How Anore Horton Of Hunger Free Vermont Is Helping To Address The Growing Challenge Of Food Insecurity
An Interview With Martita Mestey
You know, I’m sure there are so many valuable things people probably did tell me when I started, but I was too overwhelmed to absorb them. We all have to find our own authentic expression of leadership. Trying to lead like someone else you admire will never work because it is always inauthentic to who you are–I learned that the hard way for sure!
In many parts of the United States, there is a crisis of people having limited reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. As prices rise, this problem will likely become more acute. How can this problem be solved? Who are the leaders helping to address this crisis?
In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who are helping to address the increasing problem of food insecurity who can share the initiatives they are leading to address and solve this problem.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Anore Horton.
Anore Horton is the Executive Director of Hunger Free Vermont, a statewide advocacy and education nonprofit dedicated to ending the injustice of hunger and malnutrition in Vermont. As a member of the Hunger Free Vermont team for more than a decade, Anore has been instrumental in fighting to eliminate the root causes of hunger through statewide initiatives that expand Vermont’s participation in federal nutrition programs and national and state-level projects that enact dignified solutions to hunger.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Before I was hired as a Child Nutrition Advocacy Manager at Hunger Free Vermont, I had been a college history professor for many years, teaching about the history of Latin America, U.S. foreign policy, immigration, and social movements. I came to that profession through my activism in college in the late 1980s related to anti-racism, the anti-apartheid movement, and stopping the U.S.-backed wars in Central America. History is powerful because it shows us how ordinary people like us have come together time and time again to make our political and economic systems more just, and knowing this past makes it possible for us to imagine doing the same right now.
I loved teaching, but when my spouse was hired at the University of Vermont, I realized that I was ready for a change. I wanted to be in the middle of an activist project again and to be part of a team of people working for social justice. I had no particular background in child hunger or food systems, but Hunger Free Vermont’s commitment to changing systems, and insistence that ending hunger is the job of government, not charity, instantly appealed to me.
Being trained as a historian is incredibly useful for being an anti-hunger advocate, as it turns out. For example, we actually ended severe hunger in the U.S. in the early 1970s. The expansion of the federal Food Stamp Program (what we now call the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) and school meal programs at that time, along with a lessening of income inequality through making the income tax system more progressive, actually ended hunger. Then the Reagan Administration made severe cuts to these same programs, and enacted tax policies that increased income inequality, and hunger returned. To say that some people will always be hungry, and there’s nothing we can do about that–to say that we can’t end hunger–is a lie. It’s actually easy to end hunger through government action, and we’ve already done it once. Knowing our history gives us the strength to keep fighting for a just economic system that works for everyone.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
Every single day of work is unique for me–which is lucky because I am easily bored! Working to bring a systemic end to hunger is often infuriating, because the solutions are clear, and all that is lacking is political will, but it’s always interesting.
Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?
I think there are two “tipping points” for me. The first was when I reached a point where I was no longer fulfilled as a professor, and I no longer wanted to do the independent research and publishing that is a required part of that job, but it took me years to admit it to myself. I felt ashamed for squandering all my years of training and skill-building. Even though I wanted to make a change, it felt like a huge risk to walk away in my mid-40s from a highly privileged profession.
Now I’m so fulfilled, and so grateful to my spouse and to the friends who were courageous enough to challenge me to take responsibility for being happy. One key takeaway from that experience is that no learning is ever wasted. When people ask me if I miss teaching and research, I always say, “how can I miss it when I use the skills I honed as a historian and educator every single day?” And once you have stood in front of a room full of undergraduates and lectured about the history of U.S. imperialism in Latin America, trust me, you can look any legislator in the eye and ask them to pass a bill for universal school meals! For anyone who wants to make a big career change, know that just because you are good at something doesn’t mean you are obligated to keep doing it forever. We all have valuable experience, knowledge, and skills that we carry with us.
My second “tipping point” was when I became willing to act on the realization that more incremental reforms to the broken free-reduced price-paid school meals system weren’t going to make enough difference, and we needed to go for universal school meals for every public school student in Vermont. I was new in my Executive Director role–I didn’t know how we were going to raise the money to fund by far the biggest campaign any of us had ever taken on. I had to trust my gut and trust our School Nutrition Association and Farm to School Network partners, and we all had to choose to believe that bold visions for just, equitable, and dignified solutions will inspire people to join in and take action. Vermont was the first state to introduce a bill for statewide universal school meals in January 2020. Now there are over 20 states somewhere in the process of legislating universal school meals, and I know nothing can stop us in the end.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I think that the only way any of us can make the big differences we truly yearn to make as human beings is by trusting and honoring the listening our friends and colleagues and communities have for us. I started at Hunger Free Vermont as an outsider who had never even been to the state before we moved here, and who didn’t know anything about Vermont’s many different communities and cultures, or about food systems and what it takes to end hunger. I’m grateful for every person in Vermont who gave me the benefit of the doubt, granted me some grace when I made mistakes and invited me into their networks to learn and work alongside them. I strive every day to act in ways that further the work the people of Vermont have entrusted me to do and to support everyone at Hunger Free Vermont in doing the same.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
I think that the most important job for anyone in a leadership role is to develop other leaders. Systems change for social justice takes time, and nothing is more dangerous or false than to believe that only some people have the “natural ability” to lead. So I have some practices that I strive to honor as someone in a leadership role.
