Speaker 1: You know, prior to to to COVID, we had thirty
Speaker 1: eight million Americans who are on snap our our food stamps,
Speaker 1: and we're seeing the long lines of people who are
Speaker 1: lined up for miles and sometimes waiting in their cars
Speaker 1: for hours to receive food from a food bank. And
Speaker 1: these are people who have found themselves in a position
Speaker 1: they never thought in a million years that they would
Speaker 1: be in. And often these are the same people who
Speaker 1: pointed at people who needed assistance and saying they brought
Speaker 1: on themselves and raise yourself up by your bootstraps and
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you shouldn't have that many children, and
Speaker 1: you know, just buck up. Well, now we're seeing that
Speaker 1: through no fault of their own, they're in that same
Speaker 1: position forty million Americans that lost their job so far,
Speaker 1: and uh so the need just keeps growing and you
Speaker 1: can't rely on even uh kind of slapping the other
Speaker 1: emergency responses. Hey, I'm Tom Collichio. This is my cast
Speaker 1: Citizen Chef. This is part two of our disaster episode.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we'll take a look at nonprofit and
Speaker 1: social services and you know, the agencies there to pick
Speaker 1: up the pieces and you know, hopefully we'll be better
Speaker 1: prepared for the next localized disaster, hurricane fire, our pandemic.
Speaker 1: But it has to start with a plan, and in
Speaker 1: the absence of a government plan, charity steps in. But
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's not enough. So we're gonna hear
Speaker 1: from Carolin Bestcom who hasn't turned it out in Tobago
Speaker 1: see how localized disaster, how they're dealing with it there.
Speaker 1: But first we're gonna talk to the CEO of World
Speaker 1: Central Kitchen, Nate Muke. Nate. The last time we spoke
Speaker 1: it was pre COVID and we were having a discussion
Speaker 1: about UH feeding people in a disaster area. The interview
Speaker 1: I did with with Nate, the first interview was in studio.
Speaker 1: I don't know was that in January or early February.
Speaker 1: I don't even remember. A lot. A lot has changed
Speaker 1: since then. For sure we were in a studio, face
Speaker 1: to face, so it'll probably sound a little different than
Speaker 1: part one. So I'm here with Nick muk who's the
Speaker 1: CEO of World Central Kitchen, and they have been just
Speaker 1: beating the drum on having a government response, not so
Speaker 1: much a charitable response. Why why was there a need
Speaker 1: for a World Central Kitchen or Jose to fill this gap.
Speaker 1: What what what what are we missing here? And how
Speaker 1: can our government improve and and be uh more nimble
Speaker 1: when it comes to feeding people in disaster areas. So
Speaker 1: Jose often says that he wishes he were doing this
Speaker 1: work back when Katrina hit New Orleans. UM, you may
Speaker 1: remember the Superdome. We had tens of thousands of people
Speaker 1: evacuated the Superdome and there was no food and there
Speaker 1: was no water, and you know, we said after that
Speaker 1: moment as a country that we would never let this
Speaker 1: happen again. We keep saying as a country, we're gonna
Speaker 1: get better at this, better at this. But the problem
Speaker 1: is the the model, the underlying response is broken. UM. Generally,
Speaker 1: the way that that it works in our country is
Speaker 1: for the first seventy two hours, we sort of consider
Speaker 1: that these like m r s shelf stable things or
Speaker 1: are sufficient or people will get by, and then after
Speaker 1: that it's sort of it's at hawc um. There's no
Speaker 1: real system. When we landed in Puerto Rico, the first
Speaker 1: question we asked was, Okay, who's who's doing the food?
Speaker 1: And there was no answer. Nobody, nobody. So you know,
Speaker 1: this definitely is not something that that you know that
Speaker 1: Jose went to seek out it was something that he
Speaker 1: saw firsthand. And I think what we've witnessed was that, uh,
Speaker 1: you don't have folks who know food and understand food,
Speaker 1: who are in the power of making the decisions and
Speaker 1: crafting these uh you know, the emergency response scenarios and
Speaker 1: so UM, if you don't know anything about food, you
Speaker 1: don't know how you you don't even know where to begin.
