Sweet charity?
Subtitle: emergency food and the end of entitlement
By: Janet Poppendieck
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 1999
Place of publication: New York, New York
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9781440621352; 9781436263429
Copyright date: 1998
Subjects: Food relief; Evaluation; Charities; Voluntarism; Aide alimentaire; Évaluation; SOCIAL SCIENCE; Philanthropy & Charity
Description: In this era of eroding commitment to government sponsored welfare programs, 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 stopgap 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" centers, 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" programs are in some way perpetuating the problem they are struggling to solve. Hailed as the most significant book on hunger to appear in decades, Sweet Charity' shows how the drive to end poverty has taken a wrong turn with thousands of well-meaning volunteers on board.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.