First and foremost, I acknowledge when I’m wrong and I clean up my messes. By doing so, I hope I give everyone who works with me the freedom to do the same. We are trying to do things that have not been done before in the U.S., so if we are not making mistakes, we are probably on the wrong path. The faster we are willing to say, “this didn’t work,” or “how I treated you in that interaction didn’t work,” the faster we end hunger.
Second, I authentically acknowledge people for their work and who they are. We are terrible at giving acknowledgment in the U.S., and we are even worse at receiving it! I know it makes me so uncomfortable. But how can we bring about true social justice and equity and dignity for all of us unless we are seen and known for the difference we make by those around us? True acknowledgment is sustaining, and true acknowledgment means deeds in addition to honest words.
Third, I remember that “courage is being afraid and doing it anyway.” If we are up to bold things, we are going to be afraid a lot. I ask myself every day, “Are you going to let fear stop you from taking action to end hunger and build equity and dignity today?” That’s what gets me out of bed most mornings.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
I learned some of my approaches to community organizing and leadership through training programs delivered by Landmark Worldwide. One of my seminar leaders said something that I keep on a sticky note taped to my monitor, and I re-presence myself to it every morning: “Are you making a difference or making a point?” I am someone who likes to be right, and I have very definite opinions about pretty much everything, but all of that actually gets in the way of what’s needed to make the difference I want my life to make. I use this quote to remind me every day that I don’t know how to create a just and equitable food system that nourishes all of us and the planet, but I can help to build networks, share power broadly, and listen for everyone’s brilliance. Collectively, we do know how to truly end hunger with dignity.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Can you describe to our readers how your work is helping to address the challenge of food insecurity?
The only way to end food insecurity for all of us is through making systemic changes. That work takes time, but people all around us are suffering from hunger right now. At Hunger Free Vermont, we build power to tackle both immediate needs and long-term systems change by creating and supporting coalitions, and by making sure we are setting priorities and designing projects based on what we hear from the many different groups in Vermont who are most impacted by hunger.
One way to make systemic change is through legislative and administrative advocacy at the state and federal levels. Right now, Hunger Free Vermont is helping to create a coalition of organizations and individuals in Vermont to work with our congressional delegation to strengthen SNAP and other critical nutrition programs in the 2023 Farm Bill. We started by surveying and interviewing people in Vermont who use SNAP or who would have tried to enroll, to find out what changes to the program we should prioritize. At the state level, our central campaign is to make Vermont the fourth state to create a permanent universal school meals program for all public schools, coming off of our success last year in passing a one-year program, combined with a local food purchasing incentive program to help schools buy and serve more local food. We also partner in coalitions working to make childcare–that includes healthy meals–affordable, increase TANF payments, expand the EITC, and create a paid family and medical leave system–because food insecurity is a consequence of people not having enough income to meet their basic needs. We always say that working on hunger alone will never end hunger.
We provide outreach to connect people to the many federal nutrition programs, along with free training and consulting for the many direct service organizations, schools, childcare providers, senior centers, health practitioners, and more who operate federal nutrition programs and help people apply for them. We create materials these organizations can use, and we translate information into the many different languages spoken by Vermont’s refugee communities. We also facilitate communication among everyone involved in helping people apply for SNAP, so that issues can be addressed quickly.
Hunger Free Vermont also organizes and supports 10 Hunger Councils that cover all of Vermont and the Upper Valley of New Hampshire. Over 1,000 people are members of their regional Hunger Council, coming together with their neighbors to learn about and tackle different food insecurity challenges in their communities.
Over the past several years, we have started the never-done work of embedding the principles of equity, inclusion, and diversity and centering the expertise of the people in our state most impacted by hunger, in every one of Hunger Free Vermont’s projects. This has led us down many fruitful paths already, including deepening our commitments to universal programs that lower barriers to access for everyone and sharing our staff capacity to research and write grants to fund food security projects led by Abenaki tribes in our state. The history of racism, slavery, and colonialism in what is now the United States created the system of food insecurity we all live in today, and there is no way we will ever end hunger without facing this history and confronting the ways those of us who work in white-led nonprofits need to change our own assumptions and approaches.
Can you share something about your work that makes you most proud? Is there a particular story or incident that you found most uplifting?
A lot of what Hunger Free Vermont does is bring people together in coalition to work on hunger challenges, and we ask people to speak out, be public with their personal stories, and make bold requests of people in power. Nothing makes me more proud or more certain that we are doing the right work than when someone chooses to face their fears to testify at the Statehouse, or sign their name to a letter that all their neighbors will read in their local paper, or make a direct request for what their community needs, and then thanks us for asking them to do it. There is nothing more moving to me than people discovering their own eloquence and power.
In your opinion, what should other business and civic leaders do to further address these problems? Can you please share a few things that can be done to further address the problem of food insecurity?
