About

Here I am, the self-styled “King O’ The Yams.’ Standing on the prow of the Titanic, Leo was “King of the World.” Well I’m sitting on a pile of boxes of yams in a drafty warehouse, and so I’m ‘King O’ The Yams.’ Hopefully I can keep my head above the ice water at least…

“From Hunger to Health” is the blog of Erik Talkin, CEO of the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County. We distributed over 11 million lbs of food last year (of which half was fresh produce) to Santa Barbara County through our own programs and through our network of 290 member agencies and programs. We are proud members of Feeding America, the nationwide network of food banks.

This blog serves  both as a call to action and a clearing house of information, but most of all it is the story of how one organization on the inside of the ‘hunger business’ is trying to redefine what a food bank can achieve in transforming the health of our communities through good nutrition.

For too long, food banks have been looked at as a band aid on a problem that will never go away, or worse, as organizations that unwittingly serve to disempower those individuals that they seek to help.

Maybe it’s time we got out of the hunger business and into the health business. Hopefully this blog will help others to navigate a similar journey. It’s fun, it’s exciting – and just ask my friend below – we can’t be stopped!