Creating Healthy Sustainable Communities: A Conversation with Jayme Cloninger

You just got back from the Philippines. What were you doing there?

I actually just walked off the airplane from Manila! I spent two weeks visiting our field offices. Our programs in the Philippines stand as the framework of our international operation, broken down into a strategy called the Four Pillars: Food and Nutrition, Health and Education, Water and Sanitation and Community Development and Livelihood projects. It was such a life giving experience to interact with our communities, witnessing the impact of child-focused community development to holistically combat hunger and malnutrition.

An example of our child-focused work is found in our savings and child sponsorship initiatives. I was so happy to meet Roweno, my pen-pal and child sponsor in Ubojan. Roweno participates in our school feeding program and receives the materials necessary for him to excel and stay in school. Additionally, Roweno’s parents take part in our savings groups, where they focus on health, education, water and sanitation, and livelihood projects.

Feed the Children is a well known organization, going back some years. Tell us a little about their roots and some of the newer things you all have been doing (that may even surprise us).

Feed The Children has a strong reputation of commitment to its work: addressing child hunger here in America and around the world. From our 30 years of working with communities who daily battle hunger, we realize addressing hunger must go beyond just simply providing a meal to feed a child and mother. Feed The Children is embarking on a new era where community self-sustainability and prosperity is our goal to eliminating child hunger. We are typically known for our school feeding programs, but that is only the beginning of our work. Once we begin to support children in school with nutritious meals, we take it to the next level and begin developing relationships with their family and set up our programs to meet their unique, local needs. Our child-focused community development model is owned and operated by the families themselves, encouraging personal investment and ownership.

Feed The Children has gained new leadership and is restructuring itself to scale up its impact to addressing child hunger. For example, we realize hunger is a systemic problem that stems from inequality. In the Philippines, for example, all our programs promote child-rights and mobilize training programs to promote self and community advocacy. Additionally, Feed The Children sees the value for influencing public policy and the role of government policies to support faith-based nonprofits in community development. That’s why we created a new Public Policy Department in DC and will begin to incorporate advocacy into all our programs, local and global.

How’d you get here? What’s your story?

I like to say that I was part of the “short-term mission trip boom” in the evangelical tradition. I grew up with a faith-driven family and parents who supported me to travel to South Africa and Mozambique three times in high school. Those trips changed my life. I have always been aware of hunger of poverty, because I grew up volunteering in my local community. But Africa showed me hunger isn’t just a lack of food. Hunger is a human rights issue that stems from inequality, lack of country infrastructure, access to public health and education opportunities.

Starting my freshman year at Samford University I joined efforts with groups like the ONE Campaign, Bread for the World, Oxfam America and local Birmingham non-profits to mobilize constituencies to advocate to local and federal government for policies to address hunger and poverty.

It was quite the journey, because for me, as a young evangelical, it was difficult to merge my passion for faith and public policy to address hunger. I had to walk through a lot of questions about what it truly meant to be evangelical, especially in the current political and religious climate of our country. For me I learned that leaning into those questions would lead me to pursue a calling to honor the Kingdom of God and love my neighbor by committing to a lifestyle of holistic advocacy.

You’re not the only Cloninger in the family working to address hunger and malnutrition in the world, right? Tell us a little about your sister’s work.

My sister, Andrea, has been on a very similar journey as me. Together, we went to Africa and together we pursued opportunities to volunteer with ONE Campaign in South Carolina during the 2008 election, asking McCain and Obama to make hunger a priority for their administration. We made a great team and still to this day we collaborate and support each other’s efforts to “connect food, faith and the environment to create healthy sustainable communities worldwide”. Currently, Andrea works to incorporate nutrition in addressing local, food systems in Nashville, TN. She recently launched her own business, Liberation Kitchen, to provide free, healthy recipes and grocery lists to support your local farmers market. Check it out: http://andreacloningerwilson.com/

Do you really think we can end hunger in our world? How are we going to do that?

Global hunger is often portrayed as a hopeless situation, leaving us feeling overwhelmed and paralyzed by inaction. But that is only one perspective.

I have witnessed and engaged with communities who have overcome poverty. In reflecting back on my travels to Africa, my community mobilizing and advocacy work, and travel to Feed The Children’s field offices, I am only left with hope.

We need to realize hunger is not just someone else’s problem. Hunger is our problem; it’s a reflection of our broken community in need of redemption. Hunger must be approached within a community who realizes their unique connection to each other and the impact of each other’s action on the common good.

When we approach hunger as a personal and local issue, I have great hope that we can end global hunger.

What do you hunger for?

I hunger to join communities in walking through individual and community reconciliation to bring to life the Kingdom of God. To live in a neighborhood where each child, woman and man is honored and free to live as creatures made in the image of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

Jayme Cloninger currently serves as the Manager of Public Policy at Feed The Children. As a faith driven social justice and human rights activist, Jayme has spent five years mobilizing communities to engage in advocacy for a healthy and just society.