There are groups and organizations in every community working to address the problem of food insecurity. Look for the ones being led by people with lived experience of having low incomes, of facing racial oppression and gender oppression. These are likely the people who have the most practical and creative answers, but they are also the most likely to be under-resourced. Get to know these groups and find out what they need to advance their work. Can you get them funding? Can you share expertise and time to support their communications, accounting, or grant-writing efforts? Can you make introductions and requests that open doors to those who hold power in your community? You can also lend your name and your credibility as a local business owner to advocacy campaigns, like the one that is probably happening in your state right now for universal school meals, that advance systemic and permanent solutions to some piece of the hunger puzzle. As business and community leaders, you have a lot of credibility, and to end hunger, we need you to use it.
Are there other leaders or organizations who have done good work to address the challenge of food scarcity? Can you tell us what they have done? What specifically impresses you about their work? Perhaps we can reach out to them to include them in this series.
There are so many amazing anti-hunger organizations around the world that I’m struggling to answer this question succinctly! Here in the U.S., there is a network of state-level organizations that all have unique “personalities” appropriate for our states, but what we share are core principles that bind us together and allow us to be a powerful and united national voice to end hunger. At our core, we all believe that access to healthy food through dignified means is a fundamental human right, that only federal and state governmental action can end hunger, and that only by working in coalition can we build the kind of people power that will cause our governments to take these actions.
We also wouldn’t say that “food scarcity” is our challenge. Food is not scarce. Food is abundant. The economic systems, systems of racial and land oppression, and approaches to transportation we have created in the U.S. and around the world mean that many people don’t have enough money to purchase enough healthy food to sustain themselves and their families, the most healthy food is also the most expensive and hard to get, and many people also can’t easily get to places where food is available. It’s possible to change those systems or create different ones, and that’s what we are up to as anti-hunger activists.
Hunger Free Vermont’s “sibling organizations,” as I think of them, include Project Bread and MLRI (Massachusetts Law Reform Institute) in MA, New Hampshire Hunger Solutions, End Hunger Connecticut!, Full Plates Full Potential in Maine, Hunger Free Colorado, Maryland Hunger Solutions, Hunger Free New Jersey, the Tennessee Justice Center, Hunger Free Oklahoma–to name just a few. And of course, there’s the Food Research and Action Center in D.C., which helps us all out with data, and pulls us all together to help us speak powerfully with one voice on national hunger issues. Just in the past few years, together we prevented multiple efforts by the Trump Administration to throw hundreds of thousands of people off of SNAP, secured the extension of COVID waivers that provided an additional year of universal school and summer meals nationwide, and created a national movement for permanent universal school meals that is already winning victories in many states.
If you had the power to influence legislation, are there laws that you would like to see introduced that might help you in your work?
Obviously, I would love to see Congress pass Senator Bernie Sanders’ bill that would make healthy meals universally available to children in school and childcare without charge to individual families, and I would love to see SNAP benefits raised to the “Low-Cost Food Plan” level in the 2023 Farm Bill.
There are also procedures established in statute that underpin the whole economic safety net for all of us, like the Federal Poverty Line, which has been pegged to the Low-Cost Food Plan from 1962 since…1962. This means that the income eligibility cut-off for SNAP, free school meals, and many other programs that support people with low incomes is so low ($29,940 for a family of 3) that, for example, about 40% of food-insecure children in Vermont live in households that are over-income for free school meals and SNAP and most other anti-poverty programs. Making this one structural change of adjusting the Federal Poverty Line so that it accurately measures the income required to meet people’s most basic needs would instantly allow hundreds of safety net programs to actually reach and serve many more of us who need them.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
You know, I’m sure there are so many valuable things people probably did tell me when I started, but I was too overwhelmed to absorb them. We all have to find our own authentic expression of leadership. Trying to lead like someone else you admire will never work because it is always inauthentic to who you are–I learned that the hard way for sure!
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I don’t think we need a new movement. There are many movements being carried forward by many courageous and brilliant people right now, and collectively I think the solutions we need have already been envisioned. If each of us just threw our energy and commitment into any one of them that speaks to our heart, we would bring about a tremendous amount of good. Of course, I think the anti-hunger advocacy movement is doing important work, but we won’t end hunger or any other injustice without the many movements for land reparations, environmental justice, racial justice, universal healthcare, livable wages, housing first, and so many more.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)
I would love to have brunch (my favorite meal) with Vu Le, the creator of Nonprofit AF. Vu writes with passion and humor about critical issues for nonprofits, and pushes all of us who work in the nonprofit and philanthropy sectors to confront the many destructive assumptions built into the structure of “charity” in the U.S. I would like to tell Vu in person how much his writing has changed me as a nonprofit leader, and changed the way Hunger Free Vermont approaches fundraising. Also, I would like him to know that his new post waiting in my inbox is the only thing that gets me to my desk sometimes on Monday mornings! As Bell Hooks said, “We cannot have a meaningful revolution without humor.”
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Visit us online at HungerFreeVT.org or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
This was very meaningful, thank you so much, and we wish you only continued success.