Speaker 1: And so I think this is where the real power
Speaker 1: of of chefs comes into play. This is the real
Speaker 1: power of this industry at large. UM, is that you
Speaker 1: can tap into all of that experience and uh, the
Speaker 1: expertise and the speed and efficiency of the private sector,
Speaker 1: but also you know, the resources on the ground. I mean,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're going somewhere like Puerto Rico, your
Speaker 1: best asset is all of those Puerto Ricans that you
Speaker 1: know their communities and so you know, it's it's something
Speaker 1: that I hope that by doing this work where we're
Speaker 1: showing what is possible UM and we can start to
Speaker 1: change the system. That's really the I think one of
Speaker 1: our long term goals is start to show that for
Speaker 1: our fellow Americans and also our fellow global citizens around
Speaker 1: the world, that that that we deserve better, that that
Speaker 1: we can do better. Um, there's no reason we can't
Speaker 1: be cooking fresh meals for folks who just went through
Speaker 1: this traumatic experience of a natural disaster and do it
Speaker 1: within twelve hours and and be able to support these
Speaker 1: communities in need. Um in this sort of fierce urgency
Speaker 1: of now uh as As Jose says, quoting uh Dr
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Jr. That you know, we we have
Speaker 1: to be able to move quickly, and so you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's really kind of what what we're aiming to do.
Speaker 1: If you look at a an arena, say where where
Speaker 1: sporting events happen, Jose often remarks that, you know, we
Speaker 1: think of them as as these facilities for sports or
Speaker 1: music or whatever, but ultimately they're actually really just giant
Speaker 1: restaurants not being used. And so I hope that that
Speaker 1: by doing this work, we can show what's possible and
Speaker 1: start to change the system. And and we've been doing
Speaker 1: more of that. You know, Jose is not uh you know,
Speaker 1: anti government or anti you know, he's really trying to engage.
Speaker 1: It also strikes me that there's there's more than a
Speaker 1: need of just food. Um, when people are losing their homes,
Speaker 1: they can't find their family. Um, A simple act of
Speaker 1: feeding someone does a lot more to just nourish them.
Speaker 1: Can you can you talk about the sort of emotional
Speaker 1: connections that you make with people on the ground and
Speaker 1: sort of how you really feed their soul and not
Speaker 1: just their stomach. Absolutely, you know, we really believe that
Speaker 1: it's cooking and preparing and serving and handing somebody a
Speaker 1: plate of hot food is is a message. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's symbolic and that somebody has taken the
Speaker 1: time thoughtfully and crafted you know this, this plate of
Speaker 1: hot food. It's it's not just about the calories, you know,
Speaker 1: It's it really is about that. Look, we know things
Speaker 1: are tough right now, and we know it's going to
Speaker 1: take some time, but we're here and we're gonna be
Speaker 1: here tomorrow and the next day and the next day,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna keep coming back, and we want to
Speaker 1: make your life a little bit easier. We know you
Speaker 1: just went through this hard moment and we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna make it just that much easier to get through
Speaker 1: the day. And that really is is at the core
Speaker 1: I think of of what we do and why Jose
Speaker 1: founded World Central Kitchen from the beginning because food it's
Speaker 1: it's it's so powerful that transcends all of our boundaries.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, it is, uh, it's something really at
Speaker 1: the very core of what we do. And we we
Speaker 1: engage and we we talked to the comunities and we
Speaker 1: listen to them as well, and you know, we hope
Speaker 1: that it's um you know, can just make things just
Speaker 1: that much easier. Thank you. That's great for having banks
Speaker 1: appreciate it. How did the gears even start when it
Speaker 1: comes to disaster relief like we saw in New York
Speaker 1: City after nine eleven or after Katrina, as well as
Speaker 1: of any hurricanes and fires in between. So let's hear
Speaker 1: from someone who has experienced both sides of a disaster
Speaker 1: in a food bank line and on the front lines,
Speaker 1: Lane Fisher of Tulane University during times of disaster, who's
Speaker 1: making sure people eat? A lot of times it's the
Speaker 1: church groups and the local community entities and things like
Speaker 1: that that really take the brunt of fixing things after
Speaker 1: taking in people during a storm, and then of course
Speaker 1: the potluck dinners that always found my old Baptist churches.
Speaker 1: You know that the potlucks that follow that comes through,
Speaker 1: you know, and always get out food. It's they're they're
Speaker 1: the biggest food donors in a lot of ways. It's
Speaker 1: these local groups, not just church groups, but local groups
Speaker 1: like even things like the Council of Aging. And in
Speaker 1: Louisiana we have what we coined the Cajun Navy, where
Speaker 1: pretty much just a whole bunch of good old boys
Speaker 1: getting a flat boat and they pick up people just
Speaker 1: to help, you know. I'm Blaine Fisher. I'm a professor
Speaker 1: at Tulane University and Emergency Security Studies UM past life.
Speaker 1: I used to also be a paramedic here in New Orleans.
