Project MANA - A Hunger Relief Agency

North Lake Tahoe Bonanza:  On behalf of the Board of Directors and staff of Project MANA I would like to express our deepest appreciation to the student body of Sierra Nevada College for sponsoring a "poker night" to benefit our programs.

It was an exciting evening of competition as players were slowly but surely eliminated until we had the final ultimate poker player who won the honor of besting his peers in a game of skill, luck, and much bluffing.

In the end Project MANA was the real winner with a pot of $500 donated to our agency.

Thank you again, SNC Student Body, for your support and the hard work you put into making this event happen.

North Lake Tahoe Bonanza:  KINGS BEACH - To say the average household in Kings Beach spends more than they can afford to live in overcrowded conditions is not an exaggeration.

A recent survey conducted by Domus Development, the Workforce Housing Association of Truckee Tahoe and other local groups gauged the realities of the bleak housing situation in the Kings Beach "Grid."

"It's a really good snapshot of how people actually live," said George Koster, an affordable housing advocate who helped coordinate the survey. "What the housing stock is and what the housing situation is in our community."

A vast majority of respondents said they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing expenses. Housing is deemed "affordable" if it consumes only a third of your income.

Only one in four households interviewed by nonprofits and at community events said they actually make enough money to live in housing that is within affordable range of their income.

About 40 percent of those interviewed reported living in overcrowded conditions, based on the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's guideline of a maximum of two persons per bedroom.

In 2006, the California median household income was approximately $56,600. The median annual household income in Kings Beach from the door-to-door interviews and community responses was $32,500 and $30,000, respectively.

The survey delved into the nitty gritty of Kings Beach living conditions, examining where people live and work, transportation and household size and income.

"I just think the survey is a tremendous body of work," said Tom Ballou, housing services director for WHATT. "It helps put a face on the need."

Affordable housing advocates hope the numbers will prove to officials as well as community members who discount the need for workforce housing that there is, indeed, a need for quality housing that is attainable for Kings Beach residents.

"Realistically, the only way you'll get support for housing is if you have the science behind it," said Emilio Vaca, of the Tahoe Women's Services, who knocked on doors to interview residents for the survey.

The survey also specifically defines the type of housing affordable housing developers should build.

"From that perspective, it identifies needs," said Executive Director Steve Teshara of the North Lake Tahoe Resort Association, whose group contributed funding to conduct and publish the survey.

Meea Kang, president of Domus Development, a San Francisco-based affordable housing developer proposing to build affordable housing in Kings Beach, said the survey's data about family size, transportation and employment were particularly insightful.

"That really helps to inform us as to what kind of new housing to build," Kang said. "So the larger family units with play structures ... that's the type of market that we need to be building for."

Kang said this is the first housing survey of its kind that Domus has sponsored. The demographic information that affordable housing developments typically use to make building decisions does not exist for Kings Beach, she said.

"We felt that in order to be accurate, we needed to collect our own data," Kang said.

The survey interviewed 323 individuals, each representing separate households. Two-thirds of the respondents completed the survey in Spanish.

Volunteers knocked on the doors of every fifth house in the back streets of Kings Beach in late September, filling out nearly 100 door-to-door surveys. The remaining respondents were interviewed at community events, through nonprofit organizations, such as the Tahoe Women's Services, Project MANA and the North Tahoe Family Resource Center.

The door-to-door subgroup likely gathered results that reflect the greater Kings Beach community.

Whereas the community subgroup is more indicative of those who would qualify for affordable housing, those that conducted the surveys said.

"The positive thing was that we were able to talk to people who would not normally fill out a survey," Vaca said, noting that most of the doors he knocked on supported and completed the survey. "The most important thing was that it was someone going to them and talking to them."

 Julie Brown
Bonanza News Service

North Lake Tahoe Bonanza:   Are you feeling tired or sluggish? Maybe even anxious? You might think it is the result of skiing all day or getting ready for an important interview but one of the culprits could be your food choices that are having an effect on your lifestyle.

Your food choices not only affect how healthy you are physically, but also mentally. Specific foods directly affect brain chemicals so if you are not making the right choices, your mood will be affected.

