”
There were a few other fun discoveries specifically centered around the Girl with a Pearl Earring painting, which stood out among the five paintings used.
Girl with a Pearl Earring, by Johannes Vermeerupload.wikimedia.org
For one, people looked at this painting for the longest, their attention being held in a “Sustained Attentional Loop”
This was partially by Vermeer’s design, as he “cleverly used this mechanism “ with his placement of the pearl earring.
“Normally you automatically look at someone's eyes and mouth. They give you the most information about emotions. When you look at the Girl with the Pearl Earring, something extra happens: you first look at her eyes and mouth and then immediately at her pearl. Then you look back at her eyes and mouth, and then immediately look at the pearl again. And you do that not once, not twice, but several times…You can’t take your eyes off her,” the study says.
Girl with a Pearl Earring also, apparently, stimulated more brain activity in the precuneus, the area of the brain associated with consciousness, self-reflection and personal life experiences, more than any other painting.
Art reproduction is certainly not new, but with the rise of AI art and NTF’s and other trendy tech words, it can be easy to feel like tangible, handcrafted, human made creations will soon be the relic of a bygone era. Which has caused some anguish, to say the least, because again, we all have this hunch that the physical experience of art is what truly impacts us on a cellular level. Thanks to this study, we can really take that hunch seriously.
“We all feel the difference – but is it measurable, is it real?” says Gosselink. “Now, today we can really say that it is true.”
This is your sign to not just scroll through art on Instagram. Find a museum or exhibit and let yourself be affected your brain will thank you.
An economically-disadvantaged child.
One big reason social inequality exists is that the wealthy and the economically disadvantaged have difficulty understanding each other’s perspectives. The rich see life as a series of choices, but people who don’t have many resources have far fewer options from which to choose.
"People in positions of high power actually have more choices than those in positions of low power," Yidan Yin, PhD. told Salon. "That's almost a definition of having power. Unfortunately, our research suggests that powerholders overgeneralize their greater sense of choice to others. They see everyone as having lots of choice, regardless of these people's actual situation."
This perspective leads wealthy people to believe that people are poor because of faulty life choices when, in reality, it’s most likely because their options are few.
Social scientists believe that economically disadvantaged people have “different, unequal opportunities that cultivate distinct ways of knowing and being” which allows them to understand the lives of the wealthy better than the affluent do theirs.
To educate people who are well off about what life is like for someone poor, a Redditor named PrestonRoad90 asked people who grew up poor to share something that affluent people don’t understand about being economically disadvantaged. Many shared that even though they were able to escape poverty, their experiences growing up still gave them a sense of anxiety surrounding money, which is hard to escape.
The posters also shared the guilt, pain and frustrations that come with growing up in an economically disadvantaged home that people who grew up wealthy may not consider.
Children hold an "I'm hungry" sign.via Canva
Here are 11 of the most powerful things that people who grew up wealthy don’t understand.
1. Constant financial fear
"The constant fear of running out of money that creates this weird obsession over and guilt about spending money, even when you've got decent finances. I grew up poor and my partner grew up upper-middle class. We have managed to carved out a pretty comfortable life but I still have panic attacks about money and being able to afford essentials (food, rent, etc.). They are flabbergasted every time it happens. Like supportive but completely confused as to why I get so upset. My response is always 'money can run out.'"
2. Poverty is exhausting
"You just get so tired. It feels like there's no resting because there's always the pervasive feeling that you should be doing/making/fixing something. Poverty means constant planning - for the next meal, for the next bill, for the next crisis."
3. Relationships are important
"How much relationships matter. You're alot safer in a dangerous neighborhood if you know and have good allies/friends in the neighborhood. It's a lot easier to share a bedroom with four or so other people if you like those people. You can't afford that new car part, but if you know that dude in the neighborhood who fixes cars, he might hook you up for a little cash. Etc."
4. Sleep for dinner
"When you are starving and there's nothing to eat so the only option left is to try and sleep because you hope that when you wake up you won't feel so hungry."
5. Constantly thinking about money
"One thing people who weren’t poor don’t really get is how you always had to think about money on every little thing. Like, even simple stuff like snacks or going to the movies wasn’t just a fun idea. It was, 'Can we afford it?"'or 'Do we have enough to cover everything else?'"
"Just how much headspace money takes up. You ALWAYS think about money. You think about when more money is coming in. Change is not superfluous, it is vital. Money is like a drug, you love and hate it at the same time."
6. Poverty is expensive
"Being poor is very expensive. For example, if you're unable to afford to pay a speeding ticket, it will accrue late fees, making it even harder to pay off. If you need money right now to buy food and pay rent, Payday Loan shops can help you, but with exorbitant interest rates so you'll end up paying back way more than you borrowed. If you have a toothache but can't afford to see the dentist, it can grow into something worse and more costly to fix."
A payday loan center.via Taber Andrew Bain/Flickr
7. Generational poverty is hard to escape
"As someone experiencing situational poverty, even if you’re financially independent from your family, having help with things like co-signing apartments is definitely something that can be hard to come by in generational poverty."
8. No privacy
"This is maybe more applicable to poor people in urban centres but you don't get any privacy and everything's always loud. Your apartment's probably too small for the amount of people living there and you don't have a private outdoor space. You can probably also hear your neighbours and they can hear you. You do your laundry in the laundromat. You either walk or take public transit as transportation and you're definitely going to be that kid who loses their shit on the subway at some point."
9. Lack of choice
"People think poor people just make poor choices because they want to. No. Most of the time poor people can choose from a few very shi**y choices."
10. Food guilt
"I have food insecurity, but the guilt is just as much. Every bit of food I eat, when money starts to get low, or even when I am visiting people who have money, I feel like I am stealing from the rest of the household. 'I'm hungry, but if I eat these two pieces of toast, that's two pieces less for partner/parent/sibling/friend who might need it more.' As the oldest child, foregoing things so others could have them is a part of my DNA."
11. Don't ask for anything
"When you're a kid and it clicks that you should never ask for things or show that you want something since all it does is make your folks upset because they can't get it for you. Never finishing school projects because you know they can't afford the supplies so you just take the F. Being the ONLY kid from your class who didn't go on the field trip so you work in the school office all day. Or if there are more of you, they'll let you just sit in the cafeteria or library all day. And then to cap it off, your senior year when your parents ask about class rings or yearbooks, you tell them you never got the form or just forgot about it."