A Vision for a World Without Hunger

September is Hunger Action Month, a nationwide effort to raise awareness about hunger in America and inspire action. This month, we are spotlighting innovative and sustainable Baylor University initiatives that address food insecurity in local and global communities, school districts and college campuses.

Contact: Kelly Craine, 254-297-9065
Follow us: @BaylorUMedia on X and LinkedIn

The Baylor University Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty (Baylor Collaborative) is at the forefront of addressing food insecurity across the United States and internationally through groundbreaking programs and collective impact partnerships. With a bold mission, the Baylor Collaborative aims to eliminate hunger by combining research and public service to develop solutions to end hunger. 

For Jeremy Everett, D.Min., founder and director of the Baylor Collaborative, the vision is clear: A world without hunger is possible. 

"No one sector can end hunger alone. We are working toward scalable solutions that address both domestic and global food insecurity," Everett said. "Our mission is rooted in the belief that food is not just an economic commodity, but a human right."

Partnering with stakeholders across Texas, the nation and the globe and housed within Baylor, a Research 1 university, the Baylor Collaborative pioneers research, tests and evaluates innovative models for ending hunger and collaborates with leaders to scale those ideas for maximum impact.

The role of faith 

The mission of the Baylor Collaborative is deeply rooted in the belief that addressing hunger is a moral imperative, guided by the principles of faith and service.

“We do the work that we do because we're animated by our faith perspective,” Everett said.

The Baylor Collaborative views providing food to the hungry as a fundamental expression of Christian compassion and stewardship. The work is driven by a commitment to justice and the belief that all people are created in God’s image and deserve access to the resources necessary to live healthy, dignified lives. 

Collaboration and collective impact 

As it addresses food insecurity, the Baylor Collaborative brings together partners who are on the ground doing the work locally each day to create successful interventions that can be duplicated anywhere in the world. The model is simply known as collective impact.

With collective impact, partners from churches, nonprofits, government agencies and industry join together to identify the issues driving food insecurity in their own communities. 

Local level work

Each community is unique, Everett said, and it takes people and organizations who live and work there to understand the realities and the resources available to make systemic change. 

“You can't solve a social problem from a distance. You have to have proximity to the problem, and we believe in that,” Everett said. “These partners are on the ground doing the work on a daily basis. They have that proximity, that's critical.”

This philosophy includes the Baylor Collaborative staff, many of whom live in communities across Texas. They are able to work with and understand life for food-insecure households and organizations addressing the issue.

From pilot project to national scale success

In 2019, the Baylor Collaborative started a novel pilot program to combat food insecurity in specific rural-school districts in west and east Texas to research whether a summer meal delivery system was feasible and sustainable. The "Meals-to- You" program began by delivering nutritious, shelf-stable meals through the mail directly to the houses of rural students who had trouble accessing a USDA summer meal site.

The pilot was successful enough that in 2020 the program was preparing for a small scale up. However, those plans had to pivot dramatically with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic as the U.S. Department of Agriculture asked the Baylor Collaborative to expand the program nationwide.

Through an innovative public-private partnership between the USDA, McLane Global, Pepsico’s Food for Good Initiative and Chartwells, the nation’s largest school food provider, “Meals-to-You” mailed 40 million meals to 270,000 children in 43 states plus Puerto Rico that summer.

Today, “Meals-to-You" has become a model for addressing rural food insecurity and improving childhood well-being – ensuring that vulnerable children receive consistent, nutritious meals throughout the summer months. 

Global initiatives 

Globally, the Baylor Collaborative is working with the UN World Food Programme to reduce food insecurity and prevent forced migration by addressing the root causes of hunger. Through this initiative, the BCHP is piloting a resilience-based food security intervention in Guatemala through school lunch programs that source food from local smallholder farmers.

The Guatemala project represents a vital step toward creating sustainable, community-driven solutions to hunger in Central America. It not only has increased school attendance and reduced child hunger but also provided economic opportunities for local farmers.

“Guatemala implemented a national school lunch program a few years ago and it more than doubled participation in elementary school,” Everett said. “It also significantly reduced child hunger because now families had a school lunch program provided through the schools.”

Future of food security

The future of the Baylor Collaborative is focused on expanding its impact both nationally and globally by continuing to develop scalable, research-driven solutions to end food insecurity. Building on successful programs like "Meals-to-You" and international projects such as the Guatemala initiative, the Baylor Collaborative aims to deepen its partnerships with governments, nonprofits and faith-based organizations to address systemic hunger. 

Future efforts will also involve strengthening local infrastructure to empower communities to run food security programs independently. With a commitment to collaboration, the Baylor Collaborative is developing innovative strategies that bring lasting change to vulnerable populations, moving closer to its vision of a world without hunger.

“Hunger is a solvable problem, but it can only be solved by getting all of us working with each other, collaborating with each other,” said Everett. “Together, we can create lasting change and move closer to a world where no one goes hungry.”

ABOUT THE BAYLOR COLLABORATIVE ON HUNGER AND POVERTY

Founded in 2009, the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty began with the goal of making sure every Texan has access to three nutritious meals each day. Using a collective impact approach, the Baylor Collaborative worked alongside local communities to build coalitions of likeminded stakeholders committed to ending hunger in their communities and partnered with school districts and community organizations to make sure more children had access to meals outside of school. Today, the Baylor Collaborative continues to partner with stakeholders across Texas, the nation, and the globe fighting to end hunger. Housed within Baylor University, the Collaborative’s partnerships allow it to pioneer research, to test and evaluate innovative models for ending hunger, and to collaborate with leaders to scale those ideas for maximum impact.

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked Research 1 institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 20,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions. Learn more about Baylor University at www.baylor.edu.