Helping Hands: The Mississippi Delta Food Community
Join us for a preview of the documentary Helping Hands followed by a conversation with the filmmaker Jack Thomas Spears on the resilience of the Mississippi Delta’s food community and how neighbors are fighting food insecurity despite the challenges. Light Refreshments will be provided.
Poverty in the Delta has been written on, researched, and is now the model of economic desolation for the rest of the country. For example, Mississippi is the last state on lists such as employment, education, and opportunity. At the same time, Mississippi is the first state on lists such as obesity, crime, and poverty. Those living outside of the Delta are quick to the perspective of negativity, desolation, and decline when thinking about the Delta. These individuals are quick to point towards the looming statistics without having a thought towards the communities represented by those numbers. However, the narrative does not end there. In spite of all the mentioned struggles faced in this region, a deep sense of community continues to resiliently grow behind the shadow of poverty. A sense of community where gardens are being utilized to feed senior citizens, churches are using their buses to drive members to grocery stores, and mayors double as food pantry directors. A sense of community that anyone living in the Delta is aware of and lives with. A sense of community that is hidden by negative stereotypes to much of the nation and especially the rest of Mississippi. Helping Hands stands in the gap of research and perspective between the looming statistics of food insecurity and the community that stands defiantly in opposition.