If you feel tired after lunch, then it could be the result of eating a high calorie lunch with lots of carbohydrates that makes you feel lazy and sleepy. Eating carbohydrates produces levels of serotonin, known for a relaxing effect, so instead choose a high protein lunch to get you through the day.

Beans, lean meat and cheese will increase your concentration and alertness. These high protein foods, as well as milk and leafy greens will increase levels of dopamine and norepinephrine. Foods with higher levels of dopamine and norepinephrine will produce alertness, faster reaction times, and an increased ability to concentrate.

However, if it is anxiety that is affecting you, then choose the carbohydrates since they contain levels of serotonin which will help ease the anxiety.

Another mood that can be altered by different food choices is the common bad mood. Hostility, grumpiness, anger can be the result of low levels of selenium. Selenium is found in sunflower seeds, whole grain cereals and Brazil nuts so choose these foods as a snack to help turn your bad mood around.

The type of foods you choose throughout the day will make a difference in your mood. So remember if you choose protein rich foods you will get mental and energy boosters and if you choose carbohydrate rich foods you will become more relaxed and at ease.

Kuchar is an AmeriCorps member with Project MANA.

North Lake Tahoe Bonanza:  Incline High School's Highlanders Battalion Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps will be undergoing its 25th Annual Formal Inspection from 8 to 11:35 a.m. Wednesday, March 5. The public is invited to watch the cadets briefing on the state of the unit at 8:15 a.m. in the JROTC building and the in-ranks inspection starting at 9:25 a.m. in the gymnasium. This is the Highlander Battalion's 25th year with the Honor Unit with distinction, which allows cadets to wear the gold star on their uniforms. New guidelines this year require battalion members to have up to 2,000 points overall for the inspection. They previously had to acquire 800 points. The battalion needs to receive at least 1,950 points to maintain the Gold star and the privilege of being an elite Honor Unit with distinction.

Every three years, the Annual Formal Inspection is done by active-duty Army inspectors. This year's distinguished guests are George LeBard (executive director of Project MANA), Colonel Alexander Woods (District Army Instructor) and John Clark (IHS Principal). For further information, please contact Lieutenant Colonel Mike Iratcabal at (775) 832-4206.

North Lake Tahoe Bonanza:   A group of Latino residents plan to meet each week as part of an effort to create a voice for the Latino community in Incline Village.

The group, which held its first meeting Tuesday in the the Donald W. Reynolds Community Non-Profit Center, calls itself the Incline Village Latino Community Council and hopes to represent Latino concerns.

"The idea has been around for a while," said George LeBard, executive director of Project MANA, a hunger relief organization that works closely with the Latino community.

He said the idea was spawned after Project MANA worked with the Holiday Giving Program and identified some challenges in the program.

"We wanted to take those challenges and talk about them with the Latino community," LeBard said.

There were six people who attended the meeting Tuesday, not including LeBard and other Parasol Community Collaboration representatives. But, the group said it is open to more people coming to the meetings.

The meetings are held in Spanish and English, with LeBard helping to organize the group and Parasol receptionist Irma LeBard translating.

At the group's next meeting, they plan to discuss food distribution.

"It's important to see that people get what they need," said Alicia Hurtado, a member of the council.

In future meetings the group plans to address the Holiday Giving Program and other issues.

Daniela Lopez said it was important to her to get involved in the council.

"I wanted to help and give something back," Lopez said. "All these problems are important."

For more information, contact the Parasol Tahoe Community Foundation at (775)298-0100.

North Lake Tahoe Bonanza:   Recently one of my sons was given a reading assignment and he had to choose from a list of approved books. Since it was in his best interest to get on my good side during this particular time, he let me influence his choice of books and selected "The Grapes of Wrath." The thickness of the book's three inches compared to the normal half inch he would choose, by size, indicated a sincere desire to subdue my wrath.

I had read the book when I was in high school, over 40 years ago, but remembered little about it other than it was a required classic. I decided to read along with him and whenever the book was not in use I picked it up and found a quiet corner to read.

