Food Health Organizations Social Issue 

Athens organizations combat food insecurity with healthier options

ATHENS-CLARKE COUNTY –– According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 34 percent of Athens-Clarke County residents are living in poverty, resulting in many families lacking access to nutritious and affordable food options. Living in poverty doesn’t imply food insecurity, though, as poverty is measured using an annual income threshold, whereas food insecurity is measured based on reliable access to food. While Athens-Clarke County has a poverty rate of over 30 percent, 22 percent of Athens residents are food insecure, according to 2019 County Health Rankings. Local food provision organizations such as Food2Kids,…

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News Social Issue 

Is Venezuela Losing Its Fight for Survival?

    ATHENS, GEORGIA– Roughly 4 million refugees have left Venezuela since 2014 due to the crippling humanitarian crisis, making it the largest exodus from a Latin American country in recent history, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Decades of severe economic mismanagement by the military dictatorship has left many Venezuelans struggling to survive.  Millions of people lack access to fundamental necessities like food and medicine as President Nicolas Maduro continues to restrict the flow of humanitarian aid into the country. Three out of four citizens reported…

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Community Government News Organizations Social Issue 

Dreamers in Athens Maintain Hope Amidst Uncertain Future

ATHENS, Ga. – The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) is scheduled to expire on March 5 putting as many as 21,600 registered beneficiaries of this federal program popularly called Dreamers in Georgia at risk for deportation, according to the Migration Policy Institute.  The ending of DACA, which allows undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children to live and work in the country, would demographically affect those that are single and under the age 24. If faced with deportation, almost 80 percent of these young DACA recipients…

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Community Health News Organizations Social Issue 

Campus Kitchen Provides Thousands of Meals for Food Insecure Households

ATHENS, Ga. – Campus Kitchen at the University of Georgia distributed 25,000 pounds of food to food insecure households and food banks around Athens last year, according to the program’s website. The organization recovered more than 43,000 pounds of food from local grocery stores and gardens, such as UGArden, which they used to provide weekly nutritious meals for their clients and then redistributed unused food to related programs in the area. “Our model is built on creative food sourcing,” said Brad Turner, the program coordinator for the organization at UGA’s Office of Service…

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Abuse Community Health Social Issue 

Seventeen Cases of Dating Violence Reported at UGA in 2016

  ATHENS, GEORGIA – According to the University of Georgia’s annual Safe and Secure report there were seventeen reported cases of abusive relationships from university members in 2016. Ashley Dykes, a former text-line manager at Project Safe, a nonprofit organization aimed at working to end unhealthy relationships, said dating violence is a phrase used to explain the physical or emotional abusive that can arise out of the untraditional styles of modern dating. “Teenagers and younger kids use different words now with ‘hooking up,’ ‘talking to,’ [and] ‘going out with,’ so…

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