Values and Foundation

Values

As an organization, the Center for Hunger-Free Communities values and is committed to the following:

  • Shared Power - a collaborative approach that intentionally distributes authority among individuals or groups, ensuring all voices are included in decision-making. This system embraces people-centeredness, inclusivity, and collective responsibility, promoting meaningful participation over mere performative gestures.
  • Safety - the intentional design of trauma-informed environments, systems, and practices that protect individuals from physical, emotional, psychological, moral, and cultural harm and re-traumatization. It creates spaces where people can take chances and contribute without fear of mistakes, building a foundation of trust, empathy, well-being, and strength. It embodies the belief that individuals thrive when they feel secure.
  • Joy - the feeling of happiness, pleasure, jubilation, appreciation, satisfaction, and abundance. It involves cultivating fun and uplifting experiences while promoting positivity and celebration in everyday life.
  • Healing - an active, nonlinear journey of reckoning with the past while looking toward the future with possible grief, joy, and hope. It requires a commitment to restoring balance, building inner strength, and cultivating environments that nurture holistic well-being and personal growth after hardship.
  • Dignity - acknowledging that all people are inherently valuable and worthy of respect. It is demonstrated by actively listening to others, honoring their rights and choices, and prioritizing the impact on individuals and communities in all decisions and actions.
  • Courageous Innovation - challenging the status quo and traditional approaches while addressing the wrongs that have become established norms. It focuses on actions and solutions that drive meaningful political and social change, creating a real impact in people's lives. This approach confronts systems and policies that have marginalized and oppressed communities, boldly embracing new ideas and strategies.
  • Authenticity - being true to yourself and values regardless of outside pressures to conform. It is ensuring alignment between values, ideals, words, and actions.

Hunger-Free Community

What exactly is a “hunger-free community?”

A hunger-free community is a place where no one, no matter what their age or social standing, is worried about having enough money to buy healthy food for themselves and their families.

But a hunger-free community is much more than that. It is a place where:

  • Someone who is struggling knows they can get help without feeling shame or judgement
  • Agencies charged with helping those in need provide assistance with transparency and accountability and always seek the meaningful participation and partnership of those who they serve
  • There is no discrimination
  • People are positively connected beyond the usual social boundaries of race and ethnicity, class, social status, disability, age, and neighborhood

A hunger-free community can be a workplace, neighborhood, network of people, university, hospital, or city. It can be any group of people that works together to ensure all families are economically secure and have a voice in policies that affect their lives.

These ideals form the basis of our work at the Center for Hunger-Free Communities. If a person is involuntarily hungry and has no money to feed themselves or their family, they are not free.

Foundational Knowledge

Below are the theories, models, concepts, and frameworks with which the Center and its work are aligned. They create an academic foundation and provide knowledge and guidance in developing the Center’s projects and actions.

  • Critical Race Theory
  • Healing-centered Engagement (Shawn Ginwright)
  • Liberation Psychology (Martin Baro)
  • Multiracial Feminist Theory
  • Participatory Action Research
  • People-centered Approaches
  • Pluralism
  • Psychopolitical Validity and Wellness (Isaac Prilletensky)
  • Popular Education (Paulo Freire)
  • Self-efficacy Theory (Albert Bandura)
  • Shared Leadership
  • Social-ecological Model of Health (Urie Bronfenbrenner)
  • Sociocracy
  • Theory of Personal Power (Janet Hagberg)
  • Unconditional Positive Regard (Carl Rogers)

The Sanctuary Model®

The Sanctuary Model and later Creating PRESENCE were developed by Sandra Bloom, PhD, as framework for creating a trauma-informed organizational culture and approach for providing clinical care in mental health settings. The Center has adapted this model to fit our organizational setting and research to ensure that we maintain an environment that is supportive, healing and safe as we work with participants and families, many of whom have experienced trauma and violence.

To this end, the Center commits to the seven core promises of the Sanctuary Model and trauma-informed care in our work (both in and out of the office setting):

  1. Non-Violence
  2. Emotional Intelligence
  3. Social Learning
  4. Open Communication
  5. Democracy
  6. Social Responsibility
  7. Growth and Change