How would you celebrate 10 years of running a successful nonprofit organization? Erik Talkin, executive director of the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, did something beyond the norm — he wrote a book, Hunger Into Health.
The small, readable book shows how national statistics — 41 million Americans struggle everyday with hunger, including 13 million children and 5.4 million seniors — affect our community, too. While Hunger Into Health lets us know that the Foodbank has grown and does not just give people food, it emphasizes health as the top priority.
Actor Jeff Bridges, a strong supporter of the Foodbank and a spokesman for the national Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign, wrote the forward to get readers’ interests going.
The book is in part Talkin’s memoir beginning as “a U.S. Navy brat expat in England.” He went to proper English schools and ate British food. When served fish fingers, he was sure they were made “with real fingers and Brussels sprouts.”
As a young adult, he stayed in London to become a playwright and low-budget filmmaker. A few years later, he returned to the United States to become a millionaire. It didn’t quite work, but he ended up in Santa Barbara’s theater world and became involved with nonprofit organizations, not an English strong point since social services deal with many needs there.
Ten years ago, he was hired as executive director of the Foodbank.
When putting the book together, Talkin experienced a month living only on food stamps — $6.23 a day to buy three meals. By the end, he was starving, wishing for food to take his stomach away from “feeling at war with itself.” He also felt grumpy, but he said he learned critical lessons about food.
When we talked, I asked what made him write this book — not an easy task.
“I had to pat myself on the back because of the many changes we’ve made in the past 10 years,” he said. “Writing gives me an opportunity to spread our work out to people, show how we’ve made shifts in our work.
“Whatever food came to us in the early years, we’d send it on out even if not necessarily healthy. Processed and worthless food can make people hungry sooner. In today’s efforts, we work to give out healthier food and educate people on what to choose to eat.”
When the Thomas Fire hit Ventura and Santa Barbara, his family evacuated to Utah to get away from unhealthy, smoky air while he stayed.
“I was left by myself in the house so used every morning for two weeks to write much of the book,” he said. “I also drew some stories from a blog I’d been writing and included them in the manuscript.”
Much of the book turned out the way he had envisioned it. He outlined it and worked from there, a common way of putting a book together.
“One part that pleased me was working on my personal story,” he said, “and how I learned from the beginning what is food all about, how to get it out to people and how it has engaged me for 10 years.”
At some point every day, however, he wondered if what he was doing would ever work. But those moments disappeared, and he continued. What he didn’t see was how the book would spark endless connections with people not only in Santa Barbara but across the country.
“One element I didn’t expect was the straight educational material for nonprofits on how to run their organizations and raise money,” Talkin said. “One person from a similar nonprofit in Connecticut talked with me and ordered 35 copies in for his staff. Just being able to have conversations with people about ideas in the book and how we make the Foodbank work is why I wanted to write it.”
This book serves an important role to let our community know what’s going on about food, health and administering a nonprofit. The last section of the book also talks about Foodbank’s particular role in the Thomas Fire disasters.
Hunger Into Health is available through Amazon or at the Foodbank office downtown, 1525 State St.
• • •
Our town’s sidewalks are being spruced up with something unique and special — Little Free Library stands. Available books are displayed in small wooden boxes, some shaped like miniature school houses, library rooms, fancy bookshelves or simple holders for good reading books. Individuals or a nearby businesses support them, all done for free.
The idea began in 2009 with the goal of outnumbering philanthropist Andrew Carnegie’s creation of 2,508 free big libraries across our country at the turn of the 20th century, including our downtown public library in 1915.
Todd Bol and Rick Brooks in Wisconsin aimed to create the same number of mini-libraries across the country within four years. Their nonprofit Little Free Library reached the goal two years later. As of last year, there were 75,000 stands in 85 countries to support reading, communities and neighborhoods.
The locations of these Little Free Library stands can be checked on the website. At least 25 such libraries are scattered around town and growing.
The slogan is, “Take a book, share a book.” Talk about simple, and it works well. I always find books in those boxes that appeal to me, from mysteries and romances to historical fiction and nonfiction, and the list goes on.
Do you have some books at home that you have already read? Take them to one of the stands, and help yourself to a new one. Keep in mind that it’s better for a book to be read by someone else than sitting on a shelf in your house or apartment unread year after year.
Local author Betsy J. Green (Way Back When: Santa Barbara in 1918, October 2018) has come up with an early New Year’s resolution. She plans and is encouraging other authors to mark the 10th anniversary of the Little Free Library next year by putting autographed copies of their books in book stands, take a photo of the book inside with the cover facing out and post the pictures on websites or social media pages.
This is a small way to encourage people to use Little Free Libraries all around the Santa Barbara area. It’s also a way to promote books while celebrating the anniversary of a unique and fun nonprofit organization.
— Noozhawk columnist Susan Miles Gulbransen — a Santa Barbara native, writer and book reviewer — teaches writing at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and through the Santa Barbara City College Continuing Education Division. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.
