New Britain is a very poor town, and, judging by this Courant article’s reporting, one wracked by hunger. On the one hand, there’s a lot of anecdote here; on the other, this is an emergency in the making, and it’s probably hard to get reliable numbers in realtime. After sitting in some PTA meetings in which even very low-cost events raised concerns–including a district-wide parent meeting in which someone walked in off the street to the Board of Education’s conference room in order to panhandle–I can say that the article seems pretty accurate to me.
The most useful part of the article is a link to a website, organized by a local chapter of Food, Not Bombs, called New Britain Food. It’s got a neat events page featuring a Gcal grid with opportunities for food, as well as a Google Maps display of all the various locations one can get relief. Among other things, it makes it supereasy to know where to donate. Regardless of whether one shares the idea that free vegetarian food is a likely pathway to revolution, or even that such a revolution is desirable, you’ve got to credit the dedication. (For an even gloomier take on the situation, see the Herald‘s coverage, which points out that city health inspectors are apparently shaking down Food, Not Bombs’s donations.)
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