Sharon Thornberry

Former Ten Rivers Food Web board member, Sharon Thornberry, was recently bestowed the 2009 Billi Odegaard Public Health Genius Award by the Community Health Partnership: Oregon’s Public Health Institute. Those of us who work with Sharon (she remains an active Ten Rivers supporter and consultant) have no doubt that she deserves this recognition and are immensely proud to count her as a friend and mentor. Countless Oregonians–and people well beyond–who will never meet Sharon have benefited from her genius and work. Her current job title at the Oregon Food Bank is Community Resource Developer, though the title shifts as Sharon and Oregon Food Bank’s leadership discover needs that aren’t being addressed and focus on them.

Sharon’s genius lies in three places: her ears (she always listens before she speaks), her brain (an encyclopedic knowledge of resources, people and innovative things happening all over the country), and her heart (a sense of justice shaped by her parents and life experiences).

Sharon’s father was a farm hand and farm manager so she grew up on farms in Iowa, and then the South during the turbulent civil rights era of the 1960s. She knows where food comes from, the true cost to those who bring it to us, and those who don’t have access to it – right here in Oregon.

Raised to be hard-working and self-reliant, she didn’t expect to one day find herself divorced and a single mother, struggling to make ends meet and using services her family had always provided to others. She understands such a challenge to one’s dignity. But, when life throws a curve ball to certain people they catch it, find a team and start a new game.

Sharon recently shared stories with me that give greater insight into her mind and work. She has hundreds more and I hope to hear them all. They illustrate what shaped her resolve and life’s work.

The first incident occurred in 1986 when she worked as the firewood gleaning coordinator for Community Services Consortium (CSC) as a Vista volunteer. Carol Mitchel Wooton was a CSC department director and near retirement. One day she got a call from an elderly client in south Benton County who said she’d received a letter from the federal government saying her Social Security Insurance (SSI) would be cut if she accepted firewood or food from the food pantry, so she would have to decline such help from then on. Stunned and perplexed, Carol had a connection with a reporter at The New York Times who covered such issues, so she made a call. More back-and-forth phone calls followed and two days later an article appeared in the influential paper explaining what the Reagan administration was doing to those in need. Twenty-four hours later the administration recanted the edict. “Carol taught me how to raise hell quietly,” Sharon said. “It was all about who you knew and who you could call to push the right buttons and pull the right strings.” Obviously, it isn’t just the well-to-do who have connections in “high places.” Twenty-three years later, Sharon has amassed her own Rolodex of connections and she’s not shy about using it when it can make a difference.

Unfortunately, not all problems can be solved with a phone call. But they can eventually be addressed if one has enough patience and inventiveness–common characteristics of geniuses. One challenge for Sharon has been the dearth of fresh food in rural areas. Yes, it’s an irony since that’s where food is grown. But, our current food “system” bypasses such places when it comes to distribution. Even the
most
remote grocery
store, no matter
how small,
can get beer,
cigarettes and candy, but
rarely will you find eggs, milk or bread, let alone fresh produce.Even the most remote grocery store, no matter how small, can get beer, cigarettes and candy, but rarely will you find eggs, milk or bread, let alone fresh produce. Hence, chronic, diet-related health problems are prevalent, as is genuine hunger, in rural areas, and even portions of cities.

The first time Sharon went to Jordan Valley, a city in southwest Oregon with a population of approximately 700, she took ten emergency food boxes knowing there were families in need. “There was a woman in her 70s who came in a big boat of a car to pick up a box,” Sharon said, “and after she left they told me that she and her mother had both been transferred to the hospital earlier that week for malnutrition. She was so thrilled to have that food box that she cried. It was the first time I’d given a box to someone so desperately hungry. That gave me the resolve that we had to do more than we were doing.”

Now, Jordan Valley has an emergency food pantry serving 50 to 70 people a month. It was the community itself who figured out how to accommodate the pantry through conversations with Sharon and other local entities and services. It’s housed in the school building and run by the rural health clinic since it’s a non-profit and only private non-profits can receive and distribute food pantry items. Another bright spot for Sharon is that the school just got a lunch program, again, thanks to community efforts. Since there is no school cafeteria, the one Basque restaurant cooks the daily lunch for over 80 of the district’s fewer-than-one-hundred students. The lunches still cost more than the community can afford, but they are working on ways to cover the difference since so many are thrilled with the nutritious lunch for kids.

As good as such news is, Sharon worries about emergency food pantries being the best food store in a town because it leaves little space for economic development and longer-term solutions. That’s why she and others have worked so hard to get a state food policy council established. It came close to happening, but more powerful interests prevailed. But, Sharon won’t give up. The Billi Odegaard Public Health Genius Award will help her propel the idea forward again. Sharon views the council as vital to changing the broken food system that is untenable to many farmers and unjust to farmworkers and consumers, especially those of limited means and residents of rural areas who often must drive an hour or more to access fresh food. To document the need, Sharon helped get several AmeriCorps volunteers into rural communities. They are assessing needs, documenting what exists and working with residents to determine proposed solutions.

Part of Sharon’s success stems from spending time in communities, not just coming in with answers. It’s not unusual for her to put 2,500 miles on her car in a month, visiting mainly rural and coastal towns, and to spend four or five nights a week away from home. She listens, helps determine needs and brainstorm solutions, fosters alliances, builds bridges when needed and is good at spotting opportunities. One such opportunity was a partnership with the University of Oregon to get Resource Assistance to Rural Environments (RARE) and AmeriCorps volunteers into rural communities to document needs. Another opportunity that community knowledge helped her leverage was a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) grant of over one million dollars to Oregon to make farmers’ markets more accessible to low-income and elderly community members. Not coincidentally, it simultaneously helps small farmers and their employees.

Oregonians aren’t the only ones to benefit from Sharon’s genius. She served six years on the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) board and three as its president. The CFSC builds community food security at local, national and international levels by developing self-reliant communities.

This year Sharon joined the board of Bread for the World, an international organization that focuses on food policy, foreign aid and justice worldwide.

Not only does Sharon bring her genius and experience to others through such work, but she learns much that she applies to projects in Oregon. We all are more food-secure because of it.

The honor of being chosen the Public Health Genius  comes with a cash prize  to be given to the public health organization of the recipent’s choice. Sharon chose Ten Rivers Food Web. Her generosity will help move forward goals that will bring healthful food to all citizens of the Ten Rivers foodshed. We are deeply grateful and honored by her gesture of confidence in our work.

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For more information about the Oregon Food Bank, visit: http://www.oregonfoodbank.org/