Food Insecurity in Older Adults: Gerontology Students and RSVP a Partnership that Works

A gerontology course related to policies /programs each year researches, develops and designs a service-learning project related to an issue/concern for older adults and their quality of life. Students wanted to work with vulnerable older adults and after research and discussion decided on tackling the issue of food insecurity in older adults. Food insecurity is a growing issue for older adults which has been exasperated by COVID-19. According to Meals on Wheels America (2020) there has been a 22% increase in the number of older adults needing food assistance. In addition, while the need for food banks has increased donations have declined (Next Avenue, 2020). Students partnered with RSVP, which had previously conducted a food donation project.. Students took on the responsibility for advertising, soliciting grocery stores to allow us to set up and engage shoppers in purchasing items for the project. In addition, they reached out to the university community and set up food donation stations. RSVP sent out emails to their constituents to encourage them to volunteer and do their shopping on the date of the project. Students were paired with RSVP volunteers at two stores and provided shopping lists and information about food insecurity in older adults to shoppers. Students collected 566 pounds of food. The food was distributed equally between Catholic Charities, which has a senior shopping program and the Somali Elder Community. Students sorted the food by categories and removed any foods with pork/gelatin products for the Somali Community.

Place-Based Philosophical Activism on the US–Mexico Border

Before the Department of Homeland Security instituted the Migrant Protection Protocols in January 2019, as many as 1,000 Central American refugees passed each day through Catholic Charities’ Humanitarian Respite Center, where they received food, clothing, a shower, toiletries, and sandwiches for the road. Sister Norma Pimentel founded the Humanitarian Respite Center in 2014 to “restore human dignity” to refugees who had been degraded and vilified during their dangerous journeys north, not least by way of their processing by the US government. Sister Norma has inspired countless people, including me, to engage with the community as a form of place-based philosophical activism, that is, of situated and engaged teaching, scholarship, and service. In this essay I read Sister Norma as a feminist pragmatist in the historical and philosophical lineage of Jane Addams, and I aim to provide an example of how a feminist-pragmatist approach can support and encourage philosophical activism in our communities. Feminist scholars can learn from feminist pragmatism the importance of “being-with,” “sympathetic understanding,” and “a larger social impulse.” Feminist pragmatism encourages academics to become place-based philosophical activists who use their teaching, research, and service in order to press for social justice.

Programs and Non-Conventional Educational Projects Focused on Migrants and Refugees

The purpose of this chapter is to provide insights into asylum refugees and the challenges they face. The interventions used with asylum refugees who experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are explained. This chapter uses theory-based evaluation (TBE) to explore the efficacy of refugee resettlement used by clergy, staff, and volunteers. Additionally, this chapter highlighted Catholic charities, acculturation, acculturation stress with refugees, and explained the Burundi refugee population in Cincinnati, United States. Refugees have been displaced and experience stress in society. Therefore, having a clear understanding of who refugees are is important, especially when assisting them with the resettlement process.

Competing Developmental Demands Among Suicide-Bereaved Emerging Adults

This qualitative group case study was ascertained to conceptualize theory on the topic of grief and emerging adulthood. A literature review proved no research to this specific experience. The aim of this study was to understand the suicide grief experience in this developmental stage. Based on the exploration of 150 suicide-bereaved emerging adults, participants in the Catholic Charities Young Adult Support Group expressed common themes related to the their unique grief experiences. Criterion sampling was used, as all these individuals voluntarily attended this group after losing a loved one to suicide. The methodology was observation and recording of oral data, and participants were asked to provide quarterly program evaluations. The analysis of data was recorded based on observed themes of statements made by participants. The conceptualized grief experiences that underpin this stage of development appear to work in opposition with grief tasks. This population would benefit from further research.

Engaging Debates Concerning Public Catholicism

Paul Hanly Furfey chose to pursue Social Work in his doctoral studies as a way to best witness to the Christian tradition. As a graduate student, Furfey served in a parish near the university and worked for John O’Grady at Catholic Charities. At Catholic Charities, Furfey became involved in a broader debate over the extent to which Catholic youth should mix with Protestant or secular communities for recreation. Furfey disagreed with Boy Scout leaders who urged Catholics to mix indiscriminately with other children at their camps. Furfey agreed that should Catholics attend BSA camps but only under Catholic auspices. Furfey also disagreed with his Catholic counterpart, Kilian Hennrich of the Catholic Boys Brigade. Hennrich insisted that Catholic boy scouts remain completely separate from non-Catholic institutions where the children might be pulled away from the Catholic Church by Protestant proselytizers or secular indifference. Furfey argued that a compromise was possible in maintaining a Catholic ethos among Catholic boys within a broader secular camping experience. Furfey’s dissertation, later published as a book, The Gang Age, engaged the latest research in the burgeoning field of boyology. His work at the parish and Catholic Charities provided him direct contact with the field.

POLITICAL CAPITALISM IN THE GILDED AGE: THE TAMMANY BANK RUN OF 1871

The Tweed Ring spawned a vibrant financial sector that was integral to its brief success but has never been previously examined. William “Boss” Tweed and his allies employed banks controlled or comanaged by Tammany politicians to embezzle funds, build political alliances, and invest in a wide array of business ventures. The capital of these savings and commercial banks—city money, deposits from Catholic charities, and the savings of immigrant laborers—was accumulated through political channels. During their operation between 1867 and 1871, politician-bankers engaged in a mix of patronage deals and profit-driven financial speculation. In effect, Tammany banks were ground zero for the Ring's conversion of political hegemony into a windfall of economic capital that fueled party activities and buoyed personal fortunes. Importantly, the anti-Ring mobilization by upper-class reformers was more than a revolt of wealthy taxpayers concerned with abstract goals of good government or rescuing city credit; it was also a reaction by old-line bankers in direct competition with Tammany upstarts. A dramatic bank run catalyzed by reformers in November 1871 drove them into bankruptcy, bringing this novel experiment in political capitalism to an end.

God Comes Along by Bus

In the aftermath of World War II, twelve million Germans were forced to seek refuge elsewhere in their country. Their sort attracted the attention of Catholic charities such as the Eastern Priests Relief Organization, which provided material and spiritual assistance through a fleet of mobile chapels. This paper claims that this action was a genuinely ‘modern’ form of missionary work in the sense that both its method and message were a child of its time: dwelling on a culture of generalized mobility and mass communication, it spread the word of a triumphalist church claiming moral superiority over other world views, in particular communism. Moreover, the chapel trucks anticipated a fundamental paradigm shift in pastoral care, bringing the church to the people rather than the other way around.