Sweet Charity? Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement
In this era of eroding commitment to government sponsored welfare programmes, voluntarism and private charity have become the popular, optimistic solutions to poverty and hunger. The resurgence of charity has to be a good thing, doesn’t it?
No, says sociologist Janet Poppendieck, not when stop-gap charitable efforts replace consistent public policy, and poverty continues to grow.
In Sweet Charity?, Poppendieck travels the country to work in soup kitchens and gleaning centres, reporting from the frontlines of America’s hunger relief programs to assess the effectiveness of these homegrown efforts.
We hear from the clients who receive meals too small to feed their families; from the enthusiastic volunteers; and from the directors, who wonder if their successful programmes are in some way perpetuating the problem they are struggling to solve.
Sweet Charity? shows how the drive to end poverty has taken a wrong turn with thousands of well-meaning volunteers on board.
About Janet Poppendieck
Janet Poppendieck is a professor of sociology at Hunter College of the City University of New York and Assistant Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences.
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