Drexel University

The Center for Hunger-Free Communities

Solutions Based on Science and the Human Experience

Food and Nutrition

“We’re strong people--that’s what I want to teach my kids. Even though it’s hard out here for anybody; even though we go through every day facing problems, at the end of the day we still can sit down and have no worries for at least an hour or so; sit down and eat and joke at the table.”

"If you ask me is this where you thought you was gonna be at twenty-nine years old? No. There’s no way we should go through the things we go through, whether it be the faults of our parents, the system, whatever… When you have somebody who's trying to better themselves there should be people with compassion to  help them and see them succeed… There’s something that can be done. The resources are there, the people are there, the money is there. Why is it not being used for what it can be used for?"

"I wish the city could see what I’m going through … I wish they could live in my place for a month and see what I go through when I have to go and look in my refrigerator [and think] oh, I can’t eat this right now. Or, why’d they cut me off from cash when we needed it? Why did the lower my food stamps? Why is my landlord being like this?  I wish that they could see what I’m seeing…"

"You don’t want to say no if somebody comes and asks you for food and you have it. You want to give it to them. But then you want to say no, because what if my kids don’t have food to eat the next day?"

"His cousin was trying to get some other boy and shot Troy (my baby’s father) thinking it was someone else.  The gunshots just kept on going.  He got shot nine times.  All he was saying was, 'I’m gonna be alright.  I’m gonna be alright.'  And his eyes just closed.   I wanted to get an abortion after that because I was just thinking, 'How am I going to do this?'” 

"I went through a lot of stuff, but it’s all done with. I’m all right now, so I've got to move forward, can’t go back and change everything. The thing I tell my kids is don’t make the same mistakes."

"I had my three children to have someone to love me."

See Melissa featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer

"I don’t think a human on this earth can love until they have a baby."

See Tamika featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Tamika is 29 and has two children, aged 3 and 4. 

“What would you do if you were in my shoes? If you had to work two jobs to take care of your kids and it still wasn’t enough? And then the government tells you you can’t have Food Stamps to feed your kids…what would you do?”

Imani was profiled in the 2010 Philadelphia Inquirer series "A Portrait of Hunger" and has been featured on two CBS Evening News Stories in 2009 and 2010.  Imani has also shared her story with Praise in the City on 103.9 WPPZ, Channel 6 Action News, the Washington Post and the Associated Press.

“There are some benefits. They provide your children with vaccinations, things that they can’t get in third world countries, things that we take for granted… they can take care of me medically but the rest of me is just dangling out there, hanging on a rope...”

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