Greetings Fellow Hunger Rumblings Blog Followers,
It’s been a while, but if you sift back through the records, you’ll find some old posts by me, Mikka. Since my time as an intern with ELCA World Hunger, I’ve finished college and worked with the ELCA doing gender justice advocacy, spent some time with ELCA Global Mission and now have returned to ELCA World Hunger as program director for constituent engagement and interpretation.
Re-introduction aside…on to my short post for the day.
Though I’ve been living in Chicago for two years now, it’s only been recently that Chicago has become “home.” Now, I’m working on three things: 1. Finding a church home. 2. Making more friends. 3. Getting better acquainted with the community, politics and life here in Chicago.
This brings me to an article on a topic that’s been in and out of the local news here in Chicago.
Have you heard of Asian Carp? It is a species of fish that is invasive to the Great Lakes. This is a fish that does not belong here in the Great Lakes ecosystem. According to the article, Illinois officials have hatched a plan and hope to “kill two birds with one stone.” The idea is to harvest the carp from the lakes and provide the fresh meat to local food pantries and food shelves to help reduce hunger and provide nutritious, fresh food.
From the article: “We are in unchartered water here,” said Illinois Department of Natural Resources spokesman Chris McCloud. “Why remove them and put them into a landfill when you can take them and use them for good? If we can get past the name ‘carp’ and the perception … we can prove this is going to be a highly nutritious, cheap meal.”
As the article goes on to state that an average of 1.8 million people rely on the state’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program each month, according to figures from earlier this year. That’s up from 1.2 million people monthly in 2006.
Hunger—like the invasive carp—does not “belong” here in the human ecosystem.
What do you think? Carp, please?
Mikka McCracken