Speaker 1: I come from a place called Bureaus, Louisiana. You don't
Speaker 1: know where that is imagined. Louisiana is a big boot.
Speaker 1: Wherever your tonail would be in that boot would be
Speaker 1: where my house was. That's ground zero for hurricane So
Speaker 1: my family never played around. Camille hit. My parents, grandparents
Speaker 1: get wiped out. Betsy hit. My grandparents didn't get wiped out.
Speaker 1: Katrina hit, we get wiped out. Isaac came in, my
Speaker 1: parents lost her house the second time. I'm like Jason Bourne.
Speaker 1: I was like born at because I have no childhood pictures.
Speaker 1: They're all gone. It's like I'm like off the grid,
Speaker 1: you know, but I remember as a child just even
Speaker 1: a category one hurricane, usually category one hurricane is what
Speaker 1: we we're gonna call hurricane parties. Worry, take everything out
Speaker 1: of a refrigerator, invite your neighbors in because we gotta
Speaker 1: eat it because you don't have electricity. So all the
Speaker 1: meat and people are like, you know, if you're next
Speaker 1: to people that's hunting a lot and stuff, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, everything they've been stockpiling for the local
Speaker 1: community is just as big pig, hog roast or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. And you eat great the first day, but
Speaker 1: after that it goes downhill. Past that, you know, you're
Speaker 1: crushing our brain of noodles. That's usually when National Guard
Speaker 1: cove steps in and female kind of comes in and
Speaker 1: the Red Cross and things like that. And like I
Speaker 1: said on the Katrina side, I've been in that area
Speaker 1: where you stood in line to get a big box.
Speaker 1: It's just a big cardboard box of like forty fifty
Speaker 1: m R e s, right, So everybody got issued a
Speaker 1: box Mr E's and no Tom and them be like,
Speaker 1: you know, they're like, oh you know, if you you
Speaker 1: didn't cleanse your palette first and have all fancy food.
Speaker 1: I'm like a guy that's like, just give me a
Speaker 1: burger call to day. Those m R e s were delicious.
Speaker 1: I thought they were just on point. And the only
Speaker 1: the only problem is is they're designed for military there
Speaker 1: so their meals ready to eat or whatever. But they're
Speaker 1: designed for someone out in deployment. That means they're high calorie.
Speaker 1: How does it that you can survive a disaster ended
Speaker 1: up end up bigger like the guy from Lost, Like,
Speaker 1: how does that work? Like, I just it's the food
Speaker 1: is so heavy in the calories um. And I remember
Speaker 1: no one wanted the vegetable plate. You know, you had
Speaker 1: all these like cheesy chicken case of dat and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh score. I mean you're trading the things you don't
Speaker 1: want for something that someone else has. So it's like
Speaker 1: like trading baseball cards. But they're m R e s.
Speaker 1: Like the Mexican dishes were always like my my Mickey Man,
Speaker 1: like I would never get rid of, but you always
Speaker 1: end up with a vegetable plate you can just never
Speaker 1: get rid of. No one wants to trade it with you.
Speaker 1: No one wants to take it. And I think that
Speaker 1: is the thing emotionally that is missing. I say, when
Speaker 1: it comes to food security, canned food makes you feel
Speaker 1: like you're in a disaster. But there's something to be
Speaker 1: said about comfort food. It reminds you of what it
Speaker 1: was before. You're getting something that's hot, it's there, it's
Speaker 1: on a plate. You know, I've been on both sides
Speaker 1: of the coin a lot. You don't know who you
Speaker 1: are until you're in that kind of situation, right, but
Speaker 1: even then, how far have you've been tested. You don't
Speaker 1: know who you are until you've been tested. You gotta
Speaker 1: have a strong sense of family and community, and that's
Speaker 1: where that dinner table comes out. You know, we we
Speaker 1: think we're complex human beings, but it don't take much,
Speaker 1: don't take much to mess up that balance. Then one
Speaker 1: day after that, people are looting TVs and all kinds
Speaker 1: of stuff. It's like this is wild wild West. Just
Speaker 1: then veneer society and if you brought people together more
Speaker 1: in a comforting setting where society is still there and
Speaker 1: the unifying force of the dinner table has always been
Speaker 1: a society thing. That is the real Facebook. The dinner
Speaker 1: table is the Facebook before the Internet of anything. This
Speaker 1: is how you You've got to know people, That's how
Speaker 1: you connected with people, that's how you became close with people.