For those of you who have not read this John Steinbeck classic, or happen to share my selective memory process because of limited brain storage capacity, here is a quick recap. It is about the Great Depression and the thousands of dispossessed souls (Okies) escaping to a better life in California with the promise of work. They arrive to find they are competing against hundreds for a job that needs only ten. As a result, the employers have the advantage and in a world before workers rights and unions the "Okies" are exploited and punished for believing in the promise of something better. In some cases they have to work for as little as five cents an hour, barely enough to keep them alive.

Obviously I was now reading this with a different perspective than when I was made to read it as a teenage student. What struck me the most was how little people had to eat. Every day was a struggle for food until in the end they were trapped in their jobs by the company store. They had to literally spend their day's earnings and go into debt just to keep from starving to death. Many did starve and many others died from complications of malnutrition.

Eventually the story is completely focused on day to day survival. Hunger was a constant and starvation was always right around the corner. Many survived on a mixture of flour and water fried in lard, once a day. Once in a while a pot of beans with a bone in it represented several days' wages and gave them the strength to keep on working in an exhaustive, depressing state of being.

As I progressed with the book I found myself with a new appreciation for food. I also felt a renewed sense of discipline and strength. I did not need to eat as much as I normally would. Each little meal felt like a bonus and even the smallest amount satisfying.

After months of near starvation, some of the Okies became desperate and struck back at their oppressors. Some resorted to stealing to keep their children alive. If they were caught, the punishment was excessive, including jail sentences that effectively separated the "bread winner" from his family. If they tried to organize and protest their low wages, they were called "reds" for causing problems and faced night raids that destroyed what little they had, including their will and belief in mankind.

The onset of World War II pulled us out of the Great Depression. The military found large numbers of draftees were being turned away as potential recruits because of issues related to malnutrition. Alarmed at the high numbers and worried about the security of our country, the government created our school lunch program "in the interest of national security."

This all happened seventy years ago. The contrast between now and then is astounding to me. Our school lunch program, which was once destined to be the kitchen of health for our most precious resource, has turned into "warming facilities," where "hot lunches" are unpackaged. No fault of the cafeteria staff, the decisions are made at the policy level.

The average child sees at least 500 advertisements a week for junk food. The food industry has become a successful and powerful lobbyist, allowed to target our children with foods high in sugar and fat. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention states that the obesity epidemic is the number one threat to our nation's health costing the taxpayers billions of dollars each year. One in every three children born in the year 2000 will get diabetes according to the CDC. The head of the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles spoke at a conference I participated in last year. She stated that they are dealing with eleven year olds that weigh more than 500 lbs.

On one hand we have an obesity epidemic created from marketing and our obsession with food. On the other hand we still have Americans that are food insecure. I still have a hard time throwing away food on my plate, preferring to increase my waist size rather than to throw good calories away. I can still hear my parents, "take what you want, but eat what you take." I am learning, though, to change my habits and I now realize where some of them came from. It is that same mindset carried over from my grandparents and parents who remembered the Great Depression and passed on, in a way, a sense of "food-insecurity."

Not all is doom and gloom. The last known case of starvation was in the 1960s. There are also a lot of good things happening with health, nutrition education, and physical exercise. The government has been pushing the food industry to provide better labeling and to be more socially responsible, instead of reverting to tricky marketing. Schools are starting to pull the vending machines out or replacing them with water and juice. School lunches are beginning to provide alternatives like salad at the high school level. Not last, and not least, science has finally caught up with what many of us have intuitively known for years. Nutrition plays an important role in our health.

In recognition of Health and Nutrition Month, Project MANA is organizing a number of activities to encourage students to develop eating habits that promote lifelong health. Some of these activities include nutrition education classes with local elementary schools, Fun Food Days, which introduce kids to fruits and vegetables, a Fruit and Veggie challenge with second graders, Kids Can Cook classes, a Hunger Awareness banquet, and Nutrition Breaks at the elementary and middle schools.

For more information, contact Project MANA at (775) 298-0008.

George LeBard is the executive director at Project MANA.

George LeBard
Special to the Bonanza