Speaker 1: It's how you created a community. And emergency management has
Speaker 1: done at the community level. And I guess, as Tom
Speaker 1: would say, you know, probably the most important thing is
Speaker 1: getting around the dinner table again of creating community again,
Speaker 1: how food can bring people together at the end of
Speaker 1: the storm and seeing how that happens. And that's what
Speaker 1: it lures me to this field. That's how I ended
Speaker 1: up mercy management. You don't like to see suffering, you
Speaker 1: don't like to see a car wreck, but you look anyway.
Speaker 1: It's it's like that with a disaster, you know, and
Speaker 1: you're kind of in the thick of it, then you
Speaker 1: realize society is not as advanced as you think it is.
Speaker 1: The big things that help people in a disaster is
Speaker 1: not the federal it's not female and and FEMA knows that,
Speaker 1: and and and it's not to say that the US
Speaker 1: doesn't respond, because we do. We do. We do more
Speaker 1: than any other country, I believe, and I'm pried to
Speaker 1: say that. And it's become a part of me and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad to share it here. You know, often
Speaker 1: governance response is just slow and ineffective. And so we'll
Speaker 1: take a look at the food banks and the NGOs
Speaker 1: that fill in the gaps, and you know, what does
Speaker 1: it take to get food on someone's plate in a disaster?
Speaker 1: What does it actually look like? And how do we
Speaker 1: get here? After the break, we'll hear from someone on
Speaker 1: the ground and trin it out and tobago and sort
Speaker 1: of explore this issue and what happens after disaster relief
Speaker 1: is over. We're back. So disaster strikes and you know,
Speaker 1: the average person that they want to know what they
Speaker 1: can do, and someone always has that great idea of
Speaker 1: a can drive and um, but it sounds good, um,
Speaker 1: And you want to help and you want to do something,
Speaker 1: and you figure you take a few cans of food
Speaker 1: and you donate them and you hope that's going to
Speaker 1: make a difference. Unfortunately, it really doesn't, UM, because the
Speaker 1: scale of some of these problems isn't about opening up
Speaker 1: small little cans of food and dishing them out, and
Speaker 1: we're talking about a large scale coordination to feed people,
Speaker 1: and so it is hard to bootstrap um. And you know,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about feeding thousands of people, not not
Speaker 1: you know, two or three people. If you know these
Speaker 1: can drives that you see and you see them always
Speaker 1: around Thanksgiving in the holidays. You know it makes you
Speaker 1: feel good. But I can tell you from talking to
Speaker 1: people who are running food banks, it's it's just a
Speaker 1: it's a band aid. It's a band aid on a
Speaker 1: big problem that can it can It's not gonna do
Speaker 1: what you think does. So you know, we know that,
Speaker 1: we know that. And then the absence of a response,
Speaker 1: you know, you know there's a charitable response, but but
Speaker 1: that doesn't work. And the reason it doesn't because it
Speaker 1: usually runs out pretty quickly, you know, after the weather
Speaker 1: changes and the workers leave countries and these these localized
Speaker 1: you know governments are are still picking up the pieces.
Speaker 1: And so we're gonna talk to people on the ground.
Speaker 1: In fact, right now we'll go to Carol Beast come
Speaker 1: who is Trinier out and Tobago and and we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about what happens after the relief front out.
Speaker 1: My name is Karen Maskam. I am the creator of
Speaker 1: tech Fi agree Um. This is a social enterprise that
Speaker 1: uses media journalism and communications to support agree use and
Speaker 1: other stakeholders in the sector, entrepreneurs, etcetera. And this is
Speaker 1: something we've been doing since twenty elevel. So what happens
Speaker 1: is so the disaster hits and then you have all
Speaker 1: these donations, these immediate supplies. You get your you know,
Speaker 1: your toiletries, your can't good items, you know whatever. People send,
Speaker 1: human beings, you know, when these things happened. They care
Speaker 1: for each other. So you get a lot of things
Speaker 1: coming in. But sometimes these things go cool missing. Other
Speaker 1: times they do get distributed and you see them land
Speaker 1: and then the food never comes. But yet the food
Speaker 1: is three times as much as it was before the disaster.
Speaker 1: So the food comes and it's taken by the government
Speaker 1: and distributed to who they want. And it is literally
Speaker 1: a top down structure, and it's rampant across the Caribbean.
Speaker 1: For that type of behavior. We have a crab and
Speaker 1: a bound mentality. And this is literally as a result
Speaker 1: of the government response, which is just poor. When these
Speaker 1: answers strikes, after the lights and cameras leave, you know, jeesus,
Speaker 1: a lord of things are still left. You know, you
Speaker 1: still have to face the long term effects not having
Speaker 1: access to food or the slow of imports, and it
Speaker 1: shows all the treumental important dependency is and how important
Speaker 1: the need for self sustainability and a change in our systems.
Speaker 1: My friend and colleague, he and I decided to come
Speaker 1: up with something called the agre Recovery Kit. The aim
Speaker 1: of the kid was to help families who are displaced
Speaker 1: by disaster to grow full at least a portion of
Speaker 1: it for their household consumption. And so now we have
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen situation, which is a disaster in itself.
Speaker 1: It is called a pandemic. But the effects of this
Speaker 1: pandemic has been an immediate decrease in the amount of
Speaker 1: important food that comes in. As we know, it is
Speaker 1: so traumatic and so disastrous. But the hurricane everything has
Speaker 1: gone immediately. But with this, this COVID nineteen, it's in,
Speaker 1: it's in waves. So we are saying, okay, well we
Speaker 1: know what to do. We are going to try to
Speaker 1: make sure that everyone is able to access food. And
Speaker 1: whether it's a hurricane or COVID, that is what is
Speaker 1: at stake, not having access to food. Our food systems
Speaker 1: are still the same way they are, so we need
Speaker 1: to prepare. We cannot rely on the government to take
Speaker 1: care of us. We need to have self sufficiency and
Speaker 1: so now we are going to be teaching the art
Speaker 1: of subsistence production. So how do you set seedlings, how
Speaker 1: do you store water, or how do you cook the
Speaker 1: food that you grow? At the base of it all,
Speaker 1: food was the necessity. Literally, nothing can take place without food.
Speaker 1: One of my colleagues from the Young Leaders of the
Speaker 1: America's Initiative, in his presentation, he said that the worst
Speaker 1: feeling a human being can feel is hunger. I understand.
Speaker 1: And I was just like, you know, mind blow and
Speaker 1: that I am in the field because thinking about it,
Speaker 1: there are times when I I feel like I want
Speaker 1: to die and I already I just didn't eat for
Speaker 1: the day, or you know, I didn't eat the night
Speaker 1: before or whatever, you know, and it's like, what is
Speaker 1: that is the reality? That is the reality that structural
Speaker 1: inequality causes. I understand that is the reality we are
Speaker 1: facing if we entertain these systems that are not working.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the reality when the cameras leave. So
Speaker 1: that's that's all purpose we are simply seeing. Let's be sustainable,
Speaker 1: let's be regenerated, Let's be proactive, let's be self sufficient.
Speaker 1: Let's teach the art of subsistence production. There's just no excuse.
Speaker 1: No because COVID hits, you know, That's how I feel.
Speaker 1: There's no excuse. We we we just have to keep
Speaker 1: I just have to keep going. We've learned in the
Speaker 1: past twenty years at the world government, they're just not
Speaker 1: prepared for disasters, for hurricanes, for five as pandemics, terrorist attacks,
Speaker 1: civil unrest, we've seen it all. But it's during these
Speaker 1: times of disasters that we have to make sure that
Speaker 1: that people have food. That's a basic human right, food right.
Speaker 1: You know, no one chooses to be born into poverty,
Speaker 1: No one chooses to be born with disabilities. No one
Speaker 1: chooses to you know, find themselves elderly without a pension
Speaker 1: and who are struggling. No one wants to be that
Speaker 1: that that comes home with PTSD and can't hold down
Speaker 1: a job. And yet these are the very people that
Speaker 1: that are are are needing food assistance. And so this pandemic.
Speaker 1: I hope what's going to come out on the other
Speaker 1: side of this is as a greater empathy for people
Speaker 1: who are struggling, and we can break down the barriers
Speaker 1: of making decisions as to who should receive benefits and
Speaker 1: who should get help and who is deserving of it.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that that we come out with with a
Speaker 1: deeper empathy for people who are struggling. I want to
Speaker 1: thank Christian Castree and Laurie Silverbush from a place at
Speaker 1: the table, Josie Andreas and Nate muck CEO of World
Speaker 1: Central Kitchen, Karen bestco of Tech four Agrie. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Blame Fisher of Two Lane University. Thank you to our
Speaker 1: first responders, nurses, doctors and relief workers. Citizen Chef with
Speaker 1: Me Tom Collichio is a production of I Heart Media.
Speaker 1: Christopher Hasciotis is our executive producer, Jescelyn Shield Is our researcher,
Speaker 1: and Gabrielle Collins our producer and editor. Don't forget to
Speaker 1: subscribe and if you like it, rate us. If you
Speaker 1: don't like us, RTUs, just subscribe and rate us.